Chapter 3 - THE LOCKED ROOM
Elena considered quitting.
She stood in the staff kitchen the following morning staring at her coffee while Mrs. Herrera sliced fruit with military precision.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Mrs. Herrera did not look up.
“If Mr. Cárdenas has not fired you, assume you still have employment.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It was not intended to be.”
Elena almost smiled.
Then Rodrigo entered.
Conversation died instantly.
He wore a charcoal suit, every trace of the exhausted man from the previous evening erased.
“Elena.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“Yes, sir?”
“My study. 8 tonight.”
Mrs. Herrera’s knife stopped.
Rodrigo walked away.
Elena stared after him.
“I thought the study was forbidden.”
Mrs. Herrera slowly resumed cutting the apple.
“It is.”
“Then why—”
“I suggest you arrive at 7:59.”
At 8, Elena entered Rodrigo’s study.
He was standing behind his desk.
Her silver pendant lay beside his hand.
Elena instinctively touched her empty neckline.
“You found it.”
“Who is the woman beside your grandmother?”
Elena picked up the pendant.
“My grandmother’s friend.”
“Name.”
“Isabel.”
Rodrigo’s jaw tightened.
“Isabel Valdés?”
Elena stared at him.
“You knew her?”
“She was my wife’s mother.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Elena looked down at the photograph again.
“My grandmother never told me.”
“When was this taken?”
“I don’t know. Before I was born.”
Rodrigo came around the desk.
“Why did your grandmother never mention Isabel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you apply here?”
“For money.”
His expression hardened.
“Try again.”
Elena felt anger replace confusion.
“My grandmother needs medication. Our rent is late. I left nursing school to take care of her. Your agency offered more money than I’ve made in my life. That’s why.”
“You expect me to believe this is coincidence?”
“I don’t particularly care what you believe.”
That surprised him.
Most people became smaller when Rodrigo became angry.
Elena became straighter.
He placed a document before her.
“Your grandmother worked at Hospital San Gabriel 27 years ago.”
Elena glanced at it.
“Yes.”
“So did Isabel Valdés.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Rodrigo studied her.
“Camila visited your grandmother 3 weeks before she died.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Elena swallowed.
“What?”
Rodrigo opened another folder.
A security photograph showed Camila entering a modest apartment building.
Elena recognized it.
Her grandmother’s old address.
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why would your wife visit my grandmother?”
“That is exactly what I intend to discover.”
Elena looked at him.
For the first time, the coldness in Rodrigo’s face made sense.
It was armor.
Beneath it was a man terrified that another piece of his past was about to disappear.
“I’ll ask her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because until I know who can be trusted, no one knows what we’re investigating.”
“You think my grandmother might be dangerous?”
“I think my wife and daughter died 18 days after Camila met her.”
Elena slapped him.
The sound cracked across the study.
They both froze.
Elena’s face drained of color.
Rodrigo slowly turned his head back toward her.
“You can insult me,” Elena whispered. “You can fire me. But don’t accuse the woman who raised me of murdering a child.”
Rodrigo said nothing.
Elena’s eyes filled.
“She sold her wedding ring to pay for my nursing textbooks. She skips medicine when we don’t have enough money because she lies and says she feels better. Whatever happened to your family, my grandmother is not a killer.”
She placed the pendant on his desk.
Then she walked out.
Rodrigo did not stop her.
At 10:30, he found her in the laundry room.
Her suitcase stood beside her.
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t fire you.”
“I fired myself.”
Despite everything, something almost like amusement touched his face.
Then vanished.
“You need the money.”
“I need dignity too.”
Rodrigo looked at the suitcase.
“What would make you stay?”
“An apology.”
He stared at her.
Elena waited.
Rodrigo Cárdenas had negotiated billion-dollar acquisitions with less discomfort.
Finally, he said, “I should not have accused your grandmother.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“That was painful, wasn’t it?”
“Extremely.”
She almost smiled.
Then he handed her a key.
Elena looked at it.
“What’s this?”
“The second-floor room.”
Her expression changed.
“You said nobody enters.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
Rodrigo’s voice softened.
“Because Camila’s things are inside. If your grandmother knew her, there may be something in that room that explains why.”
Together, they walked upstairs.
Rodrigo stopped before the locked door.
His hand shook when he tried to insert the key.
Elena noticed.
Without speaking, she covered his hand with hers.
He looked at her.
“Do you want me to do it?”
For 3 years, Rodrigo had refused to open that door.
Now he nodded.
Elena turned the key.
The lock clicked.
She pushed the door open.
A child’s bedroom waited inside.
Pink curtains.
Stuffed animals.
Tiny shoes.
Drawings taped to the wall.
Everything preserved exactly as it had been 3 years earlier.
Rodrigo remained in the doorway.
Elena stepped inside alone.
Then she noticed a wooden music box beneath the bed.
She knelt and pulled it free.
“Rodrigo.”
It was the first time she had used his name.
He entered.
Elena opened the box.
Inside were photographs, a USB drive, and an envelope.
Across the envelope, Camila had written 3 words.
FOR CARMEN SALGADO.
Rodrigo stared at it.
But beneath the envelope was something even stranger.
A hospital bracelet.
The name printed on it was:
ELENA VALDÉS.
Elena went completely still.
“That isn’t my name.”
Rodrigo looked at her.
“No.”
Her hands began to shake.
“Then why was it hidden in your daughter’s bedroom?”
Neither of them heard the shadow move beyond the doorway.
May you like
Someone had been watching.
And before morning, the music box would disappear.
