Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN IN THE GRAVE
Wendy had been six years old when her mother died.
Her memories of Elena Reyes came in fragments: perfume on a scarf, red-painted fingernails tapping on a steering wheel, a song in Spanish sung while washing dishes.
The car accident happened on a wet road outside Oakhill. Lucía told Wendy that Elena died instantly. There had been a closed-casket funeral because of the injuries.
Wendy had never questioned it.
Amelia obtained the death certificate and archived accident report. Elena Reyes had been identified through a driver’s license found in the vehicle and confirmation from Lucía.
No DNA testing was performed.
That was not unusual for the time. There had been no apparent reason to doubt the victim’s identity.
The body was buried in the Reyes family plot.
Wendy sat in Amelia’s office holding the report.
“Gregory is trying to destabilize me.”
“Possibly.”
“Richard wants me to believe my mother survived?”
“Richard wants something. We need to separate that from whether the records contain genuine inconsistencies.”
The accident report noted that the vehicle was registered to Lucía but routinely used by Elena. A witness saw another car leaving the area, but police found no evidence of a collision between vehicles. The case remained a single-car accident.
One personal item was recovered that Wendy recognized.
A silver bracelet engraved with Elena’s initials.
The same design Lucía later gave Isabella for graduation.
Wendy drove home and searched old photographs.
In one picture, Isabella stood beneath the jacaranda tree at eighteen, holding up the bracelet while Lucía smiled beside her.
Wendy had thought it was merely a generous gift.
Now she noticed Lucía was not looking at Isabella’s face.
She was staring at the bracelet.
Isabella met Wendy at Amelia’s office with Priya present. She brought the damaged box of family records that had been left behind after the break-in. The intruder had taken most photographs but missed several envelopes hidden under the lining.
One contained Marina Marín’s birth certificate.
Marina had been born seven months after Lucía’s younger sister, Sofia, reportedly died overseas. The certificate listed Elena Marín as Marina’s mother. No father was named.
Another envelope contained a photograph of two young women beside the Oakhill jacaranda tree.
One was Lucía.
The other looked almost identical to Wendy’s mother.
Written on the back:
Lucía and Elena, before Richard made us choose.
“Richard was a child then,” Wendy said.
“Maybe it means his father,” Isabella replied.
“Or another Richard.”
Isabella’s voice carried none of the triumph she had shown in the garden. She looked exhausted, stripped of certainty.
“My mother never spoke about her childhood,” she said. “Whenever I asked about family, she said there were some doors that stayed closed because opening them could crush the people behind them.”
“Did she ever meet my grandmother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you know about any of this before Gregory?”
“No.”
Wendy studied her.
“I need you to understand that finding a family connection will not erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because there’s nothing else I can say.”
The forensic review of Isabella’s phone revealed one additional fact. On the night before the garden wedding, she had searched:
Can a contingent trust beneficiary transfer rights before verification?
She had known enough to question the plan.
Isabella did not deny it.
“I was scared Gregory had lied.”
“And you went through with it anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Tears filled Isabella’s eyes, but her voice remained steady.
“Because I had spent months destroying my life for the promise that I would finally have yours. Admitting the house might not be mine meant admitting I had become someone I hated for nothing.”
Wendy looked away.
It was not an excuse.
It was, however, an explanation she could believe.
Commonwealth Heritage Bank approved controlled access to Box 317 for Wendy as acting trustee, subject to legal review and the presence of a bank officer. Because of the disputed beneficiary claim, Amelia notified Priya and allowed Isabella to seek an order if she objected.
Isabella did not object.
The appointment was scheduled for Friday.
On Thursday night, someone entered the Oakhill house.
The alarm did not sound because the intruder used Gregory’s old code, which should have been disabled. The system log showed the code had been reactivated remotely through an administrator account linked to the security company.
Nothing valuable appeared missing.
But the wedding cake, still stored in a secondary refrigerator while payment disputes were resolved, had been removed and placed beneath the jacaranda tree.
The words G & I had been scraped away.
Carved into the icing were two new letters:
E & E.
Inside the empty cake box, Wendy found a photocopy of her mother’s death certificate.
May you like
Across it, someone had written:
ASK LUCÍA WHICH ELENA SHE BURIED.
