Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE THAT BURNED TWICE
Isabela had not returned to the street where her mother died in nine years.
The neighborhood looked smaller than she remembered.
The houses seemed closer together.
The trees had grown taller.
But the empty lot at number seventeen still looked exactly like the place her nightmares had preserved.
Blackened foundation stones remained beneath weeds.
The official report had called the fire electrical.
Isabela had been nineteen.
Marta had supposedly fallen asleep downstairs.
By the time firefighters arrived, the house was already lost.
Isabela had been working the late shift at a hotel.
She never saw her mother’s body.
The coffin had remained closed because of the damage.
For nine years, she had forced herself to accept that.
Now Sofia had claimed Helena showed her a photograph of Marta alive.
Dante parked across the street.
He had brought no visible guards.
Marco believed Dante was attending a private meeting downtown.
Only Isabela knew the truth.
“You don’t have to go in.”
Dante’s voice was quieter than usual.
Isabela opened the car door.
“Yes, I do.”
The remains were surrounded by an old fence.
A faded municipal warning sign leaned sideways.
Dante cut the rusted chain with a tool from the trunk.
Isabela almost smiled despite herself.
“You carry bolt cutters?”
“I carry many things.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It isn’t supposed to be.”
They crossed the overgrown yard.
Helena’s journal had contained one additional clue.
Under the address, faintly written in pencil, were the words:
Beneath the song.
Isabela walked toward the back of the property.
Her mother had kept a small piano in the sitting room.
It had been old.
Out of tune.
But Marta played every evening.
Especially the melody Sofia had recognized.
The fire had destroyed the piano.
Or so Isabela believed.
She reached the crumbling foundation where the sitting room used to stand.
Dante watched her.
“The piano was here.”
They searched for twenty minutes.
Nothing.
Then Isabela noticed a metal ring beneath a thick mat of dead vines.
She pulled.
A small trapdoor lifted.
Dante immediately moved in front of her.
“Stay back.”
“It’s my mother’s house.”
“And someone already broke into Helena’s office.”
He opened the hatch.
A narrow concrete compartment sat below.
Inside was a rusted metal box.
Dante lifted it out.
The lock had melted years ago.
He opened the lid.
There were no photographs.
No jewelry.
No money.
Only cassette tapes.
Dozens.
Each one labeled by date.
Dante frowned.
“What are these?”
Isabela picked up the newest tape.
The date was three days before the fire.
“My mother recorded music.”
Dante looked at the old tapes.
“You have anything that can play those?”
“My apartment.”
They drove there.
Isabela’s apartment was modest.
Two rooms.
A narrow kitchen.
Furniture that had survived three moves.
Dante looked completely out of place inside it.
She ignored him.
From the top shelf of her bedroom closet, she retrieved an old cassette player.
It had belonged to Marta.
The batteries were dead.
Isabela found an adapter.
The machine clicked when she inserted the last tape.
Static filled the room.
Then piano.
The melody.
The same lullaby.
Isabela closed her eyes.
For a moment she was ten years old again.
Marta was cooking soup.
Rain tapped against the windows.
Everything was safe.
Then the piano stopped.
Marta’s voice came through the speakers.
“If you are listening to this, something has happened.”
Isabela opened her eyes.
Dante leaned forward.
Marta continued.
“My name is Marta Reyes.”
“I worked for the Valera family for eleven years.”
Dante’s expression changed at the name.
Isabela noticed.
Marta’s voice trembled.
“I witnessed something I should never have seen.”
“A woman named Helena Valera helped me escape.”
Isabela looked at Dante.
Helena’s maiden name had been Valera.
The recording continued.
“Helena was only seventeen.”
“She should never have been involved.”
“But she was brave.”
“Braver than anyone in that family deserved.”
“There is a ledger.”
“It proves where the money came from.”
“It proves who paid the doctors.”
“It proves what happened to the children.”
Dante suddenly reached for the stop button.
Isabela slapped his hand away.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“What children?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we listen.”
Marta’s voice continued.
“If Helena ever comes looking for me, tell her the ledger is not with Isabela.”
“I would never put my daughter in that danger.”
“It is beneath the blue room.”
The recording crackled.
Then Marta began crying.
“There is one more thing.”
“Helena believes her father died because he discovered the same operation.”
“If she is right, no one close to her is safe.”
The recording ended.
Isabela sat frozen.
Dante stood.
“Valera.”
She looked up.
“You know the name.”
“Of course I know it.”
“How?”
Dante paced once across the small room.
“Helena’s family built a pharmaceutical distribution company decades ago.”
“Valera Medical.”
Isabela remembered seeing the name on hospital boxes.
Dante continued.
“After her father died, Helena sold her shares.”
“To whom?”
Dante hesitated.
“My family.”
The answer landed heavily.
Isabela stood.
“So your family bought the company connected to whatever my mother discovered?”
“My father did.”
“And now someone is drugging your daughter.”
Dante didn’t answer.
Isabela looked toward the cassette player.
“The blue room.”
“Could be part of Valera Medical.”
Dante nodded slowly.
“There was an old research wing.”
“Painted blue?”
“I don’t know.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dante answered without speaking.
A distorted voice came through the speaker.
“You should have let the dead stay dead.”
Dante’s face hardened.
The caller continued.
“The nanny has already cost one mother her life.”
“Don’t let her cost Sofia hers.”
The line went dead.
Isabela stared at Dante.
He checked the number.
Blocked.
Then something crashed in the hallway outside the apartment.
Dante reached beneath his jacket.
Isabela stepped toward the door.
He pulled her back.
Another crash.
Then silence.
Dante opened the door.
No one was there.
Only a white envelope lying on the floor.
Her name was written on it.
ISABELA.
Inside was a photograph.
Marta.
Older.
Alive.
The picture had been taken only six months earlier.
May you like
And on the back were five words.
STOP SEARCHING OR SHE DIES.
