Chapter 5 - Shadows in the MirrorTwo weeks later, Valentina was discharged from the hospital.
The drive back to Zapopan was quiet. The morning sun bathed the suburban streets in a warm, golden light, but as Carolina pulled into their driveway, an involuntary shudder ran down her spine.
The house looked the same, yet everything had changed.
The mahogany dining table where Ofelia had planted the deadly trap was empty. The security camera had been uninstalled by police forensics weeks ago, leaving a tiny dark circle on the wall like an unhealed scar.
Carolina carried Valentina inside and tucked her into her own pink, sunlit bed. Within minutes, the little girl drifted off to sleep, exhausted from the journey.
Carolina walked down to the kitchen to make tea.
As she waited for the kettle to boil, she noticed a small envelope slid underneath the back door. Her name was written on it in messy, frantic handwriting.
She froze.
The police had swept the perimeter. Andrés was miles away in a clinic. Ofelia was locked behind bars in a maximum-security detention center.
Who could have left this?
With trembling fingers, Carolina picked up the envelope and tore it open. Inside was a single polaroid photograph and a handwritten note.
The photo showed the inside of her own garage—specifically, the breaker box. A red circle had been drawn around the main digital relay switch, annotated with a chilling time stamp: Today, 11:15 AM.
She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was 11:12 AM.
Three minutes ago.
Before Carolina could process the warning, the overhead kitchen lights flickered violently and died. The entire house plunged into sudden, suffocating darkness.
From the hallway came a slow, heavy footstep on the hardwood floor.
Creak.
Someone was inside the house.
Carolina’s breath hitched. She backed away from the kitchen island, her hand blindly searching her pocket for her phone. But before her fingers could close around the device, a cold, metallic voice echoed from the darkened living room.
“Did you really think Ofelia was the head of the snake, Carolina?”
A tall silhouette stepped out from the shadows of the hallway, framed by the faint midday light filtering through the living room blinds.
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It wasn't a stranger.
It was a face Carolina knew better than her own—someone who had supposedly been out of the country on business for the last three months, someone whose alibi had never once been questioned by the police.
