Chapter 2 - The Box Beneath the Altar
I slammed the floorboard down.
“Eulalia!”
The voice came again.
Male.
Unfamiliar.
I pushed the altar back into place, grabbed Neftalí’s photograph, and stood.
Someone knocked.
Three times.
“Mrs. Reyes?”
I remained silent.
“My name is Gabriel Mercer. I worked for your son.”
That meant nothing.
Neftalí employed hundreds of people.
“Please leave.”
“I can’t.”
My fingers tightened around the iron candlestick.
“Then I’ll call the police.”
There was a pause.
“With what phone?”
My stomach tightened.
He knew.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “Neftalí told me to come if you were ever sent here.”
I opened the door two inches.
A man around fifty stood outside. Gray jacket. Muddy boots. Tired eyes.
He held both hands where I could see them.
Then he showed me a photograph.
Neftalí stood beside him at a construction site.
On the back, in my son’s handwriting, were four words:
Trust him with 317.
I let Gabriel inside.
He looked at the altar.
“You found it.”
“What is in that box?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
He sat without being invited.
“Your son stopped trusting people during the last six months of his life. Including me.”
“Why?”
Gabriel looked toward the window.
“Because someone was stealing from him.”
I almost laughed.
“Neftalí was worth millions.”
“Not money.”
“What, then?”
“His company.”
Gabriel explained.
Neftalí’s business owned land, developments, patents, and several investment properties. Celeste appeared wealthy because she lived beside that wealth.
But she did not control it.
At least, she hadn’t.
“Neftalí discovered documents bearing his signature that he never signed,” Gabriel said.
“Who signed them?”
“That was what he was trying to prove.”
I thought of Celeste.
Gabriel noticed.
“Your daughter-in-law was involved.”
“Involved how?”
“We don’t know.”
“We?”
“A lawyer. An accountant. Me.”
“And none of you stopped it?”
“Neftalí ordered us not to act until he had proof.”
My anger rose.
“My son is dead. That worked wonderfully.”
Gabriel accepted the insult.
“He knew something could happen.”
Those words changed the room.
“What do you mean?”
“Three weeks before he died, he told me that if anything happened to him, I was not to approach you at the main house.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed you would be watched.”
I stared at him.
“My son died of a heart attack.”
Gabriel’s expression remained still.
“That’s what the death certificate says.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“I’m not saying he was murdered.”
“You are saying exactly enough to make me think it.”
“I’m saying Neftalí was afraid.”
I looked at the floor.
The box waited beneath it.
We opened it together.
Inside were seven envelopes, a flash drive, a small voice recorder, several property deeds, a bank document, and another key.
On top was a letter.
For Mama.
My hands shook so badly Gabriel offered to open it.
I refused.
The first sentence broke me.
Mama, if you found this, then I failed to tell you the truth while I still had time.
I sat on the floor.
Neftalí wrote that he had discovered Celeste moving assets through shell companies.
He believed she was being helped by someone inside his company.
He had begun reversing the transfers.
Then came the sentence I read three times.
The house does not belong to Celeste.
“What?”
Gabriel leaned closer.
I continued.
Years earlier, when Neftalí bought the estate, he placed ownership in a family trust.
The beneficiary was not Celeste.
It was me.
I looked at Gabriel.
“This can’t be right.”
“It can.”
“I never signed anything.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe because he knew who his wife was before you did.”
The letter continued.
Celeste could remain in the property during Neftalí’s lifetime. Upon his death, her occupancy rights ended unless Eulalia voluntarily permitted her to stay.
My daughter-in-law had thrown me out of my own house.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Another document showed that three months earlier, someone had filed an amendment transferring the estate to Celeste.
My supposed signature appeared at the bottom.
I had never seen it.
“She forged my name.”
Gabriel nodded.
“That’s what Neftalí suspected.”
I felt suddenly cold.
The four-million-dollar house had never been Celeste’s inheritance.
She had stolen it before Neftalí was even buried.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Gabriel looked at the recorder.
“Maybe he did.”
We pressed play.
Static.
Then Neftalí’s voice filled the cabin.
“Mom.”
I covered my mouth.
It had been days since I heard him alive.
Now he was speaking from a cheap recorder hidden under a rotten floor.
“If you’re hearing this, I need you to forgive me.”
I began crying.
“I should have protected you sooner. I saw how Celeste treated you. I kept telling myself I could fix my marriage without making you choose between us.”
He inhaled.
“But this isn’t only about the house anymore.”
Gabriel and I looked at each other.
“I found evidence Celeste has been meeting someone connected to my company. I don’t know yet how deep it goes. I’m leaving copies where they can’t reach them.”
The recording clicked.
Then Neftalí said something that made Gabriel stand.
“If my death is called natural, don’t believe it until Dr. Samuel Ortega sees the toxicology report.”
The recording ended.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
“Who is Ortega?” I asked.
Gabriel’s face had lost color.
“Neftalí’s old friend.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find him.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then we heard another vehicle.
This time he went to the window.
His entire body stiffened.
“What?”
He pulled the curtain closed.
“Hide the box.”
“Who is it?”
“Celeste.”
My heart stopped.
“How did she know?”
Gabriel looked at the brass key in my hand.
Then at my suitcase.
“Maybe she didn’t come for you.”
Celeste stepped out of the car.
She wasn’t alone.
A man emerged from the passenger side.
May you like
Gabriel whispered his name.
And suddenly I understood why my son had been afraid.
