Chapter 8 - The House Federico Left Behind
We returned to the De la Vega residence before sunset.
I had not entered the house since moving out.
The gates opened slowly.
For three years, I had called the place home.
Now it looked like a museum dedicated to people who had lied to me.
Beatriz led us directly to Federico’s old study.
The room smelled faintly of leather and cedar.
His desk remained where it had always been.
His books.
His photographs.
His collection of antique clocks.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
“That’s impossible,” Alejandro said.
“What?”
“Camila searched this room.”
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“But she spent time here.”
“When?”
“She sometimes waited for me here when I was working upstairs.”
I stared at him.
“You left your mistress alone in your dead father’s private study?”
His jaw tightened.
“I didn’t know she was investigating him.”
“No.”
I walked past him.
“You were too busy thinking I didn’t understand business.”
He absorbed that without answering.
Good.
I wanted it to hurt.
Gabriel’s team searched the room.
Desk drawers.
Bookshelves.
Behind paintings.
Inside vents.
Nothing.
Then I remembered my marriage.
Not the affair.
Something smaller.
One night, two years earlier, Alejandro had complained that the grandfather clock in Federico’s study never worked.
Beatriz had immediately told him never to repair it.
At the time, I thought she was sentimental.
Now I walked toward it.
Tall walnut case.
Brass pendulum.
Stopped at 3:17.
My skin prickled.
“Beatriz.”
She looked at the clock.
Her face changed.
“Why is it stopped at three seventeen?”
She shook her head.
“It always has been.”
“Since when?”
“Since Federico died.”
Alejandro approached.
“Dad’s birthday.”
“Yes.”
I opened the clock.
The pendulum hung still.
Gabriel examined the interior.
“Back panel.”
He touched the wood.
“It’s newer than the rest.”
Two officers carefully removed it.
Behind the panel sat a hidden compartment.
Inside were no papers.
Just an old digital recorder.
A key.
And a photograph.
The photograph showed my mother and Lucía sitting inside a café.
The date written on the back was three days before Lucía disappeared.
The key had a small metal tag.
C-12.
Alejandro picked up the recorder.
“Battery is dead.”
Gabriel took it.
“We’ll recover the files.”
Beatriz sat heavily in Federico’s chair.
“I lived in this house for thirty years.”
She stared at the open clock.
“I never knew.”
I looked at her.
“Federico did not trust you.”
The words were cruel.
But true.
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
Alejandro looked at his mother.
For perhaps the first time, he saw the same thing I had seen for years.
Beatriz controlled everything because control made her feel safe.
But Federico had built his most dangerous secrets into walls she ruled.
He had never given her the truth.
A security officer entered.
“We found something else.”
He carried a small metal lockbox.
“Where?”
“Inside the wine cellar wall.”
Beatriz stood.
“How?”
“Loose brick behind the oldest rack.”
The lockbox required a key.
C-12 did not fit.
Inside the box, visible through a small broken seam, were documents.
But forcing it risked damaging them.
Dad called a locksmith.
While we waited, Alejandro walked onto the terrace.
I followed several minutes later.
Not for him.
For air.
The city spread below us.
He stood near the railing.
“I’m sorry.”
I almost kept walking.
Then I stopped.
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“That answer is too easy.”
“I know.”
He looked exhausted.
“Camila manipulated me.”
I said nothing.
“But that doesn’t erase what I did.”
“No.”
“I chose to lie.”
“Yes.”
“I chose to betray you.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“And I chose to believe you were less than me because it made me feel important.”
That one hurt differently.
Because it was true.
I folded my arms.
“I spent three years making myself smaller so you would never feel overshadowed.”
“I know.”
“No.”
“You know now.”
I looked out over the city.
“I thought love meant not needing the world to know who my father was.”
“I wanted to be Valeria.”
“Not Arturo Mendoza’s daughter.”
“And you treated that as evidence that I had no value outside you.”
His eyes lowered.
“I did.”
For once, he did not defend himself.
“I don’t know whether Camila ever cared about me,” he said.
“I don’t know whether any of it was real.”
“That’s something you’ll have to live with.”
“I know.”
I turned toward him.
“And even if every second with her was manipulation, you still betrayed me willingly.”
“I know.”
That was all.
No reconciliation.
No dramatic apology.
Just truth.
Inside, someone called my name.
The locksmith had opened the box.
We returned to the study.
Dad stood over the table.
His face had lost all color.
There were bank statements.
Copies of contracts.
Photographs.
And a ledger.
The first page contained names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Some belonged to dead executives.
Some belonged to politicians.
Some belonged to businessmen still alive.
Then I saw one name I recognized.
Not Arturo.
Not Ricardo.
Beatriz.
Alejandro saw it too.
He looked at his mother.
She stared at the ledger.
Beside her name was a payment from twenty-two years earlier.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Alejandro’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Mom.”
May you like
Beatriz did not look up.
“What did they pay you for?”
