Chapter 6 - Emilio’s Choice
Gabriel moved Teresa into the pantry and locked the inner door. The house remained dark except for the thin moonlight entering through the kitchen window.
“Stay here,” he whispered.
“I am not hiding while they search my home.”
“You are staying where I can protect you.”
Teresa lifted her cane. “Then protect me beside me.”
Something scraped along the outside wall. A shadow crossed the window. Gabriel reached for the flashlight on his phone, but before he could turn it on, a rock struck the glass.
Teresa did not scream. “They want us afraid.”
“It’s working.”
A second rock hit the window. Then a voice called from the street. “Give us the papers, Gabriel.”
“Which papers?”
“The ones your father hid.”
Gabriel and Teresa looked at each other.
The voice belonged to Víctor Salgado.
Footsteps pounded on the porch. The doorknob shook. Gabriel pushed a cabinet against the door, then guided Teresa through the pantry’s rear exit into the garden.
They crouched behind a wall until the footsteps moved inside. From the darkness came the crash of furniture and Víctor’s curses.
Teresa pointed toward the alley. “The neighbor’s gate.”
“Estela won’t help us.”
“Her fear is not the same as her heart.”
They reached the gate just as a figure stepped into the alley. Emilio.
“You need to come with me,” he said.
Gabriel grabbed his arm. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Where are Ramiro and Marisol?”
“At the courthouse. Dad told me to wait in the car, but I heard him talking to Víctor.”
“What did he say?”
Emilio looked at Teresa. “He said if the house papers aren’t found tonight, he will blame everything on Gabriel. He has a witness who will say Uncle attacked him.”
“And you?”
“He said I should tell the police I saw you threaten Dad.”
Teresa closed her eyes. “My child.”
“I’m sorry,” Emilio said. “I almost did it.”
Gabriel softened. “Why didn’t you?”
Emilio pulled a small recorder from his pocket. “Because I recorded him.”
They escaped through a service entrance into the community center, where Estela found them in the storage room. She had returned after receiving a message from Teresa’s old physician.
“I was wrong to stay silent,” Estela said. “I brought this.”
She handed Lucía’s business card to Gabriel, along with a sealed envelope bearing the accounting firm’s name.
Inside was a certified ledger showing every payment from Gabriel’s account. The transfers had been split among Casa de Abril, Marisol’s sister, and an account in Ramiro’s name. A note from the accountant stated that Ramiro had demanded the records be altered, then threatened the firm when the owner refused.
“This is the financial proof,” Gabriel said.
“And the recorder is the coercion proof,” Lucía said over the phone. “Bring both to my office. Do not return to the house.”
Emilio shook his head. “If I give you the recording, Dad will go to prison.”
“He may go to prison anyway,” Gabriel said.
“He is still my father.”
Teresa took his hand. “Love does not require you to carry his crimes.”
Emilio began to cry. “What if Mom hates me?”
“She may,” Teresa said honestly. “But your truth gives her a chance to become someone better.”
The next morning, Dr. Ana Villaseñor examined Teresa for nearly two hours. She asked Teresa to describe the house, the transfers, the dates of her medications, and the decisions she wanted to make for herself.
Teresa answered slowly but accurately. When she forgot a month, she said so. When she remembered, she corrected herself. At the end, the doctor closed her file.
“Mrs. Alcántara, you have mild memory impairment,” she said. “That is not the same as incompetence. You understand your property, your finances, and your legal choices.”
Teresa exhaled. “Can you put that in writing?”
“I already have.”
Lucía arrived with a court order temporarily blocking any sale or transfer of the property. She also carried an update: police had recovered security footage showing Gabriel was nowhere near Víctor when the assault supposedly occurred.
“The case against you is weakening,” Lucía said.
“And against Ramiro?”
“Strengthening.”
Emilio looked at the recorder in his palm. “I’ll testify.”
Teresa hugged him. Gabriel watched the boy’s shoulders shake, then felt his own phone vibrate.
May you like
A photograph showed the inside of Teresa’s house. On the wall, written in red paint, were four words:
THE BOY WILL PAY FIRST.
