Chapter 5 - Paulina’s First Lie
Marisol found Valentina in the laundry room ten minutes later.
She was sitting behind a basket of folded sheets, crying silently.
Marisol dropped to her knees.
“Where were you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I searched everywhere.”
“I got lost.”
“You promised not to wander.”
“I know.”
Marisol checked her arms and face.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did anyone see you?”
Valentina looked away.
Marisol’s fear sharpened.
“Who?”
“Diego.”
The name struck like a blow.
“What did he say?”
“He asked my age.”
“What else?”
“He asked about the button.”
Marisol gripped her shoulders.
“You showed it to him?”
“It came out of Tomás.”
“You took it from my suitcase again?”
“I wanted to keep it safe.”
“Valentina, that button is not a toy.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Valentina flinched.
Marisol softened her voice.
“I am trying to protect you.”
“From Diego?”
“From people around him.”
“The lady in white?”
Marisol went still.
“What happened?”
“She came into the schoolroom before I got lost.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked my name.”
“That is normal.”
“She already knew it.”
Marisol’s heartbeat slowed into heavy, deliberate beats.
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
Valentina wiped her cheek.
“She said, ‘So you are Valentina.’ Then she asked if I liked living in Toledo.”
Marisol had never told anyone at the mansion where they previously lived.
“What did you answer?”
“I said we moved a lot.”
“Did she ask about San Aurelio?”
“No.”
“Did she touch you?”
“She touched Tomás.”
“How?”
“She looked inside the tear.”
Marisol examined the rabbit.
The golden button was still there.
“She saw it,” Valentina said. “I think she knew what it was.”
Marisol stood.
Paulina had remembered her.
More dangerously, Paulina knew about Valentina before the child introduced herself.
That meant someone had followed them.
The gray-coated man in the garden was not a memory made flesh. He was real.
Marisol took Valentina back to their room and locked the door.
“You will stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To speak with Señora Inés.”
“Are we leaving?”
Marisol looked at the small suitcase beneath the bed.
“Yes.”
Valentina’s eyes filled.
“But you said we needed the job.”
“We need to be safe more.”
“Did I ruin it?”
“No. Listen to me. None of this is your fault.”
“Because I got lost?”
“Because of anything.”
Marisol packed quickly.
She had nearly finished when someone knocked.
“Marisol,” Inés called. “Open the door.”
Marisol hesitated, then obeyed.
Inés entered and closed the door behind her.
“You intend to leave.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Does this involve Señor Diego?”
Marisol’s hands stopped.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I was housekeeper here when he returned from San Aurelio.”
Marisol looked up.
Inés’s expression remained stern, but her eyes held no cruelty.
“He searched for you for months,” she continued. “He fought with Don Rafael. Broke two doors. Dismissed an attorney. Nearly resigned from the family company.”
Marisol sat slowly on the bed.
“He searched?”
“Until they showed him proof you had accepted money.”
“I never accepted anything.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Why?”
“Because Don Rafael ordered me to burn your letters.”
Marisol stared at her.
Inés removed a small brass key from her pocket.
“I burned the envelopes,” she said. “Not the letters.”
She placed the key in Marisol’s palm.
“There is a box in the old linen vault beneath the east staircase. I hid them there.”
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Paulina entered the archive room this morning and asked for the employment files from the Serrano estate.”
Marisol felt cold.
“She remembers me.”
“She does more than remember.”
Inés looked at Valentina.
“When Paulina was twenty-one, she spent a week at this mansion while Don Rafael was ill. One night, I heard her arguing with him in the office.”
“About what?”
“A child.”
Marisol tightened her fingers around the key.
“What did she say?”
Inés repeated the words from memory.
“If the girl is born, Diego will never belong to us.”
Valentina looked between them.
“Mamá, was she talking about me?”
Marisol could not answer.
A shadow blocked the light beneath the door.
Someone was standing in the corridor.
Inés moved silently and pulled it open.
May you like
The corridor was empty.
But Marisol’s packed suitcase was gone.
