Chapter 7 - The Other GranddaughterFor three seconds, no one moved.
The hospital room seemed to tilt around Mateo. The machines, the curtains, the officers outside, the soft cartoon still playing on the television — all of it became distant and unreal.
Laura was the first to speak.
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
Mateo stared at the dead phone in his hand.
Wrong granddaughter.
He dialed his mother again.
No answer.
He dialed his younger cousin Ana, whose eight-year-old daughter Sofía spent weekends at the grandmother’s house.
No answer.
He dialed Ana’s husband.
Nothing.
The silence became its own answer.
Detective Duarte was already moving when Mateo ran into the hallway. Officers turned. Nurses stepped back. Mateo’s voice cracked as he shouted, “They took Sofía.”
Duarte grabbed his radio. “Amber protocol. Female child, likely eight years old, name Sofía Valdés. Last known connection Coyoacán residence. Possible abduction network, suspect unknown male, armed status unknown.”
Mateo could hear the words, but he was not inside them. He was back at his mother’s house one year earlier, seeing Emiliano’s sneakers by the laundry sink. He was at Rebeca’s living room floor, holding a dust-covered hand. He was inside every moment he had trusted family because blood was supposed to mean safety.
Laura appeared in the doorway behind him.
“Mateo,” she said.
He turned.
Emiliano had started crying.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just silent tears sliding down his face while his thin arms wrapped around the dinosaur.
Mateo went back inside immediately.
His son looked at him with terror so old it did not belong on a child.
“He said he takes girls when boys talk,” Emiliano whispered.
Laura’s face broke.
Mateo sat beside him. “Who said that?”
“Santiago.”
“Santiago is in the hospital.”
Emiliano shook his head. “Not Santiago. The man with the ring.”
Duarte stepped closer. “What ring?”
The boy lifted one hand weakly and touched his own pinky finger. “Gold. With a black square.”
Duarte’s eyes sharpened.
Mateo noticed.
“You know it,” Mateo said.
Duarte did not answer at first. Then he turned to one of his officers. “Get me everything on Judge Octavio Marín.”
Laura stared. “A judge?”
Duarte’s jaw worked. “Retired. Wealthy. Connected. He owned several properties Santiago renovated.”
Mateo felt a sickness so deep it seemed to hollow his bones. “You think a judge is part of this?”
“I think a man with a gold signet ring appeared in two old witness statements from child disappearance cases,” Duarte said. “Both statements were dismissed.”
“By whom?”
Duarte’s face gave the answer before his mouth did.
“Judge Marín.”
Jimena stepped out from behind Laura. “He smelled like roses.”
Everyone looked at her.
The little girl’s voice was small but steady. “At Abuela’s house. The day Emi went away. I remember a man’s hand closing the laundry room door. He had a black ring. He smelled like roses.”
Mateo knelt in front of her. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Jimena’s lip trembled. “I did. I said there was a rose man. Abuela said I dreamed it.”
Mateo turned toward Laura.
They both remembered. Jimena, half-asleep on the sofa after Emiliano disappeared, mumbling about “the rose man.” Everyone thought shock had turned her words into nonsense.
Duarte crouched to Jimena’s level. “You did very well. Can you remember anything else?”
Jimena looked toward Emiliano.
Her brother nodded.
“He had a song,” she whispered.
“What song?”
She hummed six notes.
Emiliano began to shake.
Laura wrapped her arms around him carefully.
Duarte stood and went pale.
“What?” Mateo demanded.
“That song,” Duarte said. “It’s from an old ice cream cart.”
Mateo frowned. “So?”
“There’s a private security gate near your mother’s neighborhood. Witnesses reported an ice cream cart parked outside the day Emiliano disappeared. Police dismissed it because it was common in the area.”
Mateo’s voice was flat. “An ice cream cart.”
Duarte nodded grimly. “Or a disguise.”
The investigation widened faster than anyone could control.
By noon, police had located Ana and her husband in their apartment, unconscious but alive. Someone had drugged a bottle of juice delivered that morning with a note claiming it was from Abuela. Sofía had been taken from her bedroom. Her school backpack was missing. So were her shoes.
At 12:17 p.m., Mateo’s mother was found sitting on a bench outside a bus station in Puebla, shaking uncontrollably, clutching her rosary and a child’s hair ribbon.
She refused to speak until Mateo arrived.
Duarte advised against it.
Mateo ignored him.
Laura wanted to come, but Emiliano panicked when she moved toward the door. So she stayed, torn in two, with their children under police protection, while Mateo rode with Duarte to Puebla in an unmarked car.
For most of the drive, neither man spoke.
Then Duarte said, “This may not end cleanly.”
Mateo stared out the window. “It already didn’t.”
“You need to understand something. People like Marín survive because everyone around them is afraid of losing something. Jobs. Reputations. Freedom. Family.”
“My mother chose fear over my son.”
“Yes.”
Mateo looked at him. “You’re not going to soften that?”
“No.”
For some reason, Mateo respected him more for it.
At the station, his mother looked ten years older than she had the week before. Her silver hair was loose. Her hands trembled around the rosary. When Mateo entered, she began crying immediately.
He did not embrace her.
“Where is Sofía?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
She flinched.
Duarte sat beside Mateo but let him speak.
His mother wiped her face. “They called me last night after Rebeca was arrested. They said if I didn’t leave the house before police arrived, Sofía would be punished.”
“Who called?”
“A man.”
“The judge?”
She shut her eyes. “I never knew his name.”
Mateo slammed his palm onto the table. “My son was under a floor!”
“I know.”
“You knew he was taken through your laundry room.”
Her crying turned desperate. “I thought he was alive because I stayed quiet.”
Mateo stared at her, horrified.
She leaned forward. “They sent pictures, Mateo. Every month. Emiliano holding that day’s newspaper. They said if I told anyone, the pictures would stop. They said if the pictures stopped, it meant he was dead.”
Mateo’s anger faltered, replaced by something almost worse.
His mother had not known everything.
But she had known enough.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Because the first picture came with Jimena’s school schedule.”
Mateo stopped breathing.
Duarte’s expression darkened.
His mother sobbed. “They knew when Laura took her to preschool. They knew what dress she wore. They knew which window was her bedroom. I chose one child because they made me believe the other could still be saved.”
Mateo stood and walked away before grief made him forgive what should not be forgiven yet.
Duarte leaned toward her. “We need the photos. The messages. The numbers. Everything.”
She nodded weakly. “There is a box.”
“Where?”
“In the church.”
Mateo turned.
His mother looked at him.
“Behind the statue of Saint Jude,” she whispered. “I hid every picture. Every note. I thought one day, if God gave me courage, I would bring them to you.”
Mateo’s voice was barely audible.
“God gave courage to a five-year-old girl instead.”
His mother lowered her head.
At that exact moment, Duarte’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Mateo.
“They found the ice cream cart.”
Mateo stepped closer.
“Where?”
Duarte’s voice was tight.
“Outside a private school in Querétaro.”
May you like
Mateo’s stomach dropped.
Jimena’s school.
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