Chapter 11 - SOFIA’S SECRET
I met Beatriz two years after Sofia died.
At least that was the story I had believed.
A charity dinner.
A mutual acquaintance.
A conversation about architecture.
Then coffee.
Then months of careful patience while I learned how to be close to someone again.
She never rushed me.
That was one of the reasons I trusted her.
Now Alejandro claimed Beatriz had known Sofia.
I tore through old photographs.
Emails.
Charity records.
Anything connecting them.
Nothing.
Then Rosa remembered something.
“Mrs. Alvarez once asked me about the house in Seville.”
“What house?”
“The one your first wife lived in before you married.”
My chest tightened.
“I never told Beatriz about that house.”
Rosa nodded.
“I thought maybe you had.”
Sofia grew up partly in Seville with her aunt.
We drove there the next morning.
Her aunt, Teresa, was eighty-one.
Sharp mind.
Perfect memory.
When I showed her Beatriz’s photograph, she went silent.
“You know her?”
Teresa removed her glasses.
“That isn’t the name she used.”
I sat forward.
“What name?”
“Bea Vela.”
Vela.
The same surname as Carmen.
Teresa looked confused by my reaction.
“She and Carmen were cousins.”
My heart pounded.
“Beatriz knew Sofia?”
“Knew her?”
Teresa frowned.
“They were friends.”
The room tilted.
“How close?”
“For a while, very close.”
“What happened?”
Teresa looked toward the window.
“Carmen’s father invested with Sofia’s father.”
“There was a dispute.”
“Money disappeared.”
“Everyone blamed Carmen’s father.”
“He lost everything.”
“He died a year later.”
“And Carmen believed Sofia’s family destroyed him.”
I felt sick.
“What did Beatriz believe?”
“The same thing.”
“Did Sofia know?”
“That they blamed her family?”
Teresa nodded.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She said the missing money had never been her father’s fault.”
“What did she mean?”
Teresa stood slowly.
She walked to a cabinet.
From inside, she removed an old envelope.
“Sofia gave this to me before she moved to Marbella.”
Inside was a photograph.
Three teenagers.
Sofia.
Carmen.
Beatriz.
On the back, Sofia had written a date.
And one sentence.
Carmen thinks Papa stole their money.
She is wrong.
Bea knows who really took it.
I looked at Teresa.
“Did Sofia ever tell you who?”
“No.”
Then Teresa hesitated.
“But after Sofia died, someone came asking about this photograph.”
“Who?”
May you like
She pointed at Beatriz.
“She did.”
