Chapter 5 - The Missing Page
Nothing had been stolen.
That was what the estate manager said.
Which meant someone had broken into a locked records room for the pleasure of looking around.
I didn’t believe that.
Neither did Mr. Bell.
The security camera outside the room had gone offline for eleven minutes between 2:06 and 2:17 a.m.
“Who can disable it?” I asked.
“Three people,” the manager said. “Myself, Mrs. Montenegro, and the security contractor.”
Victoria arrived before lunch.
She wore a gray suit instead of emerald earrings and looked exhausted.
“I did not enter that room.”
Mr. Bell watched her carefully. “Did you ask anyone else to?”
“No.”
I believed she was scared.
I wasn’t ready to decide if I believed anything else.
Victoria asked to speak to me privately.
We went into the library.
No staff. No Claudia. No audience.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“For telling me to disappear?”
“For more than that.”
She admitted recognizing the pendant months earlier. She had found an old photograph of Isabel after seeing me wear it and had noticed the resemblance.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what you might mean.”
There it was.
Not hatred.
Fear.
It did not excuse eight months of being treated like a shadow, but it made the shape of her cruelty clearer.
She had spent her whole life measuring safety through ownership.
Then I entered her house carrying plates and wearing a necklace that could rearrange everything.
“I treated you badly before I suspected anything,” she said. “That part has no excuse.”
That mattered more than the rest.
I accepted the apology.
I did not promise forgiveness.
When I returned to Mr. Bell’s office, Claudia was waiting in the hall.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe you don’t want the money?”
“I haven’t decided what I want.”
“You’ll take it.”
“Maybe.”
Her face hardened.
“Then at least be honest. You’re about to destroy people you don’t even know.”
I looked at her.
“Your future shouldn’t depend on me not existing.”
She went still.
Then she stepped close enough that I could smell her perfume.
“You have no idea what this family does when it feels threatened.”
Before I could answer, Mr. Bell opened his door.
“Lucia.”
He was holding a photocopy.
“We found page forty-seven.”
He handed it to me.
At the bottom was my mother’s name.
May you like
Beside it was a handwritten note.
CONTACT CONFIRMED. DO NOT PROCEED. V.M. OBJECTS.
