## CHAPTER 4 ### The Nursery With No Windows
Rafael moved between his mother and my bed.
“What are you doing here?”
Camila ignored him.
Her eyes remained on me.
“Has anyone brought you medication in the last ten minutes?”
“No.”
“Has Dr. Chen left the floor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mother,” Rafael said sharply. “You cannot walk in here and make a claim like that without explaining yourself.”
Camila’s shoulders lowered.
For the first time since I had met her, she looked her age.
Not the immaculate matriarch from magazine covers. Not the woman who could silence an entire boardroom with one glance.
She looked frightened.
“Arturo contacted me after he left the estate,” she said.
“From where?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he want?”
“He told me to bring Elena home before sunrise.”
Rafael stared at her.
“Why?”
“He said the hospital would discover too much if she remained here.”
I watched Camila carefully.
“Did you push me?”
Her gaze moved toward the bracelet.
“No.”
“It was caught in my dress.”
“I lost it during the reception.”
“Where?”
“Near the west terrace.”
Rafael turned toward her.
“You told me you were in the ballroom when Elena fell.”
“I lied.”
My pulse quickened.
Camila stepped around her son.
“I followed Bianca onto the terrace. She was upset.”
“Why?”
“Vivian had said something to her.”
“What?”
“That Arturo planned to remove her from the family trust.”
Bianca had spent most of her adult life under the control of her father’s money. Arturo had paid for her apartments, her clothing, her failed business ventures and the private clinics where she disappeared whenever her behavior became too difficult for the family to explain.
“What did Bianca do?” I asked.
“She confronted Vivian. I pulled them apart.”
“Did Bianca push me?”
Camila looked toward the floor.
“I did not see who pushed you.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“The lights near the terrace went out. Someone grabbed my wrist. My bracelet broke. By the time the emergency lights came on, you were falling.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“Because I knew the cameras had been disabled.”
“How?”
Camila faced her son.
“Your father ordered Tomas to shut them down.”
Rafael looked as though she had struck him.
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I have spent thirty-four years not telling you things about your father.”
“That stops now.”
Camila flinched at the force in his voice.
I studied her silver gown.
The hem was wet and streaked with dirt. One sleeve had been torn at the cuff.
“What happened to you after we left?”
“Arturo’s men searched my rooms.”
“For what?”
“The vault key.”
“The code was written on the note,” I said.
Camila’s expression changed.
“What note?”
Rafael showed her.
She recognized the lipstick immediately.
“I did not write those numbers.”
“Whose lipstick is it?”
“Mine.”
“So someone used your lipstick?”
“Or pressed the note against a glass I had used.”
Daniel knocked from the hallway.
Camila’s eyes snapped toward the door.
“Do not let him in.”
Rafael unlocked it anyway.
Daniel entered with Detective Lila Moreno, a compact woman in her forties whose expression suggested she trusted no one in the room.
Daniel stopped when he saw Camila.
“You.”
Camila stepped backward.
“You should have stayed dead.”
“You first.”
Detective Moreno positioned herself between them.
“I’m going to remind everyone that this is an active investigation.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Are you all right?”
“For now.”
He noticed the mud on Camila’s dress.
“Where were you?”
“My home.”
“You came through the service entrance,” Detective Moreno said. “Hospital cameras show you arriving in a catering van.”
Camila’s face remained still.
“I believed Arturo’s men were following me.”
“Were they?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at Rafael.
“She’s not here to warn Elena. She’s here because she needs protection.”
Camila’s mouth tightened.
“Both can be true.”
Detective Moreno removed a small recorder.
“Mrs. Valdés, you told hospital security someone would try to take Elena’s baby. Explain.”
Camila sat slowly.
“The Valdés family has used St. Catherine’s for decades. Arturo donated the maternity wing. Several administrators owe their positions to him.”
Dr. Chen had seemed trustworthy, but I suddenly remembered the gold plaque outside the elevator.
THE ARTURO AND CAMILA VALDÉS MATERNAL CARE CENTER.
“He can’t simply take a baby from a hospital,” Rafael said.
Camila looked at him with pity.
“You still believe your father operates inside the rules.”
“What is his plan?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know all of it. Dr. Sloane was supposed to document Elena’s mental decline. The capacity assessment would allow Rafael to assume temporary control of the Hart Trust.”
“Rafael says he never intended to use it.”
“Intentions do not matter once a court order exists.”
Rafael’s face hardened.
“What did Father promise you?”
Camila did not answer.
“What did he threaten?” I asked.
That reached her.
Her hands folded together.
“He threatened Bianca.”
“With what?”
“Years ago, she was involved in an accident. Arturo made the evidence disappear.”
“What kind of accident?”
“A man died.”
Rafael stared at his mother.
“You told me he survived.”
“That was a lie.”
Camila’s voice cracked.
