Chapter 3
The silence of the mansion had always seemed artificial to me, as if the marble walls and Persian rugs absorbed any sound that might reveal that real people lived there.
I was in the library on the second floor, trying to concentrate on the pages of a book, seeking refuge from the oppressive atmosphere the house exuded whenever Eduardo wasn’t there.
That was when the sound tore through the stillness.
It wasn’t a thunderous noise, but a muffled, damp, and terribly heavy thud. The sound of something massive striking the stone, followed by an even denser and more unsettling silence.
I closed the book, feeling a sudden jolt of alarm, driven by a primal instinct that something was very wrong. I left the library and walked down the long hallway on the upper floor. My bare feet made no sound on the polished floor. When I reached the top of the main staircase, I hesitated.
I looked down.
The air was knocked out of my lungs all at once, as if I’d been punched in the stomach. The world spun around me, blurring out of focus, while my gaze was fixed on the terrifying scene downstairs.
Dona Eleonora lay sprawled in the center of the entrance hall, at the foot of the marble staircase. Her body was twisted at an unnatural angle. The ice-blue silk ensemble she wore was stained by a dark pool of blood spreading rapidly across the immaculate white floor.
Time stood still. I couldn’t scream. My throat seized up, choked by raw panic.
I ran down the steps, tripping over my own feet, slipping in my frantic rush to reach her. When I reached the bottom of the staircase, I fell to my knees beside her body. The impact of the hard floor bruised my legs, but the adrenaline numbed any physical pain.
“Dona Eleonora!” My voice finally came out, faltering, in a desperate sob. “Dona Eleonora, for God’s sake!”
I placed my trembling hands on her shoulders, trying to move her gently, afraid of making any injury worse.
Her skin, always so imposing and untouchable beneath layers of expensive makeup, was already beginning to take on a grayish, lifeless hue.
My fingers slipped in the warm blood pooling around her head, staining my hands and splattering the sleeves of my light-colored blouse.
Her eyes were half-closed, staring into the void, devoid of any sparkle.
“Help!” I screamed, my voice tearing at my throat, echoing off the empty walls of the house. “Someone help me! Call an ambulance! Please!”
Hurried footsteps echoed from all sides. The first to appear was Lurdes, the house’s longest-serving housekeeper. She stopped abruptly at the entrance to the hall, dropping the silver tray she was carrying. The clang of metal striking stone was deafening.
Lurdes clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. Her gaze darted quickly from her mistress’s broken body to me.
There I was. Kneeling over the body. With my hands covered in the blood of the woman who, as everyone in that house knew full well, hated me with all her might.
“What did you do?” Lurdes’s whisper was almost inaudible, but it carried the weight of a death sentence.
“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted back, despair eating away at me from the inside. “I found her like this! She fell! Lurdes, help me—call an ambulance!”
More staff members appeared. Two housekeepers began crying hysterically, clinging to each other in the corner of the room and recoiling at the sight.
Then Roberto, the head of security, burst through the double doors.
The imposing man in a dark suit, a radio earpiece tucked into one ear, brought me a brief moment of relief, but it evaporated beneath the icy coldness of his gaze.
Roberto instinctively drew his gun as he entered, but lowered it when he took in the scene. He strode forward, crouched down in front of me, and placed two fingers on Eleonora’s neck.
The silence that followed stretched into eternity.
“She has no pulse,” Roberto declared. His voice—mechanical and trained to handle chaos—couldn’t fully hide his shock. He looked up and stared at me. There was a relentless hardness in his gaze. “Step away from the body, Maria Rita. Don’t touch anything else.”
“Roberto, please… I heard a noise and came downstairs. I found her lying there…” I tried to stand up, but my legs were too weak. I stumbled backward, sitting down on the cold floor.
I saw the look Roberto exchanged with the housekeeper.
It wasn’t the look of someone trying to make sense of an accidental tragedy.
It was the look of someone who had just confirmed a suspicion.
To them, I had never been the boss’s wife; I was the unworthy intruder who had infiltrated the family.
The perfect script for the tragedy was already writing itself in the minds of everyone present.
Roberto raised his hand to the radio strapped to his shoulder.
“Dispatch, this is Roberto. Code Red. Call the police immediately. And… call Mr. Vasconcelos. Tell him he needs to come home right now.”
Hearing my husband’s name was the final blow.
My breath seized in my lungs, as if it were being crushed by a vise.
Just a few hours earlier, I had been safe in his arms, protected from the world.
At that moment, I was in the midst of a real nightmare, stained with his mother’s blood, under the accusing gaze of the staff.
“Eduardo…” I whispered into the void, hugging my knees. “Come get me, my love.”
The minutes that followed were a blur of chaotic movements that I watched from afar, trapped inside my own mind. The metallic smell of blood filled the air throughout the entire house.
The sound of sirens engulfed the property, shattering the funeral-like silence. Men in uniform stormed into the mansion. Heavy boots stomped where I had been tiptoeing. The paramedics simply confirmed the death, covering the body with a sheet that did nothing to hide the dark pool on the floor.
I was roughly lifted by a police officer and led to the sofa in the adjacent living room. I was shaking uncontrollably, my teeth chattering.
“Don’t wipe your hands,” the police officer ordered curtly.
From the room where I was, I could see the commotion in the hall.
An investigator in a suit was talking to Roberto and Lurdes.
The housekeeper was furtively pointing at me, whispering things I couldn’t hear, but could perfectly well guess.
She was gesturing, reenacting the countless arguments that Dona Eleonora had started against me ever since I arrived.
That family’s web of prejudice and hatred was beginning to tighten around my neck, turning public animosity into the perfect motive for a crime I didn’t commit.
The investigator approached. He had a calculating, cold gaze. He stopped in front of me and crossed his arms, observing the dried blood caked onto my skin.
“Mrs. Vasconcelos, I’m Detective Carvalho,” he said, his tone slow and skeptical. “We’re going to need you to come with us to the police station.”
“But I already told you!” I jumped to my feet, the injustice giving me strength. “I was reading upstairs! I only came down when I heard the noise! I didn’t see what happened!”
“That’s what you say,” he retorted, unflinching.
“But witnesses confirm that there was no one else in the house besides the servants, who were in the back. They also confirm that the victim intended to expel you from this family and that the hatred between the two of you was well known. And you were found right on top of the body, covered in the victim’s blood.
The forensic report will tell us whether it was an accidental fall or if she had help. ”
The entire room closed in around me. I was cornered. With no money of my own, no influence, and no one who could attest to my innocence.
“I’m not leaving here without my husband,” I declared, clinging to my last lifeline. “He knows who I am.”
“Well then,” the investigator said, looking over my shoulder. “Your husband just arrived.”
I turned my head with a jolt the very second the main doors swung open.
Eduardo stopped in the doorway. His jacket was unbuttoned, and his face—always so in control—wore the expression of a man whose world had been obliterated. He looked at the body under the sheet, at the police officers, at the crime scene tape.
Desperation drove me forward. I ran toward him, longing for the shelter of his arms.
“Eduardo!” I cried out, my face streaming with tears.
But when he lifted his head and his eyes met mine, I stopped abruptly midway. The chill that ran down my spine was worse than any police accusation.
There was no warmth in the gaze of the man I loved. When he looked at my hands, stained with his mother’s blood, the promise of eternal love cracked. What I saw reflected in those deep brown eyes was the beginning of a crushing hesitation.
He was doubting me.