Chapter 5 - THE SECOND PHONE
I forgot about my ankle.
I forgot about the heat trapped in the stairwell.
I forgot Rosa standing in the apartment above us.
All I could see was the second phone in Luis's photograph.
My face filled the profile circle.
My full name sat beneath it.
The conversation on the screen looked like something I had written.
The punctuation was wrong.
The heart emoji at the end of one message was wrong.
But anyone who did not know me would believe it.
"Where is that phone?"
Luis's jaw worked.
"I don't know."
"You took the picture."
"Yes."
"Then where was it?"
He looked over his shoulder toward the apartment.
Rosa had appeared at the top landing.
"Luis," she said.
One word.
A command.
He looked back at me.
"In my mom's room."
The stairwell became silent.
Rosa's face changed.
"You liar."
Luis flinched.
"I saw it two weeks ago."
"You put it there."
"No."
"You are trying to save yourself."
"I asked you what it was."
"And I told you it belonged to a friend."
My father climbed two steps slowly.
"Did you know it was using Camila's identity?"
Luis stared at him.
"Not at first."
"And when you learned?"
Luis did not answer.
Dad nodded once.
"That's what I thought."
I looked at my husband.
"You knew someone was pretending to be me."
"I knew my mom had a second account."
"Using my name."
"I didn't know what she was doing with it."
"You showed us messages from it proving I agreed to the loan."
"Because that's what she said it was for."
"And you accepted that?"
His voice rose.
"I was desperate!"
Mateo startled in my arms.
Luis immediately softened his tone.
"Cami, please."
I stepped back.
"Don't call me that."
His face fell.
Rosa began walking down the stairs.
Dad moved to the center of the landing.
He did not touch her.
He simply occupied the space.
"We're leaving now."
She pointed at Luis.
"He is confused."
Then she pointed at me.
"And she has been filling his head against me for years."
I almost admired the speed of it.
The blame changed targets without hesitation.
"Where is the phone?"
Rosa smiled.
"What phone?"
Luis swore.
"Mom."
"There is no phone."
"I took a picture of it."
"Then maybe you staged the picture."
His face went slack.
For the first time that night, I saw Luis experience what Rosa did to me.
She denied reality so confidently that the other person began questioning whether truth mattered.
Dad turned to me.
"We do not need the phone tonight."
"But she could destroy it."
"She probably will."
My stomach dropped.
"Then shouldn't we get it?"
"Not by searching someone else's bedroom without permission."
He looked directly at Rosa.
"We preserve what we already have, and we do this properly."
That sentence mattered.
Dad was angry enough to shake the building, but he refused to become reckless.
Rosa could call him arrogant.
Luis could call him controlling.
Nobody could honestly say he had barged through private rooms or seized things that were not ours.
He was building a wall one careful brick at a time.
I had spent months surviving one hour at a time.
Dad was already thinking about tomorrow.
We reached the truck.
He put the suitcases in the bed and helped me into the passenger seat.
Luis stood on the sidewalk.
"Camila, wait."
I shut the door.
He tapped the window.
I stared straight ahead.
"Please."
Dad walked around the hood.
Luis stepped in front of him.
"Mr. Morales."
The sudden respect almost made me laugh.
Dad stopped.
"What?"
"I want to talk to my wife."
"She can decide whether she wants to talk to you."
Luis looked through the window at me.
"Camila?"
I lowered it two inches.
"What?"
"Don't report anything tonight."
My heart sank.
Not come home.
Not I love you.
Not I'm sorry.
Don't report anything.
"Why?"
"Give me twenty-four hours."
"For what?"
"To fix it."
"How?"
"I can cancel the application."
Dad's eyes narrowed.
"You said it had not been approved."
Luis looked at him.
"It hasn't funded yet."
The wording was different.
Dad caught it.
So did I.
"Has it been approved?"
Luis hesitated.
"Conditionally."
My skin went cold.
"What condition?"
"The property verification."
"And if that goes through?"
He looked at the ground.
"They release the money."
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning."
I stopped breathing.
Dad pulled out his phone immediately.
