Chapter 6 - The Woman in the Photograph
Beatriz looked at the photograph and stopped breathing.
That was enough.
“You know her.”
“No.”
“You reacted before I finished asking.”
“I said I don’t know her.”
My father took the photograph.
His expression became unreadable.
“Her name was Lucía Serrano.”
Serrano.
Alejandro whispered it first.
“Camila.”
I looked at Dad.
“Related?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Lucía was Camila’s mother.”
The room suddenly felt airless.
Beatriz sat down.
My father remained standing.
I stared at the woman beside my mother.
She looked younger than Dad.
Maybe twenty-five.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
A hand resting protectively over a leather satchel.
“What did she do?”
“She worked for Vanguardia.”
“Where?”
“Internal accounting.”
“What happened to her?”
Dad looked toward Beatriz.
That made me turn.
Beatriz’s hands were trembling.
“What do you know?”
She closed her eyes.
“Lucía came to our house.”
“When?”
“The week before Isabel died.”
My heart pounded.
“Why?”
“She wanted Federico.”
“About the investigation?”
“I think so.”
“What did she say?”
“I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
I moved closer.
“Tell me.”
Beatriz swallowed.
“She said the documents were worse than they thought.”
“What documents?”
“She didn’t explain.”
“She said there were names.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Beatriz.”
“I don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
Then she looked at Arturo.
“But I remember yours.”
Dad went completely still.
“She said Arturo’s name?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
Beatriz’s eyes filled with fear.
“She told Federico that someone had created records making it appear Arturo authorized the payments.”
My father stared at the photograph.
Forged evidence.
That explained why he had spent decades refusing to discuss the scandal publicly.
If the documents still existed, they might implicate him.
“Did Federico believe her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He told her to take everything to the authorities.”
Dad interrupted.
“He never told me that.”
Beatriz looked at him.
“You hated him after Isabel died.”
“I thought he betrayed her.”
“Maybe he did.”
Alejandro turned sharply.
“Mom.”
“I don’t know.”
She looked suddenly exhausted.
“Federico came home frightened that night.”
“I had never seen him frightened.”
“He told me not to answer the telephone.”
“He burned papers in the fireplace.”
“And the next morning, he drove away with Lucía.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dad stared at her.
“When did Lucía disappear?”
Beatriz closed her eyes.
“Two days before Isabel’s accident.”
I felt sick.
Camila’s mother had vanished.
My mother had died.
Federico had kept a blue box.
Twenty-two years later, Camila was infiltrating both families.
“Did the police investigate Lucía’s disappearance?” I asked.
Dad nodded.
“Briefly.”
“They concluded she left the country.”
“Did you believe that?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she left her daughter behind.”
Camila would have been a child.
“How old was Camila?”
“Eight.”
That changed something inside me.
I had hated her that morning.
Part of me still did.
She had slept with my husband.
Humiliated me.
Broken into my company.
Leaked private information.
But now I understood that behind those choices stood an eight-year-old girl whose mother disappeared while trying to expose something powerful people wanted hidden.
Understanding was not forgiveness.
But it complicated hate.
Alejandro looked at me.
“Camila used me to get information about Federico.”
“Yes.”
His face twisted.
“And I thought she loved me.”
I almost told him he deserved the humiliation.
Then I stopped.
Because I remembered exactly what it felt like to realize the person beside you had been living a different life.
Pain did not become noble just because the person suffering had caused pain too.
Before I could respond, Gabriel entered again.
“We located Ricardo in Miami.”
Dad turned.
“Where?”
“A private aviation terminal.”
“Leaving?”
“He tried.”
“Destination?”
“Cayman Islands.”
Of course.
“Did federal authorities stop him?”
“No.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“Why not?”
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
“His aircraft never left.”
“What happened?”
“It exploded during fueling.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“Ricardo?”
“Not aboard.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Another disappearance.
Just like Lucía.
Dad immediately reached for his phone.
“Get our Miami legal team.”
Gabriel did not move.
“There’s more.”
My father looked up.
“The airport security system received a message from Ricardo’s phone eleven minutes before the explosion.”
“What message?”
Gabriel showed us the screen.
Two words.
THE BOX.
Then a photograph.
A storage locker.
Locker 317.
Mexico City International Airport.
Beatriz made a sound.
Alejandro turned to her.
“What?”
Her face had gone white.
“What is it?”
She whispered.
“Three seventeen.”
Dad stepped forward.
“What about it?”
Beatriz looked at me.
“That was Federico’s birthday.”
March seventeenth.
I remembered.
We all did.
If the message had truly come from Ricardo, then the blue box might not be hidden in the De la Vega house.
It might be sitting inside an airport locker.
May you like
And if someone had just destroyed Ricardo’s plane to keep that secret buried, we were no longer dealing with corporate sabotage.
We were dealing with people willing to kill.
