Chapter 6 - The Man Who Called Her Wife
The image on the monitor vanished before Elena reached the basement.
The man with the scar was gone. The cabinet stood open, the photographs remained on the wall, and the only evidence that anyone had been there was Sofia's wedding ring resting in the center of the concrete floor.
Ryan refused to move from Teresa's side until the bomb squad cleared the bedroom. They found no explosive beneath the bed, but they did find a coin-sized transmitter attached to the frame. It could have triggered a device elsewhere in the house or merely created the fear of one.
"Gabriel likes uncertainty," Ryan said. "It makes everyone suspicious of the person standing closest."
Elena handcuffed him anyway.
"You entered a protected property, interfered with a police scene, and withheld information about a man suspected of shooting a judge," she said. "You can explain the family history downtown."
Ryan looked at Mariana as the officers led him away. "Do not let Vale move your mother. He will say she needs specialized care. Do not believe him."
Teresa tapped once against the wheelchair arm.
Yes.
That frightened Mariana more than Ryan's warning.
At the station, Ryan finally agreed to speak if Mariana remained in the room. Elena allowed it but positioned a camera in full view and placed a recorder on the table.
Ryan sat with his wrists cuffed to a steel ring. Without the expensive coat and reassuring smile, he looked younger and more exhausted. A pale line crossed his right palm, an old scar Mariana had never noticed.
"Start with the twins," Elena said.
"My mother, Evelyn Cole, directed a neonatal research program at Saint Orison," Ryan replied. "Publicly it studied maternal trauma. Privately it identified families with wealth, influence, or genetic conditions that could be exploited. Babies were switched, records changed, and guardianships arranged through a network of judges and physicians."
Mariana felt nausea rise in her throat. "Was I switched?"
"I do not know."
"You told me I married your brother."
"You did."
"Why can't I remember?"
Ryan looked at the table. "Adrian believed he could expose our mother. He was reckless, angry, and convinced that love made him invincible. You were nineteen. He brought you proof that Teresa had hidden. You married him because you believed the marriage would protect both of you from being committed or separated."
"What happened?"
"Evelyn found you first."
He described a private clinic on the coast where Mariana had been held under a false diagnosis. Teresa, terrified of losing her daughter, signed consent forms for an experimental trauma treatment. The drugs disrupted recent memories. Adrian disappeared during the same week.
"And you?" Elena asked.
"I helped my mother take him."
Mariana stared at him.
Ryan did not look away. "I was twenty-one and afraid of her. That is not an excuse."
"Did you kill him?"
"No."
"Then why did that man call me wife?"
"Because Gabriel wants you to believe he is Adrian."
Elena leaned forward. "You had two brothers?"
"No. Adrian and Gabriel are the same person. Gabriel was the name my mother gave him after she took him from our father. Adrian was the name he used when he escaped."
"And Ryan?"
"I was born Ryan."
Mariana remembered the passport. "Then why was your photograph on Adrian's documents?"
"We were identical. My mother used that whenever she needed one of us to disappear and the other to remain visible."
The interview room seemed suddenly too small.
Ryan continued. After Adrian vanished, Ryan remained under Evelyn's control. Years later, he married Sofia because he believed Teresa had hidden the final evidence of the infant transfers. He insisted he had genuinely loved Sofia, but his first approach had been calculated.
"Her boating accident was not an accident," he said.
Mariana's breath stopped. "Did you kill her?"
"No. Adrian did. Or someone using his methods. Sofia found a ledger in Teresa's safe. She called me from the marina and said she knew why she had never resembled anyone in the family. By the time I arrived, the boat was burning."
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"Because I saw Adrian on the pier. I thought he would come for Teresa next, and I believed I could stop him alone."
"So you stayed close to us."
"Yes."
"And last night?"
Ryan's expression tightened. "Teresa recently recovered enough speech to tell me she had hidden the ledger. I needed her signature to gain access to a trust-controlled deposit box. I threatened her. I hurt her. I will not pretend otherwise."
"You lifted a pillow over her face."
"To frighten her."
"That is your defense?"
"No. It is the truth, and it is still unforgivable."
Elena slid the newborn bracelet across the table. "Who was Female Infant Cole?"
Ryan stared at it for a long time.
"My sister."
"What happened to her?"
"She was declared dead before my father ever saw her. My mother later told me the infant had been transferred to another family."
"The Alvarez family?" Mariana asked.
Ryan's eyes filled with an emotion she could not read.
"That is what Adrian believed."
A knock sounded at the interview room door. Elena stepped outside, spoke briefly with another detective, then returned.
"Teresa is missing," she said.
Mariana stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
"She was under guard."
"Dr. Vale ordered an emergency transfer. The ambulance never arrived at the destination."
Ryan closed his eyes.
"I warned you."
Elena unlocked one cuff and pulled him to his feet. "Where would Vale take her?"
May you like
Ryan answered without hesitation.
"Back to the room where they taught her to forget."
