Chapter 6 - My Sister's Scar
I called Elena.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My parents were supposed to be with her.
I called my mother.
Straight to voicemail.
My father.
Nothing.
Panic overwhelmed me.
“We’re going to my parents’ room.”
They had rooms on the hotel’s seventh floor.
Detective Price insisted on coming.
The elevator ride felt endless.
We reached the hallway.
Door 714.
I knocked.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Anton used the hotel phone to request security access.
Before security arrived, the door opened.
Elena stood there.
She looked confused.
“Why are you pounding?”
I grabbed her wrist.
There it was.
The crescent scar.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I pushed past her.
My parents were inside.
Safe.
Watching television.
My mother jumped up.
“Clara?”
Relief nearly made me collapse.
Elena followed me.
“What happened?”
I showed her the video.
Her expression changed.
“That isn’t me.”
“Look at the wrist.”
She stared.
Then lifted her own arm.
Same scar.
“That’s impossible.”
“How did you get this?”
“You know how.”
When Elena was fourteen, she fell through a greenhouse window.
A piece of glass cut her wrist.
I knew the story.
But Detective Price did not.
He asked questions.
Elena answered them.
Where had she been that morning?
With the bridesmaids.
Dozens of witnesses.
Did she own a blond wig?
No.
Had she entered the bridal suite?
Yes.
At 9:30 a.m.
Never afterward.
Then my mother spoke.
“Elena wasn’t the only one hurt in that greenhouse.”
We all looked at her.
My mother seemed nervous.
“What?”
She sat slowly.
“There was another girl.”
My father closed his eyes.
“Marisol.”
I had never heard the name.
My mother explained.
Before Elena and I were born, my parents had briefly cared for my cousin Marisol.
She was my mother’s sister’s daughter.
Marisol and Elena were born only six months apart.
They looked remarkably alike as children.
The greenhouse accident happened while Marisol was visiting.
Both girls were injured.
Both received scars.
My mother said Marisol eventually moved to California with her father.
We had not seen her in nearly fifteen years.
“Why have I never heard about her?”
My mother avoided my eyes.
“Family problems.”
“What kind?”
My father finally spoke.
“Marisol’s mother disappeared.”
I felt a chill.
“Disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Twenty-three years ago.”
My mother’s sister.
My aunt.
A woman nobody had mentioned.
“What was her name?”
My mother whispered, “Lucia.”
Anton suddenly looked toward us.
“Lucia Reyes?”
My mother stared at him.
“You know that name?”
Anton turned pale.
“My father did.”
Nobody moved.
“How?”
Anton looked at me.
“There was a Lucia Reyes listed in old Valdez company records.”
My mother stood.
“What records?”
“She worked for the family.”
“What did she do?”
Anton searched his memory.
“Accounting.”
My father cursed.
My mother looked sick.
“She told us she was working for a hotel.”
Another family lie.
Another disappearance.
Another connection to Anton’s family.
Detective Price asked, “When did Lucia disappear?”
My mother answered.
“August 17, 2003.”
Anton went still.
I noticed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“My father died August 19, 2003.”
Two days later.
Officially, Anton’s father had died in a boating accident.
Suddenly, twenty-three years of buried history connected our families.
Lucia Reyes disappeared.
Anton’s father died.
Carmela eventually controlled the Valdez empire.
And tonight someone who resembled my cousin had helped build evidence framing me.
Price asked the obvious question.
“Where is Marisol now?”
Nobody knew.
Then Elena’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
Her face changed.
A woman’s voice spoke loud enough for us to hear.
“Elena?”
“Yes?”
“This is Marisol.”
My mother gripped the table.
Marisol continued.
“You need to get Clara out of that hotel.”
I took the phone.
“Why?”
Silence.
Then she said, “Because Carmela knows who you really are.”
My heart stopped.
May you like
“What does that mean?”
But the call disconnected.
