Chapter 9 - WHAT JIMENA REMEMBERED
Mateo sat beside his daughter in a quiet hospital playroom.
Jimena colored a picture of two children holding hands beneath a yellow sun.
Mateo waited.
He had learned during the past year that pushing a frightened child rarely produced truth.
It produced whatever answer the child believed adults wanted.
So he started somewhere safe.
“Do you remember Grandpa’s little wooden house?”
Jimena nodded.
“Emi liked it.”
“Did you play with it too?”
Another nod.
“Do you remember a blue book?”
Her crayon stopped.
Mateo felt his heartbeat change.
Jimena looked at the closed door.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She put down the crayon.
“Emi told me it was treasure.”
“What did he do with it?”
“He said Aunt Rebeca wanted it.”
Mateo swallowed.
“How did he know?”
“He heard her talking to the man.”
“What man?”
“The man who smelled like cigars.”
Sebastián.
Jimena continued.
“Emi said the book was bad treasure.”
Mateo leaned closer.
“What happened next?”
“He gave it to me.”
“Where did you put it?”
Jimena’s small forehead wrinkled.
“I hid it where monsters can’t reach.”
Mateo nearly smiled despite everything.
“Where is that?”
She looked embarrassed.
“In Grandma’s church.”
Mateo stared.
“What church?”
“The little one.”
Then he understood.
Elena had a small wooden shrine in her bedroom.
Inside stood a porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary with a hollow base.
Jimena had played near it for years.
Mateo called Salgado immediately.
Police reached Elena’s house forty minutes later.
The statue was still on the dresser.
Salgado lifted it carefully.
Something rattled inside.
The bottom had been sealed with old tape.
Mateo peeled it away.
A tightly rolled blue ledger slid into his palm.
For thirty-two years, men had lied, stolen, threatened, and possibly killed for those pages.
For eleven months, Emiliano had been imprisoned because he had refused to betray the place his little sister chose.
Salgado opened the cover.
Ignacio Rivas’s handwriting filled the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Contract numbers.
Then Mateo saw one name repeated dozens of times.
Alonso Varela.
Sebastián’s father.
But another surname appeared beside it.
One Mateo knew very well.
He read it twice.
Then looked at Salgado.
“That can’t be right.”
Salgado’s expression hardened.
The second name belonged to Ernesto Rivas.
May you like
Mateo’s uncle.
His father’s own brother.
