Chapter 10 - ROOM SEVENDetective Chen told me to remain at the station. I argued until she said something that silenced me.
"If you arrive angry, Lorena will use that against you. Let us get your mother out."
The wait lasted thirty-one minutes. I counted every one.
Then Chen called again. "She's safe. Medical team is with her."
I sat down on the station floor and cried into my hands.
Later, I learned how it happened. A patrol deputy had heard movement behind Room Seven. Lorena opened the door claiming Mom was resting. When he asked to speak to Ruth alone, Lorena tried to close it. Other officers stepped forward. Mom was inside, groggy but conscious, sitting beside an overnight bag and a folder full of property documents.
At the hospital, Mom wrapped both arms around me.
"She said she'd put me somewhere you couldn't find me," she whispered. "I thought you'd believe her again."
"I won't."
"She told me you were ashamed of me. That I'd ruined your marriage."
"She lied. Every time."
Lorena was questioned, and Chen told me investigators were preparing additional evidence for the prosecutor. Carlos had disappeared. His truck was found abandoned near the creek.
Mom's new hospital room had a chair that unfolded into a narrow bed. I took it. When she woke from nightmares, I was there to remind her of the date, the place, and the fact that she was safe.
That night she asked for the blue tin. I played Dad's recording again. She listened with her eyes closed and smiled at his final words.
"He never told you the other part," she said.
"What other part?"
"He found out years ago that somebody was trying to borrow against the house. He wrote the name down."
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"Whose name?"
She opened her eyes. "Carlos's father."
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