Chapter 4 - The Missing Passport
Daniel claimed he did not know where Camila’s passport was.
Carmen said the same thing.
Valeria stopped answering completely.
Lucía immediately notified the court.
Because Daniel had already threatened a custody action, the missing passport transformed a bad situation into something far more serious.
By the next morning, a temporary order prohibited either parent from taking Camila outside the country.
Daniel called it humiliating.
I called it necessary.
At 11:00, he finally agreed to meet me in Lucía’s conference room.
He arrived wearing the blue suit I had bought him for our anniversary.
The irony almost made me smile.
He sat across from me and stared as if he expected the woman he married to return the moment he asked politely enough.
“Mariana, we need to stop this.”
“Where is Camila’s passport?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did your mother know she had been outside for twenty minutes?”
He blinked.
“What?”
“She told us.”
“She was upset.”
“She was specific.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You are trying to turn my mother into a criminal.”
“No.”
I placed my hands on the table.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to my child while I was paying all of you to protect her.”
His jaw tightened.
“There you go again.”
“What?”
“Money.”
I stared at him.
“You brought up money while eating lobster bought with my card.”
“That dinner was for my father’s birthday.”
“It wasn’t his birthday.”
Silence.
Daniel looked toward his attorney.
His attorney looked down at his notes.
Lucía slid a printed bank statement across the table.
“What is this account?”
Daniel glanced at it.
“I don’t know.”
“620,000 pesos moved through transfers associated with your login credentials.”
His face changed for less than a second.
But I saw it.
So did Lucía.
Daniel pushed the paper back.
“I handled expenses.”
“For whom?”
“My family.”
“Your wife and daughter are your family.”
He stood.
“This conversation is over.”
His attorney told him to sit down.
He did not.
As he walked toward the door, I said his name.
Daniel stopped.
“Camila said you told her your mother needed the money more than she did.”
He turned around.
“That is not what I said.”
“What did you say?”
His eyes met mine.
Nothing came out.
That silence hurt more than any answer.
That evening, the bank called.
They had traced the mysterious account.
It belonged to a limited company registered eight months earlier.
The owner was Daniel.
The company had no employees.
No office.
No operating history.
But it had received hundreds of thousands of pesos from money I believed was being spent on my household.
And three weeks before I came home early, Daniel had submitted another document through that company.
An application for a large business loan.
The listed guarantor was me.
May you like
The signature looked like mine.
I had never signed it.
