Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE CHAIR
Elena met Rodrigo Cárdenas properly on her fourth day.
Until then, she had known him mostly by evidence.
An untouched breakfast tray.
A coffee cup left beside financial reports until midnight.
A suit jacket abandoned over the back of a dining chair.
Footsteps crossing the second floor at 2:00 in the morning.
And silence.
Always silence.
Mrs. Herrera had warned her not to initiate conversation.
“Mr. Cárdenas does not enjoy familiarity.”
Elena had almost asked whether Mr. Cárdenas enjoyed anything.
She wisely kept the question to herself.
On Thursday evening, a storm rolled over Monterrey.
Rain hammered the mansion’s enormous windows while Elena finished the downstairs sitting room. She was carrying folded towels through the hall when she noticed a lamp glowing inside the library.
The door was open.
Rodrigo sat in a leather chair.
His tie hung loose around his neck, his white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and a gray blanket covered his legs.
For one frightening second, Elena thought he was dead.
“Mr. Cárdenas?”
Nothing.
She stepped closer.
His head leaned against the chair. His breathing was shallow.
On the marble table beside him stood an empty whiskey glass.
Then Elena noticed something else.
A framed photograph.
A beautiful dark-haired woman was smiling at the camera with a little girl tucked against her side.
The child could not have been older than 4.
Elena understood immediately.
His wife.
His daughter.
The dead had faces now.
She looked back at Rodrigo.
“Sir?”
Still nothing.
Elena touched his wrist.
His pulse was steady.
She exhaled.
“You scared me.”
What Elena did not know was that Rodrigo was awake.
Perfectly awake.
Earlier that afternoon, his security chief, Mateo, had informed him that money had disappeared from a drawer in his bedroom.
It was not much by Rodrigo’s standards.
12,000 pesos.
But 3 former employees had stolen from the house.
Another had photographed private documents.
One had tried to sell photographs of Sofia’s bedroom to a tabloid.
Rodrigo had learned his lesson.
Kindness was usually a negotiation.
Trust was an invitation to betrayal.
So he had deliberately left his wallet on the table.
Cash visible.
His expensive watch beside it.
Then he had closed his eyes.
He wanted to know what Elena would do when she thought no one was watching.
She did not touch the wallet.
Instead, she touched his forehead.
Rodrigo nearly opened his eyes from surprise.
“No fever,” she whispered.
She smelled the whiskey.
Then she looked at the untouched dinner tray.
“You drank without eating.”
Her voice carried the disapproval of someone who had once spent long nights in hospital wards.
Elena disappeared.
Rodrigo heard her footsteps fade.
He waited.
Five minutes later, she returned.
A warm cloth touched his face.
He almost reacted.
Elena gently wiped rainwater—or perhaps sweat—from his temple.
Then she adjusted the blanket.
“You’re going to wake up with your neck hurting,” she murmured.
Rodrigo remained still.
Elena hesitated.
Then she noticed the photograph again.
Her fingers did not touch it.
Instead, she crouched beside the table.
“You miss them.”
The words were barely audible.
Rodrigo’s chest tightened.
Everyone spoke around his grief.
Never to it.
Employees avoided Sofia and Camila’s names as though saying them might trigger an explosion.
Business associates offered solemn condolences once and then returned to discussing money.
His mother had told him he needed to “move forward.”
Therapists had used words like acceptance.
Elena simply looked at a photograph and said the truth.
“You miss them.”
Then she did something stranger.
She began humming.
A quiet melody.
Rodrigo recognized it before the second line.
His body went rigid beneath the blanket.
Camila used to hum that melody while brushing Sofia’s hair.
It was an old Veracruz lullaby.
One he had not heard since the night before they died.
Elena stopped abruptly.
She must have noticed his hand tighten.
“Mr. Cárdenas?”
Rodrigo opened his eyes.
Elena jumped backward.
Their faces were only inches apart.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Her hand was still near his collar.
His eyes searched hers.
“You weren’t asleep,” she whispered.
“No.”
Embarrassment flooded her face.
“I’m sorry. I thought—”
“Where did you learn that song?”
She froze.
“What?”
“The song.”
“My grandmother.”
Rodrigo sat straighter.
“What is her name?”
Elena frowned.
“Carmen Salgado.”
Something changed in his face.
It was small.
But Elena saw it.
Recognition.
Fear.
Perhaps both.
Rodrigo stood so suddenly that the blanket fell to the floor.
“Leave.”
“Sir?”
“Now.”
Elena stepped back.
She had no idea what she had done.
“I apologize if—”
“Get out.”
His voice was colder this time.
Elena hurried from the library.
Rodrigo waited until the door closed.
Then he grabbed the photograph.
His fingers trembled.
Carmen Salgado.
He knew that name.
Three years earlier, after Camila and Sofia died in what police had ruled a highway accident, Rodrigo had received an anonymous letter.
Only 4 sentences.
The crash was not an accident.
Your wife discovered something.
Someone inside your company wanted her silent.
Find Carmen Salgado.
Rodrigo had spent 3 years searching for that woman.
And now her granddaughter was working inside his house.
He reached for his phone.
“Mateo.”
“Yes, sir?”
Rodrigo stared toward the doorway Elena had just disappeared through.
“Find out everything about Elena Salgado.”
A pause.
“Everything?”
Rodrigo looked at the photograph of his dead wife.
“Everything.”
Then his gaze dropped.
Beneath the chair where Elena had knelt was a small silver pendant.
She must have lost it.
Rodrigo picked it up.
The pendant opened.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of Elena.
Not of Carmen.
It showed 2 younger women standing together outside a hospital.
One was Carmen.
May you like
And the other was Rodrigo’s dead mother-in-law.
Rodrigo stopped breathing.
