Chapter 3 - THE BURIED BOX
The grand foyer felt as cold as an open grave.
Alejandro blocked the entrance with his entire frame, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “You gave up your right to call her your daughter three years ago when you packed your luggage and disappeared to Madrid without looking back. Get the hell out of my house.”
The man standing beside Valeria stepped forward. He was sleek, balding, and held himself with the irritating confidence of a high-priced litigator. “Señor Salgado, my name is Licenciado Arturo Treviño. I represent Señora Valeria Salgado. We are here to serve you with an emergency petition for temporary custody and a notice of parental alienation.”
Alejandro let out a harsh, disbelieving bark of laughter. “Parental alienation? She deserted her child!”
“My client suffered from documented severe postpartum depression and domestic distress,” Treviño replied smoothly, pulling a crisp stack of legal documents from his briefcase and holding them out. “Under Mexican family law, the maternal presumption remains strong unless gross unfitness is proven. Señora Salgado has returned, her health is restored, and she is formally demanding immediate custody of Lucía. If you refuse access today, we will return with state police within forty-eight hours.”
Valeria stepped past her lawyer, peering around Alejandro’s broad shoulders into the sunlit interior of the home. Her eyes locked onto Daniela, who was standing quietly near the kitchen entryway.
“And who are you?” Valeria asked, looking Daniela up and down with obvious disgust. “Another stray girl Alejandro found off the street to clean his toilets and wipe my daughter’s nose?”
Daniela felt her blood heat, but she kept her voice entirely flat. “I’m Daniela. I take care of Lucía.”
“Well, *Daniela*,” Valeria said with a sneer, “pack your bags. Your little babysitting gig is over.”
A tiny gasp broke the tension.
Everyone turned toward the grand staircase. Lucía was standing halfway down the steps, wearing her oversized unicorn pajamas. Her small face was paper-white, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror. She stared at Valeria as if she were looking at a ghost that had clawed its way out of the earth.
“Lucía, my darling!” Valeria cried, instantly shifting her tone into honeyed, maternal sweetness. She extended both arms toward the child, taking a dramatic step forward. “Look at you! Look how big you’ve gotten! Mommy is finally home. Come give Mommy a hug!”
Lucía didn’t run. She didn’t smile. She took two steps backward up the stairs, trembling violently, until her back hit the banister.
“You’re not Mommy,” Lucía whispered, her voice tiny and brittle. “Mommy lives in the photos. You went away.”
Valeria’s outstretched hands froze in midair. A flash of irritation flickered across her face before she forced her practiced smile back on. “I had to go away to get better, sweetheart. But I’m back now, and I’m going to take you to a beautiful new house with a swimming pool and a pony—”
“No!” Lucía shrieked. She turned on her heel, sprinted back up the marble stairs, and slammed her bedroom door with enough force to shake the chandeliers.
“Take your papers and get off my property,” Alejandro snarled, slapping the legal documents out of the lawyer’s hand. The papers scattered across the polished stone floor. “If you step foot past the gate again without a signed court order, Treviño, I will personally see your license revoked, and I will have your client arrested for trespassing.”
Alejandro slammed the heavy front door and locked the deadbolt. He leaned his forehead against the wood, his chest heaving, his veins bulging against his neck.
“Carmen,” he rasped without turning around. “Call the head of security. Double the guards at the main gate. No one enters. Not even deliveries.”
“Yes, señor,” Carmen whispered, hurrying away in tears.
Alejandro turned to Daniela. His aristocratic composure was completely shattered; behind the anger was the raw, helpless agony of a father who was terrified of losing the only thing that mattered to him. “Go upstairs,” he commanded, his voice shaking. “Stay with Lucía. Please.”
Daniela nodded and took the stairs two at a time.
When she entered Lucía’s room, the child wasn’t hiding under the bed or in the closet. She was sitting by the French doors that opened to the private balcony overlooking the estate’s rear gardens. Lucía was clutching a small, rusted metal biscuit tin to her chest, her knuckles bruised and smeared with dark soil.
“Lucía?” Daniela approached slowly, kneeling beside her. “Where did you get that box?”
Lucía sniffled, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her pajamas. “I buried it two summers ago under the rosebushes. Before the other nannies came.”
Daniela looked at the dirt under the child’s fingernails. “What’s inside, sweetheart?”
With trembling hands, Lucía pried open the rusted lid.
Inside the tin were not toys, rocks, or seashells. There were roughly two dozen unopened envelopes, yellowed around the edges and sealed with red wax or colorful stickers. Every single envelope was addressed to *Lucía Salgado*, written in elegant, looping handwriting.
Every single letter was from Valeria.
And every single letter had been stamped by the Monterrey postal service between two and three years ago.
Daniela picked up one of the envelopes, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Lucía... did your mother send these to you?”
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“No,” Lucía whispered, staring down at the tin with haunted eyes. “I found them in the trash bin behind the garage a long time ago. Daddy threw them all away.”
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