Chapter 6 - THE SECRET HIS MOTHER KEPT
Mateo stared at his mother.
“You knew?”
Elena lowered herself into an old chair.
“I knew there were two ledgers.”
Salgado closed the door behind them.
“Explain.”
Elena folded her hands.
“Ignacio realized someone inside his company was copying records.”
“So he created a false ledger.”
“Yes.”
“He left it where anyone searching would find it.”
“And the real one?”
Elena looked at Mateo.
“He told me he had hidden it where only a child would think to look.”
Mateo’s anger rose again.
“You let us search for Emiliano for eleven months without telling police this?”
“I didn’t know it was connected.”
“Your grandson disappeared from the same house where a corruption ledger was hidden.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was he.”
Elena flinched.
Mateo immediately regretted the cruelty in his tone.
But he could not take it back.
Everyone’s fear had become Emiliano’s prison.
Salgado crouched beside Elena.
“What did Ignacio mean by a place only a child would look?”
“I never knew.”
Mateo looked around the room.
His eyes landed on a box of old toys.
A wooden train.
Marbles.
Broken action figures.
Then he remembered Emiliano sitting on this floor months before he vanished.
The boy had discovered a small model house Ignacio built for Rebeca when she was a child.
It had a removable roof.
Tiny windows.
A miniature staircase.
Mateo crossed the room.
The model house was gone.
“Mom.”
Elena looked up.
“Where is Dad’s dollhouse?”
Her expression changed.
“It should be there.”
“It isn’t.”
Salgado stood.
“Who took it?”
Nobody answered.
Mateo pulled out his phone and searched through old family photographs.
He found one taken at Christmas.
Emiliano was sitting beside the model house.
Its tiny roof had been removed.
Inside, he was holding something blue.
Mateo zoomed in.
Laura leaned over his shoulder.
“Oh my God.”
The photograph had been taken six weeks before Emiliano vanished.
Mateo remembered Emiliano trying to show adults something during dinner.
Everyone had been talking.
Nobody listened.
Except perhaps Rebeca.
Salgado stared at the image.
“Your son found the ledger.”
Mateo’s stomach tightened.
“And Sebastián found out.”
A sound came from outside.
A floorboard creaked.
Salgado immediately reached for his weapon.
“Police.”
Silence.
Then footsteps ran toward the back door.
Mateo chased them.
He reached the patio just as a hooded figure climbed over the wall.
“Stop.”
Salgado fired no shot.
The intruder disappeared into the alley.
But something had fallen from his jacket.
A cell phone.
Salgado picked it up using a handkerchief.
The screen was cracked but still glowing.
A message had arrived seconds earlier.
The sender had no name.
Only a number.
May you like
The message contained four words.
FINISH THE BOY TONIGHT.
