“If this is true, he will deny it.”
“I know.”
“He may threaten witnesses.”
“I know.”
“He may bribe officials.”
“I know.”
She leans back. “Then what exactly do you want from me?”
You think of the baby in the drawer-turned-cradle. You think of Lucía jerking awake from nightmares. You think of the note on the gate.
“I want him to stop hunting them,” you say. “And if possible, I want the whole damn mask ripped off.”
For the first time, Teresa smiles.
The case begins in the quietest, most fragile way possible. She helps Lucía file a statement under protective conditions. Doctor Salgado documents the injuries and dates the malnutrition. Tomás signs an affidavit about the threats. You give yours too, though Teresa warns you that once this goes public, the ranch will stop being a quiet place.
“It hasn’t been quiet since the day I found them,” you tell her.
Meanwhile something else begins unfolding at the house, small and stubborn and almost embarrassing in its sweetness. Rosa starts thriving. Her cheeks fill out. Her eyes brighten. Her cries get louder, which you discover is the most beautiful noise you have heard in years. Lucía begins helping in the kitchen and on the porch, then gradually in the garden, moving around the property like someone relearning that the earth can hold her without swallowing her whole.
You keep a respectful distance because that feels safest for her, but distance becomes harder to maintain in a house where midnight feedings happen, fever checks happen, laughter happens. You repair an old rocking chair for the baby. Lucía catches you speaking to Rosa in the barn as if she understands livestock prices and fence rot.
“I didn’t know you talked so much,” she says.
“I don’t,” you reply.
But she is smiling when she says it, and for the first time since Elena’s death, your kitchen feels like a room where people live instead of merely survive.
That fragile peace shatters two weeks later.
You are out near the windmill when you hear Rosa screaming from the house. Not ordinary baby crying. A raw, panicked shriek that sends you running before your mind catches up. By the time you hit the yard, you see the source.