Luis lifted both hands.
"Don't."
"Who is the lender?"
"It's private."
"Name."
"Dad," I whispered.
He looked at me.
"We need to prevent a transaction made in your name."
That snapped me out of the fog.
I opened the photograph of the application and zoomed in.
The lender logo read Grupo Mercurio Financiero.
Dad searched the company name.
His face tightened.
"There is an emergency fraud line."
Luis grabbed the edge of the window.
"Camila, don't do this."
I pulled my phone out.
"You did this."
He recoiled as if I had struck him.
I called.
A recorded menu answered.
The minutes that followed felt unreal.
I gave my name.
My identification number.
The application number from the scorched page.
I stated clearly that I had not signed the documents and had not authorized my property as security.
The representative placed an emergency hold on the application pending identity verification.
Then she asked a question that made Dad sit straighter.
"Do you recognize the co-borrower name listed on the file?"
"There is a co-borrower?"
"Yes, ma'am."
I looked at Luis.
"What name?"
There was a pause as the representative checked what she was permitted to disclose.
"Luis Alberto Salazar."
That part did not surprise me.
Then she continued.
"And the business beneficiary is Salazar Norte Servicios Integrales."
Ernesto, who had followed us outside, stopped dead on the sidewalk.
Dad looked at him.
"Your company?"
Ernesto's face turned gray.
"No."
Rosa shouted from the stairwell.
"Hang up!"
The representative heard her.
"Ma'am, are you safe to continue this call?"
I looked at Dad.
"Yes."
"All right."
She gave me a reference number and instructed me to send a written identity-dispute statement before the next business day's cutoff.
I wrote every digit on the back of a grocery receipt.
When I ended the call, nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Dad turned to Ernesto.
"What is Salazar Norte Servicios Integrales?"
Ernesto shook his head.
"I have never heard of it."
Luis stared at his father.
"It's the company I registered."
Ernesto's face hardened.
"Using our family name?"
"It's just a name."
"And what services does it provide?"
Luis looked away.
"Logistics."
Dad studied him.
"Why would a logistics startup need Camila's land as collateral for two hundred and eighty thousand pesos?"
Luis said nothing.
Rosa came down the last steps quickly.
"Because we needed operating capital."
Ernesto spun toward her.
"We?"
The word echoed between them.
Rosa froze.
Dad's eyes narrowed.
"You are part of the company."
"No."
Luis whispered, "Mom."
"Shut up."
Ernesto stepped closer to his wife.
"Rosa."
"I said no."
"Are you part of that company?"
She folded her arms.
"I helped my son because his wife wouldn't."
The cruelty of it was almost elegant.
She had turned my refusal to finance a business I knew nothing about into betrayal.
I looked at Luis.
"How long has this company existed?"
"Four months."
Four months.
Exactly as long as we had lived with his parents.
Exactly as long as he had been unemployed.
Exactly as long as Rosa had started controlling my mail.
A memory surfaced.
The first week after we moved in, Rosa had insisted all household mail go through a basket by her chair because deliveries were sometimes stolen.
Two weeks later, she had offered to make photocopies of my identification for Mateo's daycare registration.
A month after that, Luis asked me to leave my old phone at home because he wanted to use it for music in the garage.
My old phone.
I grabbed the dashboard.
"Dad."
He heard the change in my voice.
"What?"
"The second phone."
I looked at Luis.
"Was it white with a cracked corner?"
His face answered before his mouth did.
"Yes."
My blood turned cold.
It was not some unknown device.
It was my old phone.
The one I had given Luis four months earlier.
The one that had still contained an active backup of my contacts, photographs, and authentication apps.
Dad went very still.
"Camila, change every password you have."
I reached for my phone.
Before I could unlock it, an email notification appeared.
SUBJECT: PASSWORD RESET CONFIRMED.
It was from my primary bank.
I stared at the screen.
Then a second notification arrived.
NEW DEVICE ADDED.
And a third.
TRANSFER REQUEST INITIATED.
The amount on the screen was 96,000 pesos.
May you like
The destination account ended in 4418.
Rosa's account.
