Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The note led them to an old photograph.
It had been taken at a Villaseñor charity gala eleven years earlier.
Diego stood beside his mother Elena.
Rafael stood several feet away.
Behind them, partially obscured by flowers, was a woman Marisol recognized immediately.
Teresa Aguilar.
The owner of the employment agency that had placed Marisol inside Diego’s mansion.
Diego stared.
“You know her?”
“She hired me.”
“Teresa worked for my mother.”
Marisol looked at him.
“What?”
“Years ago.”
Santiago confirmed it.
Before opening her staffing agency, Teresa Aguilar had served as Elena Villaseñor’s personal secretary.
She resigned six months before Elena’s death.
Diego called her.
The number was disconnected.
They drove to the agency.
Closed.
The neighboring shop owner said Teresa had retired abruptly two months earlier.
No forwarding address.
Santiago’s investigators found one.
A small house outside Cuernavaca.
Diego wanted Marisol to stay behind.
She refused.
They left Valentina with two trusted caregivers and traveled together.
Teresa opened the door before they knocked twice.
She was seventy-one now.
Her hair was white.
Her eyes filled the moment she saw Diego.
“You finally found the key.”
Diego stopped.
“You knew?”
Teresa invited them inside.
Her living room contained old books and framed photographs.
One photograph showed Elena smiling beside her.
Marisol sat.
Diego remained standing.
Teresa explained.
Elena had spent years documenting Rafael’s habit of intercepting personal communications.
Not illegal business transactions.
Personal ones.
Friends Rafael disapproved of.
Employees he wanted removed.
Relationships he considered dangerous.
Elena feared that one day Rafael would do the same to Diego.
“She asked me to watch,” Teresa said.
“Watch what?”
“For anyone he tried to erase.”
Diego’s voice became quiet.
“Marisol.”
Teresa nodded.
“When you left for Madrid, your father’s office contacted me.”
“They wanted to know whether Marisol had approached any placement agencies.”
Marisol stared.
“Why?”
“They wanted you employed somewhere far from the Villaseñor family.”
“Instead you sent me directly into Diego’s house.”
“Yes.”
Diego looked shocked.
“That wasn’t coincidence.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Teresa’s eyes filled.
“Because Elena made me promise.”
Marisol shook her head.
“You knew I was pregnant.”
“Not when I placed you.”
“I learned several weeks later.”
“And you said nothing?”
Teresa lowered her gaze.
“I made the wrong decision.”
Diego’s anger rose.
“Everyone keeps deciding for me.”
“I know.”
“You put the mother of my child in my house and did not tell me she was carrying my child.”
“I thought proximity would reveal the truth.”
“How?”
“I thought you would recognize her.”
“I was barely home.”
“I know.”
Teresa looked ashamed.
“And then Rafael discovered where she was.”
Marisol stiffened.
“What happened?”
“He came to me.”
“He threatened to close the agency.”
“He threatened the pensions of three former employees who worked with your mother.”
“I became afraid.”
“So you did nothing.”
“I did one thing.”
Teresa walked toward a cabinet.
She removed a metal box.
Inside were copies of letters.
Marisol gasped.
“My letters.”
“Every one I could recover.”
Diego sat for the first time.
There were eleven.
Letters Marisol had sent to Diego.
One included an ultrasound photograph.
Another contained the words:
I am not asking you to come back to me.
I need you to know you are going to be a father.
Diego pressed the paper against his mouth.
Another:
If you want no part in our lives, tell me yourself.
I can survive truth.
I cannot survive silence.
Diego stopped reading.
Marisol was crying now.
“I thought you saw that.”
“I never did.”
Teresa handed him another envelope.
“This one is different.”
It was addressed to Marisol.
The handwriting belonged to Diego.
He looked at it.
“I wrote this?”
Teresa nodded.
“From Madrid.”
Marisol grabbed it.
Her hands shook violently.
She opened it.
Marisol,
I don’t understand why every number I have for you stopped working.
My father says you left the city and asked not to be contacted.
I don’t believe him.
I will be home on the nineteenth.
Please wait for me.
Whatever happened, let me hear it from you.
D.
Marisol began sobbing.
“I never received this.”
“I know,” Teresa whispered.
“Rafael’s office intercepted it.”
Diego looked destroyed.
“We were both waiting.”
“Yes.”
“You had proof.”
“I had fragments.”
“Why not bring them to me?”
“Because your father discovered what Elena had left behind.”
Teresa looked at the key.
“And he told me if I interfered again, he would destroy everyone connected to her.”
Diego stood.
“He doesn’t get to frighten anyone anymore.”
Teresa’s face became grave.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“Rafael did not leak the story about Valentina.”
Diego frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Because someone contacted me three weeks ago asking about Marisol.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Teresa walked to the table and pushed forward a business card.
Paulina Robles.
Marisol felt cold.
“She knew before Tuesday.”
Teresa nodded.
“She knew there was a possibility.”
Diego’s expression hardened.
“How much did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“But she knew enough to investigate.”
“Yes.”
Diego remembered Paulina’s hostility toward Valentina.
The sudden obsession with removing her.
The increased security access.
The decision to renovate Elena’s study.
It all looked different now.
Paulina had not simply disliked the child.
She had been afraid of her.
Diego turned toward Marisol.
“She was trying to get you out before I discovered the truth.”
Marisol whispered, “Then Tuesday wasn’t an argument.”
“No.”
Diego looked at Paulina’s business card.
“It was an eviction.”
His phone rang.
Santiago.
Diego answered.
He listened for ten seconds.
Then his face changed.
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
Marisol stood.
“What happened?”
Diego ended the call.
His voice was flat.
“Paulina disappeared this morning.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because before leaving, she accessed my father’s private archive.”
Marisol stared.
“What did she take?”
May you like
Diego looked toward Teresa’s box of letters.
“The original file on you.”
