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"At least two of those people should have been thinking about you," he said quietly.
"Well, this story isn't about me, at least not yet. Both of my parents tried to talk to Kate, but she was headstrong and in love. She was still angry with my mother, so she didn't give a damn what my mother had to say. Kate convinced my father that she was having the time of her life with her rich, handsome husband. After Megan was born, Kate sent me a picture of the two of them. She looked happy, and the baby had all this beautiful dark hair. I really wanted to see them both, but I was a kid. I couldn't get myself to Spain. Kate had no interest in returning to the States."
Ria cleared her throat. "For the next several years, I had little contact with Kate," she continued. "I wrote to her a few times, but she rarely wrote back. Then one day she sent me an email and asked me to stop writing her. She said she would be in touch with me when she could. I thought that was weird, but our relationship was so distant by then, I didn't care anymore."
"I doubt that you didn't care, Ria."
"Well, I tried not to care. After I left home and started traveling, I didn't really think about Kate. When I was twenty-two, my father got really sick. He was dying, and he wanted to see me. I could hardly believe it," she said, thinking about how shocked she had been at the time. "I was angry that ten years had passed since our last visit, but I was also touched that he remembered me at all. So against my mother's wishes, I flew to his house. He was living in Texas at the time with some woman I didn’t know. That's when I saw Kate again. She had Megan with her. Megan was ten years old. She was the cutest thing. We were together a week before my dad passed away."
"Ria, are we getting to the kidnapping part soon?" he asked impatiently.
"You wanted the story from the beginning, so sit back and be quiet."
"Fine."
"During that week Kate and I bonded again as sisters. She confided in me that her husband's family was not what she had thought. She loved Reynoldo, and he was an honorable man, but she believed that many of the family businesses were fronts for organized crime and that his brother Enrique was the ringleader. She was fearful for Reynoldo and also for herself, because people who challenged Enrique tended to disappear." Ria thought back to that long ago conversation that had changed so many lives. "I didn't completely believe her. Kate loved drama. I should have taken her more seriously."
"It's always easier to see things when you're looking back," Drew said. "What happened next?"
"Nothing happened for a while. Kate told me that the reason she'd asked me not to contact her was because she didn't want anyone to know about me. After my father passed away, the Valdez family thought she was an orphan. She'd apparently told Reynoldo at their first meeting that her mother was dead, because to all intents and purposes she was dead to Kate. The next time I saw my sister was three years later—in France. I was in a sailboat race, and she and Megan came to see me. I guess she had a friend who lived in the area, so she was able to get away from the family without anyone knowing she was coming to see me. Megan was thirteen, and I could see the changes in both of them."
"Like what?"
"They were tense, quiet, nervous. Kate told me she thought Enrique was having her followed. He'd taken charge of the family a few months earlier when Reynoldo's father died. Kate was afraid that Reynoldo was standing in Enrique's way. She was planning an escape. She'd already gotten fake papers set up for her and Megan and Reynoldo, but she had yet to convince Reynoldo to leave his family and his home. He thought he could handle his brother, but Kate didn't believe that. She said her husband was too kind; he saw the good in people instead of the evil. She made me promise that if anything happened to her, I would find Megan, and I would get her away from the Valdez family."
"What did you think at that point?" Drew asked curiously.
"I believed her. She showed me evidence that Enrique wasn't just a criminal; he was also cruel. He'd hurt people. He'd hurt women especially. And she said that for some reason he seemed to think she was his property, even though she was married to his brother."
