Chapter 5 - THE BLUE LEDGER
Mateo’s father, Ignacio Rivas, had never been a criminal.
At least, that was what Mateo had always believed.
Ignacio owned a modest construction supply company.
He worked six days a week.
He wore the same watch for twenty years.
He died in a highway accident when Mateo was nineteen and Rebeca was twenty-four.
Afterward, the company collapsed beneath debts nobody understood.
Their mother sold almost everything.
The family rarely discussed it.
Now Salgado placed an old newspaper clipping on the hospital cafeteria table.
The headline mentioned a municipal corruption investigation.
Ignacio Rivas had been scheduled to testify.
He died three days before his testimony.
Mateo read the article twice.
“Why have I never seen this?”
“The investigation was buried.”
“By whom?”
“People with money.”
Salgado pointed at a photograph.
Several businessmen stood beside a younger city official.
One of them was unmistakable.
Sebastián Varela’s father.
Mateo looked up.
“You think Emiliano was kidnapped over something my father had?”
“A ledger containing payments, contracts, names.”
“That was thirty-two years ago.”
“Evidence does not always stop being dangerous.”
Laura leaned against the table.
“But why would a seven-year-old know where it was?”
Salgado looked at Mateo.
“Maybe he saw something.”
Mateo thought back.
His mother had kept many of Ignacio’s belongings.
Old tools.
Photographs.
Documents.
Boxes stored in a locked room behind the laundry area.
A room Emiliano loved exploring.
He called it Grandpa’s treasure room.
Mateo’s pulse quickened.
Three weeks before his disappearance, Emiliano had given him an old brass key.
“I found this in Grandpa’s desk.”
Mateo had tossed it into a kitchen drawer.
He had forgotten completely.
Until now.
Salgado saw his expression.
“What?”
Mateo stood.
“We need to go to my mother’s house.”
The house in Coyoacán had remained mostly untouched since the kidnapping.
Mateo’s mother, Elena, could no longer sleep there.
She had moved into a small apartment with her sister.
By midnight, Salgado had obtained permission to search.
Mateo opened the old kitchen drawer.
The brass key was gone.
Laura looked at him.
“Who knew it was here?”
Mateo tried to remember.
His mother.
Laura.
Maybe Rebeca.
Possibly several relatives.
Salgado walked toward Ignacio’s old storage room.
Inside, dust covered the shelves.
Boxes leaned against one another.
Then Mateo noticed scratches around an old wooden cabinet.
Recent scratches.
Someone had opened it after Emiliano vanished.
Inside was a false wooden panel.
Behind it sat an empty rectangular space.
The exact size of a book.
Salgado stared at it.
“The ledger was here.”
Mateo shook his head.
“Then why keep Emiliano?”
A voice came from behind them.
“Because they never found it.”
Mateo turned.
His mother stood in the doorway.
Elena Rivas looked older than she had that morning.
Her eyes moved toward the empty compartment.
May you like
Then she whispered the sentence that changed everything.
“I know where Ignacio hid the real one.”
