Chapter 12 - Dr. Salgado’s File
The next breakthrough did not come from Salcedo.
It came from Valeria’s medical records.
Tomás noticed something unusual.
Two weeks before the staircase incident, Valeria had attended a routine prenatal checkup with Dr. Armando Salgado, the physician Esther insisted the family use.
The record stated Valeria complained of anxiety and insomnia.
Valeria denied ever saying that.
More disturbing was a prescription.
A strong sedating medication.
Valeria had never received it.
Tomás checked pharmacy data.
The prescription had been filled.
Someone collected it.
Security footage from the private pharmacy identified the person.
Marcela’s assistant.
Alejandro felt sick.
“What were they going to do with it?”
Tomás could not answer.
Then Inés remembered something.
The night before Valeria discovered the underground room, Marcela brought her tea upstairs.
Valeria drank only a few sips because it tasted strange.
She slept nearly twelve hours afterward.
Valeria stared at Tomás.
“You think they drugged me?”
“I think someone obtained medication in your name.”
“That is all we can prove right now.”
Camila obtained a warrant for Dr. Salgado’s office.
Investigators found altered records.
Payments from a Salcedo-linked company.
Emails from Esther’s assistant.
And one message from Marcela.
Need her calm until after the board vote.
Alejandro read it repeatedly.
“What board vote?”
His company’s annual controlling-share meeting.
Scheduled for the following month.
Valeria owned no Aranda shares.
But her unborn child would become a beneficiary under Ricardo’s family trust.
If Alejandro died or became incapacitated, the child’s legal guardian could eventually influence a significant voting block.
Marcela had spent years believing she was next in line after Alejandro.
Valeria’s pregnancy changed that.
Suddenly the cruelty made financial sense.
Alejandro looked at his mother.
Esther appeared genuinely horrified.
“I did not know about this.”
Camila did not react.
“Did you ask Dr. Salgado to document Valeria as emotionally unstable?”
Esther hesitated.
Alejandro stared at her.
“Mother.”
“Yes.”
Esther whispered.
“I thought she was creating conflict.”
Valeria laughed softly.
Not because anything was funny.
“So you wanted a medical record saying I was unstable.”
Esther looked ashamed.
“I never asked him to drug you.”
“No.”
Valeria replied.
“You just gave everyone around you permission to treat me like I was the problem.”
Dr. Salgado was arrested for falsifying medical records and conspiracy-related offenses.
Faced with prison, he began talking.
He admitted Marcela asked him how a pregnant woman might be temporarily sedated without obvious symptoms.
He refused to administer anything himself.
But he wrote the prescription.
Then he revealed something else.
Marcela had once asked him a similar question before.
May you like
Seven years earlier.
About Ricardo.
