Chapter 5: The Question Nobody Wanted Asked
I didn't sleep.
By four in the morning I had read every document Fuentes left behind three times.
By six I was dressed.
By seven I was sitting across from Dr.
Amparo Reyes in a coffee shop two blocks from the hospital where she worked — the same hospital where Rodrigo Alcázar had been pronounced de@d eleven months ago.
Amparo was fifty-one, had been my grandfather's cardiologist for eight years, and had also been the attending physician on call the night Rodrigo came in.
She hadn't been the one to sign the death certificate.
But she had been in the building.
She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup when she saw what I placed on the table between us.
The bank statements.
The offshore account.
The withdrawals to Renata.
"I'm not here to cause trouble for you," I said.
"I'm here because I think you know something you haven't been able to say."
She looked at the documents for a long time without touching them.
"Rodrigo Alcázar was thirty-four years old," she said finally.
"No prior cardiac history.
His last physical was eight months before he died.
Clean bloodwork.
Normal stress test."
"That's unusual for a fatal cardiac event."
"It happens.
Young men do die of heart attacks." She picked up her coffee.
"But when it happens to a healthy thirty-four-year-old with no risk factors, the attending physician asks questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"Toxicology questions." She set the cup down.
"I flagged the case for a secondary review.
I noted in the file that I believed a full panel should be run before the certificate was signed."
"Was it?"
"The family declined the extended autopsy.
They cited religious grounds and requested immediate release of the body." She paused.
"The request was approved by the supervising physician on duty that night.
Not by me."
"Who was the supervising physician?"
She looked at the table.
"His name is Dr.
Félix Garza.
He retired eight months ago.
He moved to Mérida." She looked up.
"He and Ernesto Alcázar were in the same university cohort.
They have been friends for over thirty years."
The coffee shop was filling up around us.
A woman at the next table was laughing at something on her phone.
Somewhere behind me, a child was asking for a pastry.
"You filed the flag," I said.
"What happened to it?"
"It was reviewed and closed.
The notation in the file says the attending physician's concern was noted and assessed as non-indicative." She pressed her lips together.
"I did not write that notation.
I have never seen that language in my own files before."
"Someone altered your file."
"Someone added a line to my file." She was very careful with the distinction.
"I cannot prove it was altered.
I can only tell you that the language is not mine and I did not authorize it."
I looked at her steadily.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because you asked." She met my eyes.
"And because I have been waiting eleven months for someone to ask."
I drove back to my apartment with the windows down despite the cold.
Rodrigo Alcázar.
Thirty-four years old.
Healthy.
Dead of a sudden cardiac event that his family refused to let anyone investigate properly.
Three million dollars in an offshore account his brother could access.
A pregnancy that didn't match the timeline.
A legal challenge filed against my grandfather's will before the body was even cold.
Mariana was waiting in my living room when I got back.
"Santiago called," she said.
"Three times."
"I know.
I saw."
"He also sent a message." She held out her phone.
The message read: *Valeria.
My father is willing to drop the legal challenge entirely.
No conditions.
He just wants to speak with you privately.
One conversation.
That's all he's asking.*
I read it twice.
"No conditions," I said.
"That's what it says."
"Ernesto Alcázar does not do anything without conditions." I handed the phone back.
"He's scared.
Something changed."
Mariana nodded slowly.
"I think I know what changed." She pulled up something on her own phone and turned the screen toward me.
It was a social media post.
Timestamped six hours ago.
A video — shaky, clearly shot on someone's phone at the back of a hotel ballroom.
The audio was clear enough.
May you like
*You promised that once you married her, everything would belong to us.*
It had been viewed four hundred thousand times.
