Chapter 16 - THE ADOPTION FILE
Alejandro agreed to meet Valerie with Detective Brooks present.
They sat across from each other in a secure interview room.
Valerie looked thinner.
Her perfect hair had been cut short.
No diamonds remained on her wrists.
She studied Alejandro.
“You look tired.”
“Talk about the adoption file.”
“You never ask how I am.”
“You poisoned my daughter.”
Valerie’s expression hardened.
“She was never supposed to become seriously ill.”
“You keep saying what was not supposed to happen.”
“Daniel was not supposed to die.”
“Marissa was not supposed to die.”
“Sophie was not supposed to develop pneumonia.”
“But you made choices that allowed every one of those things.”
Valerie looked away.
Then she revealed that Marissa never completed one final adoption document.
Alejandro’s legal adoption was valid.
However, the trust required a separate acknowledgment from Daniel’s estate.
Martin removed the document.
Without it, he could challenge the transfer of ownership and claim the recovered money belonged to the insurance company.
“Where is the original?” Brooks asked.
“Marissa hid it.”
“Where?”
“Inside Sophie’s mother-daughter journal.”
Alejandro remembered the small blue book Sophie kept in a locked drawer.
Valerie had repeatedly asked where it was.
Sophie refused to tell her.
The journal remained inside Rosa’s house in San Antonio.
Police retrieved it.
Between two pages was the original estate acknowledgment signed by Daniel before his death.
It named Marissa as guardian and Alejandro as successor guardian.
The trust legally belonged to Sophie.
Martin’s final financial argument collapsed.
Alejandro looked at Valerie through the interview glass.
“Why tell us?”
“Because Martin will blame me for everything.”
“You are responsible for enough without his lies.”
“I want Sophie to know I did one thing to help her.”
“She does not owe you that memory.”
Valerie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Did she ever love me?”
Alejandro thought of Sophie flinching beneath the blanket.
“She wanted to.”
The answer broke Valerie more completely than hatred could have.
She agreed to testify against Martin and Raymond.
In exchange, prosecutors considered her cooperation but did not promise freedom.
Before the meeting ended, Valerie leaned closer.
“There is one thing you still do not understand.”
“What?”
“I did not place the first bottle in Sophie’s medicine cabinet.”
“Who did?”
“Dr. Harris.”
Alejandro stared at her.
Valerie continued.
“Claudia knew Sophie’s trust deadline.”
“She wanted the child sick enough to delay every court hearing.”
Detective Brooks immediately left the room.
Dr. Harris had vanished from her clinic.
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Her car was found near the Dallas airport.
Inside was a passport, cash, and a one-way ticket to Mexico City.
