Chapter 10 - The Woman Behind the Accident
Police placed Gabriel under active surveillance.
He disappeared before they could reach him.
Again.
But the message gave investigators something they had never possessed.
A direct link between Gabriel and Sofía.
Meanwhile, federal forensic teams authenticated Luis Herrera’s recording.
The audio was genuine.
So were Vanessa’s emails.
The prosecutor officially reopened Elena Morales’s death as a suspected homicide conspiracy.
Roberto sat alone in Elena’s old study that night.
He had kept the room unchanged for three years.
Her books still stood on the shelves.
Her photograph remained beside the window.
For years, he had blamed himself for her death.
He had missed her call twenty minutes before the crash because he was in a meeting.
She left no voicemail.
Roberto had spent countless nights wondering whether answering might have changed something.
Now Detective Hale placed a recovered phone report on Elena’s desk.
“We found a backup.”
Roberto looked up.
“Her missing phone?”
“Not the phone.”
“Cloud data.”
One audio message had never synchronized correctly.
Technicians recovered it from an archived server.
The timestamp was 7:43 p.m.
Twenty-four minutes before the crash.
Roberto pressed play.
Elena’s voice filled the room.
“Roberto, I need you to call me.”
“She knows I found the invoices.”
“She keeps telling me I’m imagining things.”
“But Vanessa Alvarez is connected to Gabriel.”
“She was at the house again today.”
Roberto closed his eyes.
Elena continued.
“I’m going to meet Detective Hale tomorrow.”
“If anything happens to me, do not let Gabriel near Sofía.”
A pause.
Then one final sentence.
“And Roberto, Vanessa is not who she says she is.”
The message ended.
Roberto covered his face.
Hale said nothing.
No comfort could fix what that recording meant.
Elena had tried to warn him.
The system failed to deliver it.
Vanessa later entered his life under the same name Elena had spoken.
And Roberto never knew.
He had married the woman his dying wife feared.
The next morning, Vanessa was arrested.
Not for Elena’s murder.
Not yet.
She was charged with child endangerment, fraud related to the guardianship petition and unlawful administration of medication.
Cameras surrounded the courthouse.
Vanessa walked past them without looking afraid.
Her attorney requested bail.
The prosecutor played the nursery recording.
“She is the obstacle between me and everything I deserve.”
The judge denied immediate release pending further review.
Roberto thought he would feel relief.
Instead, Vanessa turned before officers led her away.
She looked directly at him.
Then she smiled.
Her lips formed three silent words.
Check the hospital.
Roberto froze.
“What did she say?”
Maya asked.
Roberto was already calling Dr. Keller.
Sofía’s birth records.
That was the only hospital connection he could imagine.
Twenty minutes later, Maya called him back.
Her voice sounded different.
“Roberto.”
“We found something in Sofía’s medical file.”
“What?”
“Three years ago, after the crash, someone requested authorization to discontinue one of her emergency treatments.”
Roberto went completely still.
“Who?”
Maya swallowed.
“The request was made using your credentials.”
“But you were unconscious in another hospital.”
Roberto stared at the wall.
Vanessa had not only known about the crash.
May you like
Someone had tried to interfere with Sofía’s treatment after it happened.
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