CHAPTER 4 — The Lady in White
Leo was rushed into the pediatric emergency department.
Doctors treated him for severe dehydration, malnutrition, exposure, and an infection in his ankle. They told Daniel and Mariana that another few days beneath the floor might have killed him.
Mariana sat beside Leo’s bed, refusing to release his hand.
Inés slept curled against Daniel in a chair.
Detective Sofía Valdés arrived shortly after midnight.
She was calm, observant, and careful not to overwhelm Leo.
“Can you tell me about the lady in white?” she asked.
Leo stared at the blanket.
“She told me Mommy sent her.”
“What did she look like?”
“She had yellow hair. She smelled like flowers.”
Daniel and Mariana exchanged a look.
“Did you know her?” Valdés asked.
Leo nodded.
“She talked to Mommy.”
Mariana’s expression changed.
After Leo vanished, dozens of counselors, volunteers, journalists, and investigators had entered their lives. One woman had spent more time with Mariana than anyone else.
Dr. Camila Montalvo.
A grief therapist who specialized in families of missing children.
A woman with long blond hair who almost always wore white.
Mariana pulled out her phone and found an old photograph. It showed Camila standing beside them during a candlelight vigil for Leo.
Leo’s body stiffened.
“That’s her.”
Detective Valdés took the phone.
“Montalvo?”
“Esteban’s last name,” Daniel said.
Valdés immediately called her team.
Camila was Esteban’s younger sister.
She had counseled Mariana for eight months while her brother kept Leo hidden.
The hospital room suddenly felt colder.
“She knew everything,” Mariana whispered. “Our schedules. Our friends. Every lead the police followed.”
“She may have been controlling those leads,” Valdés said.
Daniel remembered the anonymous messages that had sent them across Mexico.
A sighting at a bus station.
A boy seen near the border.
A photograph from a marketplace that looked almost like Leo.
Every lead had ended in disappointment.
And after each failure, Camila had been there to comfort Mariana.
Detective Valdés stepped into the hallway to make another call.
When she returned, her expression was grim.
Officers had searched Camila’s apartment.
It was empty.
Her clothes were gone.
Her computer had been destroyed.
But they found something taped beneath her desk.
A photograph of Inés leaving school.
May you like
On the back, someone had written two words.
PHASE TWO.
