Chapter 7: The Woman Without a Photograph
The arrests dominated the news.
The Salcedo family’s public statement disappeared from the company website.
Reporters who had called Mariana unstable began asking whether the family had manipulated the press.
Several police officials denied any improper involvement.
No one believed them.
But Lucia Rivera remained missing.
Priya found no recent credit card activity, phone records, or border crossings.
“It looks like she stopped existing,” Priya said.
“She never fully existed,” Mariana replied.
There were almost no public photographs of Lucia.
Her school records had been sealed.
Her name appeared only in private financial documents.
Then Nico remembered something.
They were eating breakfast in the federal apartment when he pointed at a ledger photograph.
“I know her.”
Mariana turned.
“You’ve seen Lucia?”
“At Grandma’s party.”
“Which party?”
“The one with the ice sculptures.”
Rodrigo’s birthday gala, six months earlier.
“What was she doing?”
“She was crying in the hallway. Uncle Gabriel told me not to look at her.”
Mariana knelt beside him.
“Did she say anything to you?”
Nico nodded.
“She asked if you still went to the old greenhouse.”
Bellavista had contained a glass greenhouse near the eastern garden.
Mariana and Lucia had played there as children.
At least, Mariana now realized the quiet girl she remembered must have been Lucia.
Rodrigo had introduced her as Sofia’s niece.
No family photographs included her.
The burned estate remained under investigation, but the greenhouse had survived because it stood far from the main house.
Mariana and Beckett searched it that afternoon.
Beneath a loose stone, they found a sealed metal tube.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Mariana,
If you are reading this, Rodrigo has decided I know too much. Sofia believes she can negotiate with him. She is wrong.
There is an archive beneath the old Salcedo Hotel. Every bribe. Every payment. Every person he owns.
The entrance is hidden behind the original wine cellar.
Do not trust the police commissioner.
A second page contained a series of numbers.
Priya recognized them as coordinates.
They led to a remote cabin near the coast.
By the time agents arrived, the cabin was empty.
But someone had been there recently.
There was food in the refrigerator.
A blanket on the couch.
And a small amount of blood on the kitchen floor.
May you like
On the wall, written in black marker, were five words:
HE KNOWS I CONTACTED MARIANA.
