CHAPTER 5 The Dinner Trap
Detective Ortiz ordered me not to respond to the threat.
Rachel agreed.
My father did not.
“Give them the money,” he said from his hospital bed. “Luis has a wife and two children.”
“If we transfer it, they may kill him anyway,” Detective Ortiz replied.
“And if we don’t?”
“They may not have him.”
My father stared at the photograph.
“You think it’s fake?”
“I think whoever sent this wants us to act before we verify anything.”
The newspaper proved the photograph was recent, but it did not prove Luis remained alive or that Brandon’s family held him.
Detective Ortiz requested technical tracing on the message. The number was disposable. The image metadata had been removed.
At 6:00 the next morning, Brenda called my mother.
Not me.
My mother answered on speaker while Detective Ortiz recorded.
Brenda’s voice sounded wounded.
“Rosa, this has gone too far.”
“You sent the police after my daughter.”
“Melanie stole from us.”
“You attacked her the morning after her wedding.”
“No one attacked anyone. There was a family disagreement.”
“You threw a filthy rag at her face.”
“That was Brandon, and he was frustrated.”
My mother’s eyes flashed.
“Your son humiliated my daughter.”
“Your daughter humiliated all of us.”
Brenda paused before continuing.
“We want peace. Come to dinner tonight. All of you. No police, no lawyers. We will return Luis, and Melanie will return what belongs to us.”
My mother nearly dropped the phone.
“So you do have him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You just said you would return him.”
“I said we would resolve everything.”
Detective Ortiz wrote on a notepad:
AGREE.
My mother swallowed.
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock. Our house.”
“No,” Detective Ortiz whispered.
My mother said, “A public place.”
Brenda refused twice before finally agreeing to a private room at an old restaurant downtown.
The police placed recording devices on my mother and me. Rachel sat in the main dining room with two undercover officers. My father remained in the hospital under protection.
At 7:58, Brandon entered the private dining room with his parents.
He wore the dark jacket he had worn during our rehearsal dinner. Brenda carried a designer handbag. Patrick looked exhausted, his skin gray beneath the warm lighting.
No one mentioned Luis.
A waiter poured water and left.
Brandon looked at my empty ring finger.
“You made your point.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“No,” he replied. “It’s a marriage.”
“It lasted one night.”
“You walked out because my mother asked you to help around the house.”
“You tried to access my bank account.”
“That account contains stolen money.”
“Money your father gave me.”
Patrick leaned forward.
“It was never intended to belong to you personally.”
“Then why did you sign a letter saying it was unconditional?”
His eyes narrowed.
“What letter?”
“The one someone stole from Jessica’s apartment.”
Brenda sighed dramatically.
“Melanie, listen to yourself. You’re accusing us of crimes because you don’t want to admit you overreacted.”
“Where is Luis?”
No one answered.
My mother placed her hands on the table.
“Show us he’s alive.”
Patrick looked at Brenda.
For the first time, I noticed tension between them.
Brenda spoke carefully.
“Luis stole from all of us.”
“My father said Luis was loyal.”
“Your father believes whatever people tell him.”
“Did Luis set the fire?”
“No,” Patrick said quickly.
Brenda turned toward him.
It was only a glance, but it said enough.
Patrick knew something Brenda did not want revealed.
Brandon reached across the table.
“Come home with me tonight. We will tell everyone this was a misunderstanding. You transfer the money into a joint account, and we start over.”
I stared at him.
“You still believe I would return to you?”
“I believe you’re emotional.”
“You threw a rag in my face.”
“You keep repeating that as though it was a beating.”
My mother stood so abruptly that her chair scraped the floor.
I touched her wrist.
“Sit down, Mom.”
Brandon smirked.
“You see? This is what your family does. They make everything dramatic.”
“No,” I said. “We document everything.”
His smile weakened.
I took out my phone and placed a copy of the account access log on the table.
“This shows your home internet address was used to access my bank account.”
Brandon glanced at his father.
Patrick stared at the page.
Brenda did not.
She had already known.
I placed a second document beside it.
“This shows Hawthorne Development transferred $450,000 before the wedding.”
Patrick’s face lost color.
“And this,” I continued, “shows someone removed my parents’ $200,000 and replaced it with funds from Red Mesa Consulting.”
Brenda’s composure finally cracked.
“Where did you get that?”
The question escaped before she could stop it.
I leaned back.
“So it’s true.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You recognized the company.”
Patrick whispered, “Brenda.”
She turned on him.
“Not now.”
My mother looked between them.
“What did you do with our money?”
Brenda lifted her chin.
“We protected it.”
“From whom?”
“From your husband’s reckless business decisions.”
My mother rose again.
“You stole from my daughter.”
Brenda’s voice sharpened.
“Your daughter would have had nothing if we hadn’t welcomed her into this family.”
I almost laughed.
“My career existed before Brandon. My savings existed before Brandon. My family existed before Brandon.”
“And yet you married him.”
The words hung in the room.
Brenda looked at me with open contempt.
“You wanted our name, our connections, and our lifestyle.”
“I didn’t even know your companies were failing.”
Patrick slammed his palm against the table.
“Enough.”
Everyone stopped.
He looked older than he had at the wedding.
“The bank review is Monday,” he said. “If the money is not returned, the loan will be recalled.”
Brenda whispered, “Patrick, stop talking.”
“Our employees will lose their jobs. Investors will lose everything.”
“You committed fraud,” I replied.
“I made mistakes.”
“You used my name.”
“That was Brandon’s idea.”
Brandon turned toward his father.
“What?”
Patrick stared at him.
“You said she would sign whatever we needed after the wedding.”
The room went silent.
Brandon’s face tightened.
“I said she trusted me.”
“You said she would cooperate.”
“I never told you to move money through her account.”
Brenda interrupted.
“You both knew the plan.”
My mother covered her mouth.
I looked at the man I had married.
“How long?”
He did not answer.
“How long were you planning to use me?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Was the entire relationship fake?”
“No.”
“Was the proposal?”
“No.”
“Was the wedding?”
His silence was devastating.
Brenda leaned forward.
“You were supposed to be part of this family. We would have taken care of you. All you had to do was behave like a wife.”
“A wife or a signature?”
Her expression turned cold.
“Sometimes they are the same thing.”
A knock sounded at the private room door.
Everyone froze.
The waiter entered carrying a tray.
On it sat a single cellphone.
“This was left at the front desk for Mrs. Melanie Hayes,” he said.
I had not changed my name legally, but they had used Brandon’s surname.
The waiter left.
The phone began to ring.
Detective Ortiz’s voice came quietly through the device hidden beneath my blouse.
“Do not touch it.”
But Patrick reached first.
The screen showed a live video.
Luis was tied to a chair.
A masked figure stood behind him.
A digital timer on the wall displayed ten minutes.
A distorted voice spoke from the phone.
“Transfer the money, or he dies.”
Brenda stared at the screen.
Then something unexpected happened.
She whispered, “That wasn’t the agreement.”
I turned toward her.
“What agreement?”
Brandon looked at his mother.
Patrick slowly stood.
And the masked figure on the video removed the covering from Luis’s mouth.
May you like
Luis gasped for air and shouted one sentence before the sound cut out.
“Brenda didn’t take me—Brandon did!”
