Chapter 17 - The Witness Who Found Her Voice
I showed the message to the investigator before I showed it to Mateo. I had finally learned that acting first wasn't the same as helping first.
Marta was found that afternoon at her sister's apartment. She hadn't been taken. She'd fled after a stranger followed her from work and left an envelope of cash under her windshield wiper. Inside was a note telling her to forget what she'd seen.
"I thought if I accepted it, maybe they'd leave me alone," she told the investigator. "But then I thought about Sara. If somebody did this to my mom, I'd want a stranger to speak up."
Marta gave her statement, the envelope, and access to the records she'd preserved. Investigators compared the timestamps with Andrés's office logs and the hospital transfer attempts. They were building a picture of coordination, not one isolated error.
I went home and repaired the loose kitchen window with Mateo. We worked side by side for an hour before he spoke.
"Claudia says she's going to leave me."
"Do you want her to stay?"
"I don't know who she is anymore. Maybe I never asked enough questions."
"Then start with the ones you ask yourself."
He dropped a screw. I picked it up. Teresa came by after sunset with a copy of an authorized records summary. The physician named on Sara's disputed medication list had confirmed he hadn't approved the added entries. Someone had used his details without permission. Investigators were tracing who created the document.
"Claudia said she'd make sure Sara wouldn't last the night," I said quietly.
"Tell the prosecutor exactly that. It matters as a threat, even if we can't infer the entire mechanism from it."
Her phone buzzed again. This time she didn't step outside.
May you like
"Andrés Vidal has been detained for questioning," she said. "He asked for a lawyer."
Then she added, "He also asked whether Claudia had already left Spain."
