Chapter 5 - My Signature
Forgery looks strange when it wears your handwriting.
The loops were right.
The angle was right.
Even the small break in the final letter of my name was right.
But I knew I had not signed the guarantee.
Lucía knew it too.
“Someone practiced.”
The loan was for 1.8 million pesos.
It had not yet been fully funded.
That was the only good news.
The bad news was that Daniel had submitted copies of my tax records, salary statements, identification, and apartment ownership documents.
Documents he should never have used without my authorization.
I thought about all the nights he had offered to “organize paperwork” while I worked late.
Every helpful gesture suddenly looked different.
The bank froze the application pending investigation.
Daniel sent forty-three messages that day.
I answered none.
Then Carmen sent one.
You are ruining your husband’s future because you are angry about how I disciplined Camila.
I handed the phone to Lucía.
She smiled without humor.
“She just connected the financial dispute to the child incident in writing.”
Carmen deleted the message three minutes later.
It was already saved.
That night, Camila woke screaming.
I held her until her breathing slowed.
“Mommy, don’t close the door.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
I left the bathroom light on.
She finally slept with one hand curled around my sleeve.
I did not sleep at all.
The next morning, I went through every photograph Carmen had sent me during my business trips.
Camila smiling beside toys.
Camila sitting at the kitchen table.
Camila watching cartoons.
At first, nothing looked wrong.
Then I noticed the dates.
Nearly every picture had been taken on a weekend.
Never on the days I was traveling.
Never at dinner.
Never after sunset.
Carmen had been recycling old photographs.
I checked metadata.
Some images sent in June had been taken in April.
One supposedly taken while I was in Monterrey had been captured six weeks earlier.
I felt physically sick.
Daniel had told me I was paranoid when I once asked why Camila always seemed asleep during evening video calls.
Now I knew why.
They had been controlling what I saw.
That afternoon, building management contacted Lucía.
They had preserved hallway and lobby security footage because of the legal notice.
One camera covered the entrance to my apartment.
It did not show the balcony.
But it showed something else.
On multiple evenings when I was traveling, Carmen left the apartment around six.
Sometimes she returned after ten.
Sometimes later.
Daniel often left too.
Yet no babysitter entered.
No relative entered.
No caregiver entered.
Camila had been inside alone.
The longest recorded stretch was four hours and seventeen minutes.
When Lucía told me, I could not speak.
Then she showed me one more frame.
Carmen leaving.
Daniel behind her.
Valeria laughing beside them.
All dressed for dinner.
Through the closing apartment door, a tiny hand was visible against the glass.
Camila’s hand.
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