Chapter 2 - The Sacred Mask
The morning of Camila’s wake arrived under a grey, suffocating sky over Guadalajara. The air was thick with the scent of crushed lilies, damp earth, and cheap candles burning inside the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows on Avenue Hidalgo.
I stood near the polished mahogany casket, my eyes burning from lack of sleep. My suit felt like a lead shroud. Beside the casket, Camila’s mother, Doña Teresa, was supported by two of her sisters, her body rocking back and forth in silent, unspeakable agony. Every time someone stepped up to pay their respects, Doña Teresa would whisper, “She only had toothbrushes... she only wanted to help the children...”
Every word felt like a nail driven into my chest.
Then, the heavy brass doors at the back of the chapel creaked open.
My mother walked in first, wearing a black veil. And right behind her, like an evil shadow wrapped in black lace, was Brenda.
Brenda carried a massive wreath of white roses—so large it took two hands to hold it. She walked down the center aisle with her head bowed in solemn reverence, drawing sympathetic murmurs from the older ladies of the parish who sat in the rear pews.
“Look at poor Brenda,” I heard Señora Gutierrez whisper behind me. “Such a good girl. Even after Ricardo left her for that other girl, she comes to honor her memory. A true Christian heart.”
I clenched my fists inside my trousers pockets so hard my nails cut into my palms.
Brenda placed the massive wreath right next to the head of Camila’s casket. She knelt down on the velvet kneeling bench, crossed herself with deliberate slowness, and pressed her hands together in prayer.
I stepped forward, my shadow falling over her.
“Get away from her, Brenda,” I said in a low, tight voice that only she could hear.
Brenda didn’t flinch. She slowly opened her eyes, stood up, and smoothed down her black skirt. She looked at Camila’s pale, still face behind the glass panel of the casket, then turned to look at me.
“She looks so peaceful, Ricardo,” Brenda whispered, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “God’s wisdom is beyond our understanding. Sometimes He takes people early to spare them from the corruption of this world.”
“You hired El Alacrán,” I whispered, stepping so close I could smell the sickly sweet jasmine perfume she was wearing—the same perfume she wore when we were together.
Brenda’s eyes didn’t widen. She didn’t look around in panic. Instead, she leaned in slightly, her breath warm against my ear.
“Careful, Ricardo,” she murmured, her voice laced with a terrifying, calm venom. “Grief can make a man sound insane. If you make a scene here, in front of Camila’s poor mother, what will people say? That the strain of her death broke your mind? Who will your mother believe? The son who brought a tragedy upon his family, or the woman who is holding her hand?”
“My mother will find out what you are,” I spat out.
“Your mother loves the idea of me, Ricardo,” Brenda smiled—a tiny, razor-sharp curl of her lips. “She loves that I go to Mass. She loves that I know how to run a proper home. She never liked Camila. She thought Camila was too wild, too independent, too focused on the streets instead of building a family with you. I am what your family needs. I have always been what you need.”
She reached out her hand, her cool fingers lightly brushing against my jawline. I wanted to bite her hand off, but I forced myself to stand frozen, remembering Agent Ibarra’s warning: Play the game.
“I’m going to help your mother pack up Camila’s things from your clinic this afternoon,” Brenda added smoothly, stepping back and speaking loud enough for the surrounding mourners to hear. “Don’t worry about a thing, Ricardo. I will take care of everything while you rest.”
She turned and walked back to my mother’s side, slipping her arm through Doña Elena’s as if she were already her daughter-in-law.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a battering ram. She was moving in to erase Camila completely—to clean out her memory from my clinic, my home, my life, before the body was even in the ground.
At two o’clock that afternoon, while the burial procession was being prepared for the cemetery, I made an excuse to leave the chapel. I told my mother I needed to collect official death certificates from my office.
Instead, I drove like a madman straight to my mother’s house in the quiet neighborhood of Zapopan.
The house was empty. My mother was still at the funeral home. I let myself in through the back kitchen door using my old key.
The house smelled of incense and old wood. I hurried down the hallway to the guest room where my old belongings had been stored. I pulled open the heavy oak wardrobe, my hands frantically searching through boxes of old university notes, dental journals, and discarded clothes.
In the very back, behind a stack of old winter coats, I found the small wooden box where I used to keep spare electronics.
The old smartphone was gone.
But as I pulled the box out, something rolled out from beneath the bottom shelf of the wardrobe and clattered against the tile floor.
It was a small, pink plastic receipt from a convenience store in Tlaquepaque—dated three days before Camila’s murder.
I picked it up with shaking hands. It was a receipt for a cash top-up of a prepaid Telcel SIM card. And written on the back of the receipt in faint blue ballpoint pen was a series of numbers and a single name:
Alacrán - 50,000 deposit / 50,000 after.
My breath hitched in my throat. Brenda had been meticulous, but she had made one fatal mistake: she had written down the payment structure on the back of the receipt while standing in this very room, using my mother’s desk pen, and had accidentally dropped it under the wardrobe when she took the old phone.
Suddenly, the front door of the house clicked open.
Footsteps echoed down the tiled hallway. Heavy, confident, unhurried steps.
I slid the receipt into my pocket and stood up, backing against the wardrobe just as the bedroom door opened.
May you like
Brenda stood in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing her black funeral veil anymore. She held a ring of my mother’s house keys in her hand.
“I thought I’d find you here, Ricardo,” she said quietly, her eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. “You were always so predictable when you were nervous.”
