Chapter 2: The Message From a Friend I Didn't Know I Had
I sat there staring at that signature for a long time.
My name.
My handwriting — almost.
But the loop on the V was wrong.
I had noticed it the first time and told myself I was imagining things.
I wasn't.
I took a screenshot.
Then another.
Then I downloaded the PDF before my hands started shaking too badly to click straight.
My phone buzzed again.
Diego.
*You're being irrational.
The accounts are fine.
Come home.*
I typed back one sentence.
*What is T.
Alvarez Holdings?*
Three minutes passed.
Then: *We'll talk tomorrow.*
I put the phone face-down on the mattress.
Camila had stayed up.
She knocked softly and came in with two cups of tea she knew I wouldn't drink.
"How bad?" she asked.
"Seventy-three thousand dollars.
A loan against the house.
My signature on a document I never saw."
She sat down slowly.
"Verónica.
That's not a mistake."
"No."
"That's been planned."
I looked at Sofía sleeping beside me, one arm around Bunny, completely still.
"How long?" Camila whispered.
I thought about Teresa's laugh that afternoon.
That quiet, certain laugh.
"Long enough that she wasn't afraid of me finding out."
Then my phone lit up again.
Not Diego this time.
An unknown number.
One message.
*There's more.
May you like
Don't go back to that house.
— A friend.*
