PART 3: THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
The hospital door slowly opened, and Dr. Ibarra immediately stepped between me and whoever was entering.
I closed my eyes again.
My heart was pounding so violently that I was certain the monitor would expose me.
“Doctor, I believe there’s been a mistake,” a woman’s voice said.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it before.
But where?
“Who authorized you to enter this room?” Dr. Ibarra demanded.
“I’m here to check on my daughter.”
My daughter.
Those two words sent a terrible chill down my spine.
My mother had died twenty years ago.
I had attended her funeral.
I had watched my father lower her coffin into the ground.
And yet, the woman standing inside my hospital room had just called me her daughter.
“Mrs. Robles is under restricted medical supervision,” Dr. Ibarra said. “You need to identify yourself.”
The woman laughed softly.
“Of course. My name is Victoria Alvarez.”
Victoria.
Something inside my memory shifted.
A faint image appeared.
A woman wearing a blue dress.
A silver bracelet.
The smell of lavender.
Then I remembered.
When I was eight years old, my father hired a woman to take care of me while my mother was supposedly recovering from an illness.
Her name had been Victoria.
I hadn’t seen her since the year my mother died.
Why was she here?
And why was she claiming to be my mother?
“I have legal documentation proving my relationship to Elena,” Victoria continued. “And I expect you to follow the treatment plan.”
Dr. Ibarra didn’t move.
“Your authorization has been suspended.”
“On whose orders?”
“Mine.”
Victoria’s pleasant voice disappeared.
“You have no idea what you’re interfering with, Doctor.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to explain why someone using your credentials requested a medication increase that could prevent Mrs. Robles from regaining consciousness.”
Silence.
Then Victoria said something that made my blood run cold.
“Because Elena was never supposed to wake up.”
I nearly opened my eyes.
Dr. Ibarra stepped closer to her.
“Are you admitting that you tried to harm your daughter?”
Victoria sighed.
“You’re making this unnecessarily dramatic. Elena is a complicated woman. Just like her father.”
“Her father is dead.”
“Yes,” Victoria replied. “And that was an unfortunate mistake.”
My stomach twisted.
An unfortunate mistake?
Was she talking about my father’s death?
Or something far worse?
Suddenly, footsteps thundered through the hallway.
“Security!” Dr. Ibarra shouted.
Victoria moved quickly.
I heard glass shatter.
Someone screamed.
Then a loud crash shook the room.
I opened my eyes.
Victoria had knocked over a medical cart and was rushing toward the door.
For one terrifying second, she turned around.
Our eyes met.
She was older now, with gray streaks in her dark hair, but I recognized her face immediately.
And the expression she gave me was not surprise.
It was recognition.
As if she had known I was awake the entire time.
She smiled.
“Hello, Elena.”
Then she disappeared into the hallway.
Dr. Ibarra rushed after her, calling for security.
I was left trembling beneath the hospital blanket.
A nurse hurried inside.
“Mrs. Robles? Oh my God, you’re awake!”
I grabbed her wrist.
“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t let anyone give me anything without checking with Dr. Ibarra.”
Her expression changed.
“Don’t worry. Your medical orders are being reviewed, and a new physician is taking over your care.”
I tried to relax.
But then she leaned closer.
“There’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“Your husband left something behind before security escorted him away.”
She opened a drawer and removed a small black notebook.
I recognized it instantly.
Marcos carried that notebook everywhere.
He once told me it contained his business contacts.
He never allowed me to touch it.
“Why are you giving this to me?” I asked.
“Because when he dropped it, a photograph fell out.”
She opened the notebook.
Inside was a picture of my father standing beside Victoria.
But it wasn’t the photograph Dr. Ibarra had shown me.
This one was taken outside a courthouse.
And on the back, written in my husband’s handwriting, were four words.
“She knows about Elena.”
My mouth went dry.
“What does that mean?”
The nurse shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I turned the page.
There were dates.
Account numbers.
Names.
And payments.
Thousands of dollars transferred every month to someone identified only as V.A.
Victoria Alvarez.
My husband had been paying her.
Not recently.
Not just since my accident.
For almost three years.
Since shortly after our wedding.
My entire marriage had been connected to that woman.
I flipped through the pages faster.
Then I found an entry dated six months earlier.
The week my father died.
“Final payment approved. Arthur problem resolved.”
The notebook slipped from my hands.
My father hadn’t simply died.
Someone had been paid to make sure he never spoke again.
I began crying.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I finally understood how much of my life had been stolen.
My father had tried to warn me.
And I had defended Marcos.
I remembered our last argument.
Dad had grabbed my arm outside the Brooklyn house.
“Elena, please listen to me. That man isn’t who you think he is.”
I had pulled away.
“Marcos loves me, Dad. Why can’t you accept that?”
My father looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“Because I know why he married you.”
I had driven away angry.
Three weeks later, Dad was dead.
And I never got to apologize.
The hospital door opened again.
Dr. Ibarra returned with two security officers.
