Chương 2
“You put her in a cage.”
Sofía’s face changed, not into guilt but into something harder.
“I kept her alive.”
Elena almost struck her.
The impulse passed through her shoulder and down her fist. She saw Sofía see it. The younger officer took one cautious step toward them.
Teresa turned her head on the stretcher.
“Stop fighting,” she said. “Your father is sleeping.”
Their father had been dead for eleven years.
The sentence left both sisters silent.
At San Jerónimo Hospital, the emergency department smelled of disinfectant and microwaved soup. Elena stood in a hallway while a nurse cut away the sleeve of Teresa’s dress to examine her arm. Sofía sat in a plastic chair across from the vending machines, red heels aligned neatly beneath her knees. Benítez waited beside a potted plant whose leaves were coated in dust.
Lucía, the maid from the hacienda, had ridden in the second police vehicle. She remained near the entrance, holding a canvas purse against her stomach. She had worked for the Vargas family since Elena was twelve and had been old even then, though Elena now understood that Lucía had probably been younger than Elena was today.
The nurse asked Teresa what year it was.
Teresa answered correctly.
Then she said the president was a man who had left office long ago.
She knew her daughters’ names but called Sofía “my older girl” and Elena “the one who never sits down.” When asked where she lived, she gave the address of the small house where the family had stayed while the hacienda roof was rebuilt after a hurricane. Elena had been nine.
A doctor named Valdés ordered blood work, imaging, and a toxicology screen. He spoke softly to Teresa and sharply to everyone else.
“How long was she confined?”
Sofía answered, “She was not confined continuously.”
Elena said, “There is no acceptable end to that sentence.”
Dr. Valdés lifted a hand without looking at either of them. “How long?”
Sofía pressed her lips together.
“Since last night.”
Lucía looked down.
Elena saw it.
“How long?” she repeated.
Sofía turned toward the maid. “Lucía.”
Lucía’s fingers tightened around her purse.
“Señora Teresa has been sleeping there for three nights.”
The hallway seemed to narrow.
“Three nights?” Elena said.
“Not all day. Only when Señora Sofía could not watch her.”
Sofía stood. “That is not true.”
Lucía flinched.
“You told me to take meals there.”
“I told you to make sure she ate.”
“Through the bars?”
A man at the vending machine looked over. Sofía lowered her voice.
“You have no idea what you’re saying.”
Lucía’s mouth trembled, but she continued. “She cried the second night. She asked for the bathroom. I opened the door.”
“You opened it?” Sofía said.
“Yes.”
“You told me you did not.”
“I lied.”
“And she wandered into the road.”
“She went to the chapel.”
“She crossed the road to get there.”
“There were no cars.”
“You don’t know that.”
Dr. Valdés stepped between them. “Not here.”
A security guard appeared at the end of the hall. He did not approach, but his presence had the intended effect.
Sofía sat again.
Elena leaned against the wall. Her fingers smelled of the cage. She rubbed them against the fabric of her trousers until the nurse returned and told them Teresa had signs of dehydration, bruising consistent with falls or restraint, and medication in her system that had not yet been identified.
“What medication?” Elena asked.
“We’re waiting on the screen.”
“She takes something for sleep,” Sofía said.
“What?”
“I don’t know the generic name.”
“You give it to her and you don’t know the name?”
“It’s in the kitchen cabinet.”
“Who prescribed it?”
“Dr. Cárdenas.”
Elena looked at Valdés.
He wrote the name down. “We’ll verify.”
Sofía’s laugh was quiet and humorless. “There. You see? Verification. That thing you skipped before deciding I was a monster.”
Elena pushed away from the wall.
“You built a cage in the courtyard.”
“I had a secure enclosure built after she left the house at three in the morning and nearly walked into the river.”
“A locked bedroom would have been bad enough.”
“She broke a window.”
“Then you hire help.”
“With what money?”
Elena stared at her.
Sofía looked away first.
The Vargas family still owned six hundred acres of lime and mango groves, though drought, disease, and bad management had reduced their value year by year. The hacienda had once employed forty families. Now it employed eleven people during harvest and five the rest of the year. Elena sent money every month from her military salary. Sofía had never told her it was insufficient.
“How much debt?” Elena asked.
“This is not the place.”
“How much?”
“I said not here.”
Benítez cleared his throat. “We will need access to the medication, the enclosure, and any medical or financial documents related to Señora Teresa’s care.”
Sofía looked at him as though he were a waiter who had interrupted dinner.
“You already entered my home without a warrant.”
“You invited us into the courtyard.”
“I invited you to help find my mother after Lucía claimed she was missing.”
Lucía whispered, “I did not claim that.”
Benítez turned to her. “What did you report?”
Lucía took a breath.
“I said Señora Teresa was locked in a cage.”
Sofía’s red shoe began tapping against the floor.
“And you used my phone,” she said.
“Yes.”
“After I told you not to touch anything in my office.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lucía looked toward the treatment room.
“Because she asked me to.”
May you like
The toxicology screen showed a sedative used to treat severe anxiety and insomnia. The dose in Teresa’s blood was higher than her recorded prescription. Dr. Cárdenas had prescribed half a tablet at night, only as needed. Sofía said Teresa must have taken extra pills herself. Lucía said the medicine cabinet had been locked for months.
The police took Sofía’s statement in a small consultation room. Elena was not allowed inside. She paced the corridor until a nurse asked her to stop because the soles of her combat boots squeaked.
