Chapter 5 - The Safe Behind the Wine Cellar
The old wine cellar smelled of cedar, dust, and expensive bottles no one had touched in years.
Daniel brought a flashlight.
Sofia brought Mara.
Rafael was nowhere to be found.
"Safe 1 is in the study," Daniel said. "Safe 2 is upstairs. If there's a third, it's hidden."
Mara ran her fingers along the stone wall.
"My grandmother used to say rich families build two houses," she said. "The one guests see and the one secrets use."
Sofia almost smiled. "That sounds like Teresa."
She remembered Teresa's quiet voice, her sensible shoes, the way she had disappeared from the mansion two days after Camila.
At the far end of the cellar, one wine rack had newer screws than the others.
Daniel removed them.
Behind the rack was a steel door no bigger than a kitchen cabinet.
SAFE 3.
The brass key tag fit a slot beside the dial, but the safe still required a six-digit code.
Mara stared at it.
"May eighteenth."
"Your birthday?" Sofia asked.
"Try it."
051807.
The lock clicked.
Inside were three things.
A red-spined ledger.
A mini-DV tape labeled NORTH HALL - 10/17/06.
And a photograph.
Mara picked up the photograph first.
Camila stood beside Teresa near the mansion's greenhouse. Camila was visibly pregnant, one protective hand over her stomach.
On the back, Teresa had written:
She made it out alive.
For twenty years, Sofia had feared Camila died that night. Knowing she escaped alive changed everything.
"Why didn't she come back?" Sofia whispered.
Daniel opened the ledger.
Page after page showed transfers from the Alvarez family trust into companies Sofia had never heard of.
Beside several entries were initials.
R.A.
Rafael Alvarez.
Mara turned another page.
A different set of initials appeared next to a payment made the day after Camila vanished.
E.V.
"Who is E.V.?" Mara asked.
Sofia felt the room tilt.
She knew.
May you like
Elena Vega.
Her mother.
