Chapter 17 - THE FOUNTAIN
Teresa did not protect Ignacio.
She elbowed him in the throat.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Everyone moved.
Sofía screamed.
Rafael tackled one man.
I grabbed a brass lamp and swung at the other.
I missed.
Completely.
The lamp flew into a wall.
The man stared at me.
So did I.
“That went better in my head.”
Then Teresa kicked him behind the knee.
He dropped.
Police stormed the lobby seconds later.
Ignacio ran toward the courtyard.
I followed.
Stupid.
Absolutely stupid.
He reached the dry fountain and started pulling loose stones from the base.
“Stop!”
He turned.
No gun now.
Just desperation.
“You have no idea what your mother did.”
“Join the club.”
He tore away another stone.
Behind it was a metal box.
Rafael arrived behind me.
“Don't open it.”
Ignacio laughed.
“You've been looking for this for twelve years.”
“No.”
Rafael looked at me.
“I was looking for proof it didn't exist.”
Ignacio opened the box.
Inside were photographs and a small cassette tape.
One photograph showed a wrecked motorcycle.
Rafael's motorcycle.
Another showed a man lying beside it.
Not Rafael.
My stomach turned.
“Who is that?”
Rafael whispered, “Mateo Cruz.”
His best friend.
The man whose body had been identified as Rafael's after the supposed accident.
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Ignacio said, “Your mother did.”
Police grabbed him.
He kept talking.
“She needed a body for the fake death.”
Rafael lunged.
Officers restrained him.
“You're lying!”
Ignacio smiled through a bleeding lip.
“Play the tape.”
We did.
My mother's voice.
Ernesto's.
They had arranged the fake death.
But the body had not been planned.
Mateo had crashed Rafael's motorcycle the same night.
A terrible coincidence.
My mother chose not to correct the identification.
She let Mateo's family believe he had vanished.
She let us bury him under Rafael's name.
Not murder.
Something messier.
A dead young man used as paperwork.
Rafael sat on the courtyard stones.
He looked destroyed.
“I left him my bike.”
Nobody answered.
“He died because he was riding my bike.”
“That isn't the same as killing him,” I said.
He stared at me.
“I know.”
But he didn't believe it yet.
Ignacio was taken away.
Teresa agreed to testify.
The ledger and the hotel archive went to investigators.
For the first time, the danger felt smaller.
Then Elena called.
“Mariana, where is Carmen?”
“With Valeria.”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“She left two hours ago.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
I called Valeria.
She answered crying.
“Mariana.”
“What happened?”
“Mom took Camila.”
Everything inside me went silent.
Then Valeria added:
May you like
“And this time, she didn't take her to protect her.”
