Chapter 3 - My Son’s Last Warning
“Victor Dane.”
I had heard the name.
Neftalí’s chief financial officer.
He had stood ten feet from me at the funeral.
He had hugged Celeste longer than anyone else.
Now he was outside my cabin.
Gabriel hid behind the bedroom partition while I returned the metal box beneath the floor.
The knock came.
“Eulalia?”
Celeste.
I opened the door.
She looked irritated rather than surprised.
Victor stood behind her.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Celeste looked around me.
“Checking whether you survived.”
“How thoughtful.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Grief had removed my fear of her.
That seemed to bother her.
Victor smiled.
“Mrs. Reyes.”
“Mr. Dane.”
Celeste entered without permission.
Her gaze moved around the cabin.
The broom.
The altar.
Neftalí’s photograph.
She stopped.
“You stole that.”
“I took my son.”
“It belongs to the estate.”
“No,” I said. “Apparently not everything does.”
Silence.
It lasted half a second.
But I saw it.
Fear.
Celeste recovered.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
Victor stepped forward.
“We came because something may have been accidentally packed with your belongings.”
“The key?”
Celeste looked at him.
That was my answer.
Victor hadn’t expected me to know.
“What key?” Celeste asked.
“The one tied to my suitcase.”
She turned toward Victor.
“You told me you checked everything.”
He ignored her.
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it away.”
His smile disappeared.
Celeste walked toward the altar.
I blocked her.
“Move.”
“No.”
Her eyes dropped to the floor.
Had she noticed the seam?
Then Gabriel’s phone vibrated behind the partition.
Victor heard it.
He turned.
I grabbed the candlestick and knocked a metal cup from the table.
It crashed loudly.
“Clumsy old woman,” Celeste snapped.
Gabriel’s phone stopped.
Victor stared at me.
Something in his expression told me he was not convinced.
But Celeste wanted to leave.
Before she did, she leaned close.
“You should be grateful I gave you somewhere to live.”
“I am.”
That confused her.
“Because you sent me exactly where Neftalí wanted me to go.”
Her face changed.
I regretted saying it immediately.
Victor grabbed her arm.
“We’re leaving.”
They drove away.
Gabriel emerged.
“That was reckless.”
“I’m seventy-two. Recklessness is one of the few luxuries nobody can repossess.”
He almost smiled.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face hardened.
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Dr. Ortega disappeared two days after Neftalí died.”
We spent the afternoon examining the box.
The flash drive contained financial records.
Victor had authorized transfers worth millions into companies connected indirectly to Celeste.
But one file was stranger.
Medical.
Neftalí had uploaded photographs of prescription bottles.
He had suffered occasional heart rhythm problems, but his medication had been stable for years.
One photograph showed pills of a different color mixed into the bottle.
“Could that kill him?” I asked.
“We need Ortega.”
One envelope contained a handwritten list of dates.
Each date corresponded to a dinner Celeste had insisted Neftalí attend.
Beside the final date were two words:
Victor present.
My stomach turned.
Gabriel found another letter.
This one was addressed to Celeste.
Unsent.
Neftalí wrote that he knew about her relationship with Victor.
Not merely financial.
Personal.
He intended to file for divorce.
He also intended to report the forged transfers.
The letter was dated six days before his death.
I closed my eyes.
All those years I had wondered why Celeste hated me.
Perhaps she hadn’t.
Perhaps I was simply the last person standing between her and complete control.
My phone suddenly rang.
Gabriel had brought me a prepaid one.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Mrs. Reyes?”
A man whispered.
“Yes?”
“My name is Samuel Ortega.”
Gabriel shot upright.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Did Celeste kill my son?”
Silence.
Then:
“Your son did not die from a natural heart attack.”
My knees weakened.
“What happened?”
“I found something in his blood.”
“What?”
“Something that should never have been there.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because the hospital records were altered after I ordered a second analysis.”
Gabriel took the phone.
“Doctor, where can we meet?”
Ortega gave directions to an abandoned roadside chapel twenty miles away.
“Tomorrow. Noon.”
Then he added:
“Do not tell anyone.”
The call ended.
That night, I listened to Neftalí’s recording again.
At the very end, after what I thought was silence, there was another sound.
I turned up the volume.
A door opening.
Neftalí speaking to someone.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Then a woman answered.
But it wasn’t Celeste.
May you like
I recognized the voice.
And the woman speaking to my son was someone who had attended his funeral.
