I walked through the heavy wrought-iron gates of the cemetery, the humid breeze rustling the dry leaves at my feet. I didn’t look back at the grave, nor at the crowd of mourning hypocrites still surrounding my son.
The small object I had slipped into Diego’s pocket was a miniature, high-end digital audio recorder. I had purchased it weeks ago, back when Eduardo first started falling mysteriously ill, back when I noticed Diego spending hours behind closed doors with Mr. Ramírez, talking in hushed, panicked tones.
My phone vibrated again in my purse. It was an automated notification from the recording device, syncing directly to a secure cloud storage app via my cellular data. It had a live-listening feature.
I sat in the back of a battered city taxi, pulled out my earphones, and pressed play.
Through the static of the fabric rubbing against the microphone, I heard the sound of footsteps on gravel, followed by the heavy thud of a car door closing. Diego and Mr. Ramírez were in the back of the family limousine.
“Is it done?” Diego’s voice came through the speaker, devoid of any grief. It was cold, sharp, and triumphant. “The old woman didn’t make a scene?”
“She walked away just like you wanted,” Mr. Ramírez replied, his voice sounding entirely different than the timid monotone he used at the graveside. “But you owe me the remaining fifty percent of the fee, Diego. Forging a notary’s seal and restructuring a real estate empire takes considerable effort. If anyone looks too closely at Eduardo’s actual signature on the real will—the one leaving everything to Mariana—we both go to prison.”
I caught my breath in the backseat of the taxi, my hand flying to my mouth. It wasn’t just a betrayal. It was a crime.
“Relax, Ramírez,” Diego laughed, a sound that chilled me to the bone. “The real will is sitting in the shredder at the office right now. And as for the medical examiner’s report on my father’s ‘heart attack’… I’ve already taken care of the nurse who helped me switch his medication. By tomorrow, the Colonia Roma house is sold, the business assets are liquidated, and my mother will be nothing but a memory.”
The recording kept playing, but I had heard enough.
I didn’t cry. The tears that had choked me at the funeral evaporated, replaced by a searing, absolute resolve. Diego thought he had stripped me of my home, my family, and my dignity. He thought a woman of my generation would simply fade into the background, broken and defeated…
