Chapter 2: Secrets Buried in the Vineyard
By noon, the summer sun was beating down mercilessly over our family estate, Hacienda de las Sombras. The vast estate had belonged to my family for four generations. When my parents died in a tragic carriage accident eight years ago, the estate was split between my younger brother Mateo and me.
Esteban had been a godsend back then. He had stepped in, managed the estate’s finances, overhauled the wine cellars, and helped Mateo learn how to run the vineyards. Everyone loved him. The local villagers thought he was a saint for marrying into a family struck by tragedy and lifting us back up.
Now, walking through the sun-drenched corridors, every portrait of my ancestors seemed to stare down at me with pity.
I needed to talk to Lucía alone.
Mateo was out in the northern fields inspecting the early harvest. Esteban had announced he was heading into town to fetch supplies and speak with the local notary regarding some estate paperwork—a routine task he performed every month.
As soon as Esteban’s black horse galloped down the main dirt road toward the village, I sprinted to the east wing.
The east wing was the oldest part of the house, built over ancient stone foundations that predated the mansion itself. The air here was always cooler, smelling faintly of damp earth and old oak.
I slammed open the door to Mateo and Lucía’s bedroom.
Lucía was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. She wasn’t weeping. She wasn’t reading. She was simply sitting, staring at the floorboards, holding that same pillow tightly in her lap.
“Lucía,” I gasped, rushing inside and locking the door behind me.
She lifted her head. Her dark eyes were hollow, ringed with heavy black circles. “You heard it last night,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Who was at the door?” I demanded, dropping to my knees before her, taking her cold hands in mine. “Lucía, please! You have to tell me what is going on. What was that sound? Why were you holding me down? What do you know about Esteban?”
Lucía swallowed hard, her eyes darting toward the window as if expecting Esteban to materialize out of thin air.
“If I tell you, you won’t believe me,” she whispered. “Just like Mateo didn’t.”
“I saw his face this morning, Lucía!” my voice cracked with emotion. “I felt the chill in the room! I saw the way he looked at you! Please… I am terrified in my own home. Tell me!”
Lucía took a ragged breath. She leaned in close, her breath smelling of bitter chamomile tea.
“Two weeks ago… three days after Mateo and I were married,” she began, her voice dropping to a trembling murmur, “I couldn’t sleep. Mateo was sleeping heavily beside me. I got up to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen down in the basement level.”
“The wine cellar level?” I asked.
“Yes. As I reached the bottom of the stone staircase, I saw a light flickering in the old storage room—the one behind the wine casks that is always kept locked.”
My mind raced. “That room has been locked since my father died. Esteban keeps the key. He said the structure beneath it was caving in and dangerous.”
“It isn’t caving in,” Lucía said, her eyes wide with terror. “The door was standing half-open. I saw Esteban inside. He was kneeling on the floor, holding an old leather-bound ledger and a heavy iron box. But that wasn’t what terrified me, Elena.”
“What was it?”
“He was talking to someone. A man standing in the dark shadows of the alcove. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but I heard what Esteban said to him.”
Lucía squeezed my hands so hard her knuckles turned white.
“‘She’s becoming suspicious,’ Esteban told the man,” Lucía quoted, her voice quivering. “‘Elena is starting to ask questions about her mother’s inheritance. The doses of the digitalis tincture in her tea are taking too long. She has a strong heart.'”
A violent chill coursed down my spine. Digitalis tincture.
For the past six months, I had been experiencing random bouts of dizziness, heart palpitations, and extreme fatigue. Esteban had been so attentive, bringing me a warm cup of herbal tea every night before bed, telling me to rest, telling me my body was reacting to stress.
“My tea…” I breathed, the world spinning around me. “He’s poisoning me?”
“It gets worse,” Lucía sobbed silently, a tear finally escaping her eye. “The man in the dark answered him. He said, ‘If the poison is too slow, eliminate her the old-fashioned way. Make it look like an accident in her sleep. Once she is dead, her half of the estate passes to you. Then we deal with the brother.'”
I felt as though the floor beneath me had dissolved, plunging me into a dark, bottomless abyss. Twelve years of marriage. Twelve years of shared laughter, quiet evenings, whispered promises of growing old together. All of it… a calculated, long-term slaughter.
“Why didn’t you go to the police? Why didn’t you tell Mateo?” I cried.
“I did tell Mateo!” Lucía wept. “The next morning, I told him everything! And do you know what Mateo did? He laughed. He took me in his arms and told me I was having stress-induced night terrors. He told me that Esteban was like a father to him, that Esteban had saved our family from financial ruin. Mateo thought I was going crazy, Elena! He offered to call a doctor from the city to have me evaluated!”
She looked at me with pure desperation.
“I knew if I stayed in my bed, Esteban would kill you first, and then he would kill Mateo and frame me as the crazy bride. I realized the only way to stop him from slitting your throat or suffocating you in your sleep was to be there. Right between you.”
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
Esteban couldn’t slip poison into my drink if Lucía was constantly watching. He couldn’t smother me with a pillow or fake a nighttime stroke if there was an unpredictable third person sleeping directly beside us, watching his every move in the dark.
“Every night,” Lucía whispered, “he comes to the door. He checks if I’m asleep. He brought a key last night to unlock the bedroom door quietly. He wanted to enter while you were asleep, drag me out, or… do something to me so he could get to you. But as long as I stay awake, as long as I lay between you… he can’t do it without a struggle that would wake the entire house.”
I pulled Lucía into a fierce, desperate embrace. The woman I had judged, the woman I had thought was an intruder in my life, was the only thing standing between me and the grave.
“We have to get Mateo,” I said, pulling back, my panic turning into a hard, cold rage. “We have to show him the truth.”
“Mateo won’t believe us without physical proof,” Lucía warned. “Esteban has groomed him for eight years. To Mateo, Esteban is flawless.”
“Then we find the physical proof,” I said, standing up. “The iron box in the cellar.”
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