“Victoria escaped through the service stairwell,” he said. “But the police have been notified.”
I held up the notebook.
“You need to see this.”
He read the entries silently.
His jaw tightened.
“Where did you get it?”
“Marcos dropped it.”
Dr. Ibarra took a photograph of the pages before asking a security officer to preserve the notebook for investigators.
Then he pulled a chair beside my bed.
“Elena, there’s something your father wanted me to explain when you were safe.”
I wiped my tears.
“Tell me.”
He hesitated.
“Twenty years ago, your mother didn’t die from the illness you were told she had.”
My chest tightened.
“What happened?”
“Your father discovered that someone had been using her identity to access family accounts. He suspected Victoria.”
I stared at him.
“But my mother’s funeral…”
“The funeral was real, Elena. Your mother truly died. What wasn’t true was the story you were told about the circumstances.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you saying Victoria killed her?”
“I don’t know. Your father never proved that. But he spent twenty years investigating what happened.”
He opened the folder he had brought earlier.
Inside were old bank statements, letters, and a photograph of two young women standing side by side.
One was my mother.
The other was Victoria.
They looked almost identical.
“Victoria was your mother’s younger half-sister,” he said.
My hands began shaking.
“Aunt?”
“Yes. Your father believed she had been impersonating your mother in financial transactions long before your mother passed away.”
I stared at the photograph.
The same eyes.
The same smile.
The same silver bracelet.
Suddenly, something from my childhood returned.
I remembered waking up one night and hearing my parents fighting downstairs.
My mother had been crying.
“She wants my life, Arthur! She wants everything I have!”
My father had answered, “I won’t let her take Elena.”
The next morning, my mother disappeared into the hospital.
A week later, we buried her.
For twenty years, I had believed the simplest explanation.
Now every memory felt like a puzzle with missing pieces.
“Why would Victoria come back now?” I whispered.
Dr. Ibarra looked toward the window.
“Because of what’s hidden inside your father’s Brooklyn house.”
“The third yellow tile?”
He nodded.
“But the tile isn’t the only secret.”
He reached into his folder and removed a sealed letter.
My name was written across the front in my father’s handwriting.
I pressed the envelope against my chest.
For a moment, I could almost hear him calling me his little girl.
Then I opened it.
My dearest Elena,
If you’re reading this, it means I failed to protect you while I was alive.
There is something I should have told you twenty years ago.
Your mother knew that Victoria was stealing from our family. She was preparing to expose her when she suddenly became ill.
I never found enough evidence to prove what happened, but I kept every document I could.
The evidence is in the house. Not in the locked room, as I led everyone to believe, but behind the third yellow tile.
There is also something there that belongs to you. Something Victoria has spent twenty years trying to find.
Please forgive me for keeping the truth from you.
And remember this: the greatest danger isn’t always the person who threatens you. Sometimes it’s the person who stands beside you while someone else does.
I love you, Dad.
I couldn’t stop crying.
Dr. Ibarra waited quietly.
Finally, I looked up.
“I need to go to Brooklyn.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You’re still recovering, and someone just tried to interfere with your treatment.”
“But if Victoria knows about the tile…”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
He took out his phone.
“I’ve already contacted your father’s attorney. We can arrange for the property to be secured.”
Before he could make the call, his phone rang.
He looked at the screen and answered.
“Yes?”
His expression changed.
“What do you mean the house is burning?”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Dr. Ibarra slowly lowered the phone.
“Elena, the fire department was just dispatched to your father’s property.”
I pushed myself upright despite the pain shooting through my body.
“No! Everything is there!”
He caught my shoulders.
“Please, you can’t leave the hospital.”
But I wasn’t listening.
My father’s letters.
His photographs.
The yellow kitchen.
The last pieces of him I had left.
All of it could disappear.
Then his phone rang again.
He answered on speaker.
A man’s voice filled the room.
“Doctor, this is Detective Harris. We have a situation.”
“What happened?”
“The firefighters found evidence that the fire was deliberately started.”
I squeezed the blanket.
“Did they find anyone inside?”
The detective hesitated.
“Yes.”
My heart pounded.
“Who?”
“A woman. She’s alive, but she’s refusing to identify herself.”
Dr. Ibarra looked at me.
The detective continued.
“She keeps saying she needs to speak to Elena Robles immediately.”
“Is it Victoria?” I asked.
“No,” the detective replied. “This woman appears to be in her late seventies.”
I stared at Dr. Ibarra.
“Then who is she?”
The detective took a breath.
“She claims she was a nurse who worked for your family twenty years ago.”
My skin turned cold.
“And?”
“She says your father paid her to disappear after your mother’s funeral.”
I gripped the edge of the mattress.
“Why?”
The detective’s next words made the entire room seem to tilt.
“Because she claims the woman buried in your mother’s grave wasn’t your mother.”
I couldn’t speak.
Then the detective added one final sentence.
“And she says your real mother is still alive.”…..
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
