Chapter 3 - Threads of Betrayal
The bedroom felt tiny, suffocating, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out into the hallway. Brenda stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her until the latch clicked into place.
“What are you looking for, Ricardo?” she asked, stepping slowly toward me. Her voice was conversational, almost gentle, but her hands were folded tightly in front of her.
“I came to get some of my old clothes,” I lied, forcing my voice to stay level, though the receipt in my pocket felt like it was burning through the fabric of my trousers. “I didn’t want to go back to my empty apartment yet.”
Brenda stopped three feet away from me. She tilted her head, studying my face with the cold precision of a predator inspecting a trapped animal.
“You always were a terrible liar,” she murmured. “In university, whenever you failed an exam or felt guilty about missing a family dinner, your left eye would twitch. Just like it’s doing right now.”
She reached out, her fingers reaching toward my face. I stepped sideways, avoiding her touch, and moved toward the door.
“I need to get back to the cemetery, Brenda. My mother is waiting.”
“Your mother is fine,” Brenda said sharply, her tone shifting from sweet syrup to cold steel. “I sent her to the parish hall with Father Samuel to arrange the memorial Mass for next week. She does whatever I tell her to do now, Ricardo. Because I am the one who stays. I am the one who takes care of her while you were out running around with your little charity dentist.”
I turned around, the rage breaking through my composure. “Don’t you dare speak Camila’s name!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Brenda sneered, her eyes flashing with a dark, unhinged light. “Camila was an obstacle! She was a distraction! You were supposed to marry me, Ricardo! We had a plan! Our families have known each other for ten years! Your mother prayed every night for us to build a home together! And then that girl came along with her cheap clothes and her stupid boxes of toothbrushes, and you threw three years of our life into the trash!”
“I didn’t love you, Brenda!” I shouted, the words echoing off the bedroom walls. “I broke up with you because you were controlling! Because you wanted a puppet, not a husband! Camila loved me for who I was, not for what I could give her!”
Brenda took a sudden, violent step forward, her face twisted in a mask of pure fury.
“SHE IS DEAD!” Brenda screamed, her voice cracking. “She is lying in a box under six feet of dirt right now! She is nothing! She is dust! And you are going to come back to me, Ricardo, whether you like it or not!”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, pressing the speed dial for Agent Ibarra.
Brenda saw the movement. In a flash, she lunged at me, her sharp fingernails raking across my wrist. My phone clattered to the floor, sliding under the bed.
I grabbed her by the arms, pushing her back against the oak desk. “You’re crazy! You’re completely insane!”
“Call the police!” she laughed wildly, her hair falling out of its neat braid. “Go on! Tell them! Tell them I paid fifty thousand pesos to a man named Alacrán! Tell them I watched her blood run onto the pavement from my car while he did it!”
The room went dead quiet.
Brenda froze. The words had poured out of her mouth in her fit of hysterical rage before her calculating mind could stop them. Her wide eyes met mine, a sudden shock of realization washing over her face.
She had just confessed.
I stared at her, my chest heaving. “You watched her die,” I whispered, horrified beyond words. “You were sitting in the driver’s seat of that gray SUV.”
Brenda’s posture straightened slowly. The wild frenzy in her eyes flickered out, replaced by a cold, terrifying emptiness. She smoothed down her blouse and pushed her loose hair behind her ears.
“Nobody will ever believe you, Ricardo,” she whispered softly, her voice flat and emotionless. “It’s your word against mine. No weapon. No physical evidence. And if you try to use that little paper in your pocket, I will tell the prosecutor that you tried to attack me in your mother’s house, and that you forced me to sign a confession under threat of violence.”
She stepped past me toward the bedroom door, pausing with her hand on the brass knob.
“I’ll see you at the parish dinner tonight, Doctor,” she said with a sweet, terrible smile. “Don’t be late. Your mother made your favorite stew.”
She opened the door and walked out, leaving me alone in the dim room with the sound of my own frantic breathing.
I dropped to my knees, pulled my phone from under the bed, and checked the screen.
The call to Agent Ibarra had connected three minutes ago.
The line was still open.
“Ricardo?” Ibarra’s deep, gravelly voice came through the phone’s speaker, sharp and clear. “Did you catch all of that on the line?”
“Ibarra...” I choked out, tears finally breaking from my eyes. “You heard her?”
“Every single word, Doctor,” Ibarra said grimly. “We have her confession on a recorded line. I’m dispatching two tactical units to your mother’s house right now. Stay where you are!”
“No!” I shouted, standing up frantically. “She’s heading to the parish hall! My mother is with her!”
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“Listen to me, Salvatierra—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. I sprinted out of the house, jumped into my car, and slammed the accelerator down, tearing through the streets of Guadalajara toward the parish of San Antonio.
