Chapter 13 - The Truth Sofia Carried
During a follow-up at the child advocacy center, Ms. Brooks told Mateo that Sofia had volunteered a memory of a woman standing beside a red truck near the road after the crash. The child believed the woman was Vanessa, though the memory was fragmentary and needed to be compared with other evidence.
She pushed her plate away. "Can I ask something bad?"
"You can ask anything."
"Did you love Vanessa more than Mommy?"
Mateo took a breath. "I loved your mother, and I loved Vanessa in a different way. But loving someone doesn't mean they're safe to be around. I was wrong to trust Vanessa without paying attention to what was happening to you."
Sofia looked down. "She said you married her because Mommy wasn't good enough. She said Mommy made you sad, and I made you sad too."
Mateo moved closer. "You never made me sad by being my daughter. I miss your mom. Sometimes I was tired or distracted, and I didn't notice what I should have. Those are my mistakes, not yours."
Sofia's eyes filled. "I thought if I was good, you'd come home earlier."
"I can't promise I'll never work late," he said. "But you won't have to earn my love, and I'll listen when you tell me something is wrong."
That evening, Detective Reyes brought a new update. Phone records placed Vanessa near Route 47 less than fifteen minutes after Ricardo's message about the collision. It did not prove she had been in the truck, but it contradicted her claim that she had been home.
"We're arranging separate interviews," Reyes said. "We need to establish what she saw and what she did afterward."
Mateo looked through the window. "Why would she do that to Sofia?"
May you like
"Fear, loyalty, money, resentment," Reyes replied. "We don't choose an explanation until the evidence supports it."
Sofia brought Mateo a drawing of three people beside a car: a woman with dark hair, a man in a square jacket, and a little girl holding a yellow rabbit. At the bottom she had written, MOMMY WASN'T ALONE.
