Chapter 6 - The Price of Guardianship
The emergency custody order was suspended within the hour.
Not canceled.
Suspended.
That distinction mattered to Celeste.
She left without hugging Isabella.
Without apologizing.
Without looking back.
Beatriz remained in the house because the deputies wanted a formal statement before deciding whether to arrest her.
I sat across from her in the library.
“How much did my mother pay you?”
She stared at the floor.
“Enough.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You terrorized an eight-year-old for two hundred thousand dollars?”
“No.”
“Then what do you call the bruises?”
Her eyes filled.
“I never meant for it to become this.”
“That sentence is what cowards say when consequences arrive.”
She flinched.
Good.
“Why the garbage?”
“Celeste believed Elena hid the red box somewhere Isabella could find it.”
“So you made her search trash?”
“She threw away one of Elena’s old gardening bags. Celeste thought the box might have been inside.”
“And when Isabella didn’t find it?”
Beatriz said nothing.
I leaned forward.
“You squeezed her arm.”
“Yes.”
“You told her nobody would believe her.”
Her silence answered.
I had never hated anyone more.
After the first round of questions, I found Isabella sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk she had not touched.
“Did I do something bad?” she asked.
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“Beatriz said families get broken when kids tell private things.”
I pulled out the chair beside her.
“Families get broken when adults hurt children and make them keep secrets.”
She studied me carefully.
“Are you mad at me for not telling?”
“No.”
“Are you mad at yourself?”
That question was harder.
“Yes.”
She slid her hand into mine.
“Then don’t go away when you’re mad.”
I promised I wouldn’t.
Then she said, “I wasn’t the one listening to the microphone.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“I installed it.”
My hands clenched.
“But the feed went somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
“Celeste gave me the device already configured.”
Mason walked into the library.
“That’s not possible.”
We both looked at him.
He was holding the transmitter.
“What?” I asked.
Mason turned it over.
“This model is part of our security inventory.”
I stared at him.
“Who has access?”
“Me. Two technicians.”
“And?”
His jaw tightened.
“Your mother.”
Beatriz looked at Mason.
Something passed between them.
I saw it.
“You two know each other.”
Mason shook his head too quickly.
“No.”
Beatriz whispered, “Mason.”
He turned on her.
“Shut up.”
I stood.
Mason took one step backward.
Then another.
The security alarm began screaming through the house.
Every door unlocked at once.
Mason ran.
And Beatriz shouted after him:
“He was there the night Elena died!”
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