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“How can this be?” She muttered, her shoulders sagging under the weight of the impossible information.
“It looks like there were attachments to the letter.” Freddie tapped on the list at the very bottom of the second page. “Proof of his claim.”
An invisible boa constrictor slithered up her leg and swirled around her chest. It squeezed the air from her lungs. Made her heart struggle to beat. The ghost of Pedro Gutierrez was trying to kill her.
“This can’t be true,” Sylvie whispered. “My grandfather would never lie to me.”
Freddie’s round face softened into a sympathetic grimace. She adjusted her glasses. “I can’t speak to the validity of the claim, but look at the date.” She tapped on the first page. “Three days later, the case was closed and sealed.”
For a long time, Sylvie stared at the document. She wished she could see the attachments. Vet them for herself. Anyone could make a claim to anything. That didn’t make it true.
This Gutierrez probably heard about the suit somehow and thought it was the perfect chance at a payday. He was a liar. Sylvie was sure of it.
With a sinking, sick feeling in her stomach she thought of her grandfather. He was a strong man. He’d never give in to some bullshit attempt to extort him. Had he discovered that Gutierrez was telling the truth? Had Lauren’s grandfather tricked him somehow?
Sylvie’s mind raced, reaching like a vine for any possibility other than the one in front of her. Every branch snapped under the weight of her exploratory tendril.
There was no way her grandpa would cave so quickly, unless the message was true. Unless he was convinced by the missing attachments. But that didn’t make sense either. How could the Campos and Machado patriarchs perpetuate a lie? Surely, her grandfather would’ve at least confessed to his own family.
“Syl?” Freddie’s gentle voice guided her out of her spiraling thoughts. “You okay?”
Sylvie opened her mouth uselessly. She didn’t have a response. She felt so many things at once. Shock. Disappointment. Disgust. Shame. The only thing she didn’t feel was okay.
“Maybe we can track this guy down—”
Freddie didn’t let her finish. “I thought you might say that. While I was in my meeting, I had a guy from my office reach out to a contact in Havana.” Freddie explained the series of steps leading from her office to a Canadian reporter living in Cuba. Sylvie wished she’d hurry to the bottom line. “It appears Mr. Gutierrez died. His only son died in Angola in the 70s.”
“How do you know it’s the right—”
Freddie pulled out her phone and handed it to her. The biographical data on the official looking document on her phone matched the information on the letter.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Sylvie asked, exasperated by her confusion and disbelief.
Freddie reached out, squeezing Sylvie’s forearm. “Do what your grandfather did,” she suggested. “Don’t do anything. Just let it be.”
The concept was as alarming as it was foreign. “Pretend I don’t know this? Keep the secret from my family? How?” Sylvie heard herself shrieking but was powerless to stop it.
Freddie, of course, didn’t have any answers. She’d done Sylvie a favor. She’d discovered the truth to end the feud.
Sylvie just hadn’t counted on that truth being that both Machados and Campos men were thieves. If she wasn’t carrying on an honorable family legacy, then who the hell was she?