“Bianca was twenty-two. She had been drinking. The man stepped into the road. Arturo’s security moved the body and paid witnesses to say another vehicle had struck him.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Who was the victim?”
“Elias Ward.”
Daniel went still.
I noticed.
“You knew him.”
“He was my informant.”
The man wearing Daniel’s watch.
The man whose body we had buried.
“No,” I whispered.
Daniel turned toward Camila.
“You said he died in a car accident before the canyon.”
“He was still alive when Arturo’s men found him,” Camila said. “They placed him in Daniel’s car.”
The room seemed to contract.
Daniel gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles whitened.
“So Bianca hit him, and Arturo used his body to fake my death.”
“I did not know the full truth until later.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
For once, Camila did not defend herself.
Detective Moreno asked whether Bianca knew.
“She believes the man died at the scene,” Camila said. “Arturo has controlled her with that guilt ever since.”
“And tonight?” I asked.
“He told her Vivian had obtained the accident file and planned to release it.”
“Why would Vivian have it?”
“Because Arturo gave it to her.”
Rafael frowned.
“Why?”
“To provoke Bianca.”
Daniel released the chair.
“Arturo wanted chaos on the terrace.”
“He wanted witnesses distracted,” Camila said.
“While someone pushed Elena.”
“I think the original plan was to frighten her, not make her fall.”
I looked at the bloodstained remains of my gown.
“That distinction does not comfort me.”
Camila lowered her eyes.
“The terrace railing was removed this morning for repairs.”
Rafael swore quietly.
“Who authorized it?”
“Arturo.”
Detective Moreno turned off the recorder.
“We need to move Mrs. Valdés.”
“Where?” Rafael asked.
“Another hospital under an assumed name.”
Daniel nodded.
“I have a safe location.”
“No,” Camila said immediately. “Arturo knows your locations.”
“How?”
“Because the prosecutor who placed you in protection was working for him.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“The prosecutor disappeared.”
“He didn’t disappear. He lives in Madrid under a different name and receives quarterly payments from a Valdés account.”
For a moment, Daniel seemed unable to breathe.
Everything he had built his survival around was another lie.
A nurse entered and whispered to Detective Moreno.
The detective’s expression hardened.
“What happened?”
“Someone attempted to access Elena’s medication orders from a terminal on the third floor.”
“Who?”
“The login belongs to Dr. Sloane.”
“She’s here?” Rafael asked.
“The camera near the terminal was covered.”
Detective Moreno called for hospital security.
Dr. Chen arrived minutes later and ordered my IV replaced, my chart locked and all staff entering the room verified by identification.
We were moved to a private surgical recovery floor under the name Elena Martin.
Camila came with us.
Daniel objected, but Detective Moreno said no one was leaving until statements were complete.
At four thirty in the morning, Rafael received a message from Tomas.
One image.
The nursery at the Valdés estate.
Lucia’s white crib stood in the center of the darkened room.
A woman was seated in the rocking chair with her back to the camera.
Her hair was blond.
Vivian.
Across the nursery wall, written in red paint, were the words:
THE WRONG CHILD WILL INHERIT EVERYTHING.
Beneath the photograph was a second message.
Bring Elena home, or Vivian dies.
I stared at the image.
There were no windows in the nursery shown.
Our nursery had three tall windows overlooking the ocean.
“That isn’t our nursery,” I said.
Rafael enlarged the photograph.
The crib was identical. The rug was identical. Even the stuffed rabbit Daniel had given me before his disappearance sat in the corner.
But the room had no windows.
Camila made a sound like a breath catching.
“I know that room.”
“Where is it?” Daniel asked.
She looked at Rafael.
“When you were born, Arturo built a second nursery beneath the estate.”
My husband stared at her.
“Why?”
“You had a twin brother.”
Rafael laughed once, but there was no amusement in it.
“I did not have a twin.”
“Yes, you did.”
“What happened to him?”
Camila’s eyes filled with tears.
“He died before we left the hospital.”
“Then why build a nursery?”
“Because Arturo never believed the baby we buried was his son.”
The fetal monitor beside me accelerated with my pulse.
Rafael’s voice became very quiet.
“What are you saying?”
Camila looked at the photograph of Vivian trapped in the windowless room.
“I’m saying your father has spent thirty-five years searching for the child he believes was taken from us.”
Daniel zoomed in on the red writing.
The wrong child will inherit everything.
My brother looked at me.
“This isn’t only about Elena’s trust.”
“No,” Camila whispered. “It’s about Rafael.”
A second image appeared on his phone.
This one showed a man tied to a chair beside Vivian.
Dark hair. Scar over the eyebrow. Green eyes.
Daniel.
We all turned toward him.
He was standing in the room with us.
Yet the time stamp on the photograph showed it had been taken less than three minutes earlier.
Beneath it, Arturo had written:
May you like
ASK DANIEL WHICH BROTHER SURVIVED THE CANYON.
---
