Chapter 14 - THE SAFE
Dante refused to let Vicente inside. Rafael and two officers met him at the gate instead.
Vicente handed over a small key and a folded paper bearing Augusto’s signature. The safe it opened stood in the company’s old downtown office.
“Why bring this now?” Dante asked over the intercom.
“Because your father kept something there that explains why Marisa was sent away.”
“You had years to tell us.”
Vicente looked toward the camera. “I know.”
The officers took him in for questioning. Dante, Isabela, Rafael, and the attorney went downtown together.
The office was nearly empty. Dust covered the conference table. Dante unlocked a safe behind a framed photograph of the company’s first building.
Inside were bank documents, a thin folder marked TERESA, and a cassette tape in a plastic case. Rafael found an old player in a storage cabinet.
Augusto’s voice filled the room.
He had recorded himself near the end of his life. He admitted hiding his marriage to Teresa, making false accusations against Marisa, and allowing Vicente to control the trust meant for Isabela.
“I told myself I would put it right,” he said on the tape. “Every year I waited, it became harder to face them.”
Isabela folded her arms so tightly her hands ached.
Then Augusto’s voice changed.
“Dante, if you hear this, your mother didn’t know the truth when she gave me the address. She learned it later and tried to find Marisa. I stopped her. I told her the child was gone.”
Helena had carried the blame for the address. Augusto had made sure she never knew what followed.
The tape clicked off.
Dante opened the folder. Inside was a letter Augusto had never sent to Isabela. He offered explanations for his choices, then asked her to visit him.
She read one page and put it down.
“He wanted me to come to him,” she said. “He knew where I was. He could have come to me.”
The attorney photographed every document. Outside, morning traffic filled the street.
May you like
Dante’s phone rang. Helena’s doctor was calling from the mansion.
“She’s asking for Isabela,” the doctor said. “She says she has one last thing that belonged to Marisa.”
