Chapter 4 - The Blue Car
By morning, I wanted out.
Ricardo wanted answers.
Leo wanted pancakes shaped like dinosaurs.
Somehow I ended up making breakfast while two armed men stood in the kitchen pretending not to watch me.
Leo sat on the counter coloring.
“What are you drawing?” I asked.
He held up a page.
A black truck. A woman with yellow hair. A red scribble. And behind them, a blue car.
Ricardo entered just as Leo pointed to the car.
“That one followed Mommy.”
The plate slipped from Ricardo’s hand and cracked against the counter.
“Leo,” he said carefully, “did you see who was in it?”
Leo’s face closed instantly.
I shook my head at Ricardo. Too much.
He backed off.
I crouched beside Leo. “You don’t have to tell us.”
Leo nodded, relieved.
Then he picked up a gray crayon and drew a small line above the blue car.
A scar.
Or maybe lightning.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Leo touched his own eyebrow.
My stomach turned.
Victor’s scar sat in the same place.
Ricardo saw it too.
He looked toward the doorway.
Victor wasn’t there.
“Where is he?” Ricardo asked.
One of the guards checked his phone. “Said he had to handle something downtown.”
Ricardo’s jaw tightened.
Without warning, every security monitor in the kitchen went black.
The lights flickered.
Then Leo’s stuffed fox began ringing.
Not chiming.
Ringing.
I picked it up and found a phone hidden inside the torn seam.
The screen showed one incoming call.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Ricardo answered.
May you like
Ricardo picked up the broken plate without seeming to notice the sharp edge against his palm. That small detail stayed with me. He was a man built around control, yet one child's crayon drawing had knocked something loose. I realized then that whatever people said about him, Sofia's death was not a story he had finished grieving. It was an open wound everyone around him had learned not to touch.
A distorted voice said, “Stop asking the boy questions.”
