For nearly three weeks, the Salazar mansion in the hills of Lomas de Chapultepec, in Mexico City, had been on a silent blacklist. Domestic service agencies didn’t say the house was dangerous, not officially, but every woman who went in came out different. Some cried. Others screamed. One locked herself in the laundry room until security had to drag her out.
The last caregiver ran barefoot out the front door at dawn, green paint dripping from her hair, screaming that the girls were possessed and that the walls had ears when you slept.
From the windows of his office, Javier Salazar, thirty-seven, watched the taxi disappear behind the electric gate. He was the founder of a publicly traded cybersecurity company, a man interviewed weekly by business magazines, but none of that mattered when he turned around and heard the sound of something breaking upstairs.
A family photograph taken four years earlier hung on the wall. Mariana, his wife, beaming and laughing, knelt in the sand while their six daughters clung to her dress, sunburnt and happy. Javier touched the frame with his fingertips.
“I’m letting them down,” he murmured to the empty room.
His phone rang. Esteban Lozano, his operations manager, spoke with extreme caution.
“Sir, no licensed nanny is accepting the position. The legal department asked me to stop calling.”
Javier exhaled slowly.
“Then we won’t be hiring a nanny.”
“There’s one option left,” Esteban replied. “A residential cleaner. She doesn’t have a childcare background.”
Javier looked out the window at the backyard, where toys lay broken among withered plants and overturned chairs.
“Hire whoever says yes.”
On the other side of the city, in a cramped apartment near Iztapalapa, twenty-six-year-old Lucía Morales adjusted her worn sneakers and crammed her psychology books into a backpack. She cleaned houses six days a week and studied childhood trauma at night, driven by a past she almost never spoke of.
When she was seventeen, her younger brother died in a house fire. Since then, fear no longer startled her. Silence didn’t frighten her. Pain felt familiar.
Her cell phone vibrated. The agency supervisor’s voice was hurried.
“Emergency placement. Private residence. Immediate start. Triple pay.”
Lucía glanced at the university receipt stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet.
“Send me the address.”
The Salazar house was beautiful in the way money always is. Clean lines, a view of the city, perfectly manicured gardens. Inside, she felt abandoned. The guard opened the gate and murmured,
“Good luck.”
Javier greeted her with dark circles under his eyes.
“The job is just cleaning,” he said quickly. “My daughters are in mourning. I can’t promise peace and quiet.”
A thud echoed upstairs, followed by a laugh so sharp it cut through the air.
Lucía nodded.
“I’m not afraid of mourning.”
Six girls watched from the stairs. Helena, twelve, stiff posture. Paula, ten, tugging at her sleeves. Inés, nine, with a restless look. Julia, eight, pale and silent. The twins Clara and María, six, smiling too deliberately. And Sofía, three, clutching a torn stuffed rabbit.
“I’m Lucía,” she said calmly. “I’m here to clean.”
Helena stepped forward.
“You’re number thirty-eight.”
Lucía smiled, unfazed.
“Then I’ll start with the kitchen.”
She noticed the photographs taped to the refrigerator. Mariana cooking. Mariana asleep in a hospital bed, holding Sofía.
Grief wasn’t hidden in that house. It lived in plain sight.
FULL PART
For almost three weeks, the Montoya residence, located in the hills of Santa Fe, Mexico City, had been discreetly blacklisted.
Domestic service agencies never said the house was dangerous, not officially, but every woman who entered came out changed.
Some cried.
Others screamed.
One locked herself in the laundry room until security had to escort her out.
The last caregiver ran barefoot out the front door at dawn, green paint dripping from her hair, screaming that the girls were possessed and that the walls had ears when you slept.
From the glass doors of his office, thirty-seven-year-old Alejandro Montoya watched the taxi disappear behind the electric gate.
He was the founder of a cybersecurity company listed on the Mexican stock exchange, a man interviewed weekly by financial magazines, but none of that mattered when he turned around and heard the sound of something breaking upstairs.
A family photograph taken four years earlier hung on the wall.
His wife, Isabel, radiant and laughing, was kneeling in the
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