Chapter 2 - THE NAME IN THE OLD FILE
Alejandro ordered the doors closed.
No guest was allowed to leave until he understood why a child had arrived at his home carrying a bracelet that belonged to his dead sister.
Celeste protested immediately.
"You cannot keep people here like prisoners."
"I'm not keeping anyone. I'm asking everyone to stay until the police arrive."
"Police?" she repeated. "For a child with a story?"
Mateo flinched at her tone.
Alejandro noticed and moved closer to him.
"Nobody is going to frighten you. You're safe here."
Celeste gave a brittle laugh.
"You're making a scene over a piece of jewelry."
Beatrice lifted her head.
"That is not ordinary jewelry."
She asked Rosa to bring the small wooden box from her bedroom. Inside were old photographs, letters, and a second bracelet.
Alejandro recognized the design at once.
His mother had commissioned three of them after Isabel was born. One for Isabel, one for Beatrice, and one for the family archive. Each carried the same star and letter M.
The bracelet in the box had been recorded as buried with Isabel.
But it was still there.
Alejandro turned toward Mateo.
"Your mother gave you hers?"
"She said she wore it every day. She said it was the only thing she kept from before."
"Before what?"
"Before she had to hide."
The boy's answer landed heavily.
Beatrice sat down.
"Isabel was twenty-four when she disappeared," she said. "She was engaged to a young man named Rafael. Your father disapproved. He said Rafael had no position, no money, and no family name worth respecting."
Alejandro remembered the arguments.
He remembered his father shouting behind closed doors.
He remembered Isabel crying in the garden.
He had been thirty-one then, busy building the company and too proud to interfere.
A month later, the family received news that Isabel's car had gone over a bridge outside the city. The vehicle was found. A burned body was identified through dental records.
The funeral had been closed-casket.
Alejandro had never questioned it.
"Who identified her?" he asked.
Beatrice looked away.
"Your father."
"Was there a DNA test?"
"No."
Alejandro turned sharply.
"Why not?"
"Your father said the fire made it impossible."
Celeste crossed her arms.
"That was eleven years ago. This boy could have found an old bracelet anywhere."
Mateo reached into his jacket and removed an envelope.
"My mom told me to give this to Alejandro."
The envelope was worn at the edges. His name was written across the front in a handwriting he had not seen in over a decade.
Alejandro's fingers trembled as he opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Isabel stood beside a small boy in a park. She looked older, thinner, but unmistakably alive. The boy was Mateo.
On the back, she had written:
Alejandro, if my son has found you, it means I could not come myself. Please don't trust the story they told you. Find the blue door. Ask Rosa what happened the night I disappeared.
Alejandro raised his eyes.
Rosa had gone pale.
"Tell me," he said.
The maid looked toward Celeste, then Beatrice.
"I cannot."
"Rosa."
She pressed her hands together.
"Your father made me promise never to speak of it."
"My father is dead."
May you like
Rosa's eyes filled.
"That doesn't mean the people who helped him are gone."
