Chapter 6 - The Broken Altar
The Oakridge Police Department had a specific smell—industrial pine cleaner, damp wool coats, and cold fluorescent dust. It was the smell of bad decisions catching up with people who believed their bank balances made them immune to gravity.
Teresa didn't look like an empress anymore.
When the two detectives escorted her out of the corporate elevator, the silver bracelets clicked shut around her wrists. She had shrieked at the lobby receptionist, she had spat on the marble flooring, and she had threatened to have the Chief of Police fired within the hour.
None of it worked.
The officers had seen the high-resolution forensic photographs of Sofía’s forearm. In the county of Essex, a four-inch hematoma with broken capillary beds inflicted on a six-year-old with a weapon wasn't considered a family dispute. It was charged under New Jersey Statute 2C:24-4: Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a crime of the second degree.
Diego followed the cruiser in his Mercedes, his hazard lights flashing, his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel like a man whose brakes had failed on a mountain pass.
I stood on the sidewalk beside Marcus Vance, watching the red tail lights disappear into the midday traffic.
“He’s going to bail her out within two hours,” I said, my voice numb.
“Of course he is,” Vance replied, checking her watch with casual precision. “Arthur Sterling will have a bondsman at the precinct before the ink dries on the fingerprint cards. That’s what we want.”
I turned to her, frowning. “Why would we want her out?”
Vance looked at me over the rims of her glasses, a cold, predatory smile touching the corners of her mouth. “Because people like Teresa Morales cannot bear the indignity of being challenged. A woman who has spent forty years ruling her family through terror does not slink away into the shadows when she is arrested. She doubles down. She gets loud. She gets sloppy. And when she gets sloppy, Verónica, she will lead us directly to the money Diego hid.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It wasn't Diego.
It was an automated notification from my residential security system at the Oakridge house.
*ALERT: Motion detected at Back Patio French Doors — 12:48 PM.*
I tapped the screen, opening the live camera feed.
The rain had stopped, leaving the flagstone patio slick and grey. On the screen, a figure was standing by the glass doors, wearing a hooded trench coat, violently jimmying the secondary lock with a brass crowbar.
May you like
It was Mateo’s father—my brother-in-law, Javier.
***
