Chapter 7: What the Messages Said
The screenshots arrived within the hour.
Andrés spread them across the kitchen table — printed, because he said he needed to see them side by side.
María had taken Sofía to the park.
The house was quiet in the particular way it got when Sofía was not in it — a quietness with no warmth in it.
There were six screenshots in total.
The first four were unremarkable.
Scheduling messages.
A restaurant name.
A time.
The fifth one read: *He won't be home tonight.
Board dinner.
You have time.*
The sixth one read: *Take the coast road.
Less traffic at that hour.*
Sent at 9:47 p.m.
The crash had been reported at 10:31 p.m.
The coast road.
Roberto sat with his hands flat on the table and looked at the sixth message for a long time.
"The investigation said she chose that route herself," he said.
"The report said she was familiar with it."
"She was familiar with it," Andrés said carefully, "because someone told her to take it."
"Is this enough?"
Andrés was quiet for a moment.
"It's enough to reopen the investigation.
Whether it's enough to charge anyone — that depends on what the investigators find when they look again." He looked at Roberto.
"But Roberto.
This changes the nature of what we're dealing with.
This is no longer a civil matter."
Roberto looked up.
"I need to call someone," Andrés said.
"A contact at the prosecutor's office.
Someone I trust.
Before we do anything else — before you confront her, before you say a word to anyone — I need to make that call.
Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"You cannot contact Vanessa.
You cannot let her know what Reyes told you.
If she suspects we have this, she will move."
"I understand."
Andrés picked up his phone and stepped out of the kitchen.
Roberto looked at the sixth screenshot.
*Take the coast road.*
He thought about the night of the accident.
He had been at a board dinner — forty men in a room, and he had sat there eating and talking and laughing at something someone said, while on a road forty minutes away, his wife had been driving toward something she had been guided into.
He thought about Sofía in the car.
Seven years old.
Asleep in the back seat, the way she always fell asleep in the car, her face turned toward the window.
His wife had put herself between the impact and their daughter.
He had always known that.
The investigators had told him.
She had turned the wheel at the last moment — a deliberate turn, away from Sofía's side of the car.
She had known it was coming.
She had had time to choose.
He pressed his hands flat against the table until they stopped shaking.
Andrés came back into the kitchen.
"My contact will see us this afternoon," he said.
"Three o'clock." He looked at Roberto carefully.
"Are you all right?"
"No," Roberto said.
"But I will be."
His phone lit up on the table.
A message from Vanessa.
*I think we should talk.
Properly.
Just the two of us.
I may have overreacted this morning.*
He turned the phone face-down.
"She's trying to get back in the room," Andrés said.
"I know."
"Don't respond."
"I won't." Roberto stood.
He picked up the printed screenshots and stacked them carefully.
"What time is it?"
"Just past ten."
"I need to see Sofía before three." He looked at Andrés.
"She needs to hear from me that she's safe.
She needs to hear it from me directly."
Andrés nodded.
May you like
"Go," he said.
"I'll be here when you get back."
