## CHAPTER 8 — THE ENVELOPE AT THE SHELTER
The applause was still echoing when the first threat arrived.
I had just stepped away from the podium, Mateo sleeping peacefully against my chest, when Daniel Cruz, the head of security for the Salazar Foundation, moved through the crowd toward me.
His face was calm.
His eyes were not.
“Ms. Salazar,” he said quietly. “We need to go inside.”
My father noticed Daniel’s expression and immediately joined us.
“What happened?”
Daniel did not answer until we were inside the shelter’s administrative office with the door locked behind us.
Then he placed a cream-colored envelope on the desk.
No stamp.
No return address.
Only my name written across the front.
The handwriting was thin and precise.
My father reached for it, but Daniel stopped him.
“It was left inside Mateo’s stroller.”
My blood turned cold.
“That stroller never left the security area.”
“I know.”
I looked down at my son.
His tiny fist was curled against my dress. He had slept through the speeches, the cameras, and the applause.
Someone had stood close enough to touch him.
Daniel opened the envelope using gloves.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Mateo in the hospital nursery on the morning he was born.
He was lying beneath a warming lamp, wearing the pale blue cap one of the nurses had placed on his head.
A woman stood beside his crib.
She wore a white uniform and a surgical mask.
But her eyes were visible.
I recognized them immediately.
“She helped me during the delivery,” I whispered. “Her name was Sofia.”
Daniel turned the photograph over.
A message had been written on the back.
THE WOMAN WHO SAVED YOUR SON IS MISSING.
Below that was another sentence.
ASK YOUR FATHER WHAT HAPPENED AT SANTA AURELIA HOSPITAL.
My father sat down slowly.
The color drained from his face.
I stared at him.
“What is Santa Aurelia?”
He did not answer.
“Dad.”
His hands tightened around the edge of the desk.
“It was a maternity hospital.”
“Was?”
“It closed twenty-eight years ago.”
Daniel examined the photograph.
“This picture was taken three months ago.”
“I know,” my father said.
The fear in his voice frightened me more than the message.
I stepped closer.
“What happened there?”
My father looked at Mateo before looking back at me.
“Your mother disappeared from Santa Aurelia Hospital.”
I could barely breathe.
“You told me she died in a car accident.”
“I told you what I needed you to believe.”
The office suddenly felt too small.
Too quiet.
I took one step away from him.
“You lied to me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From whom?”
Before he could answer, Daniel’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
Then he looked at my father.
“We identified the nurse in the photograph.”
“Sofia?” I asked.
Daniel nodded.
“Sofia Mendez.”
“Then find her.”
“That may be difficult.”
He placed his phone on the desk.
The screen showed an archived death certificate.
Sofia Mendez had officially died eight years earlier.
My father stared at the document.
Then he whispered the words that changed everything.
May you like
“She was there the night you were born.”
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