Chapter 4 - THE WITNESS IN CAGE 7
By 3:00 AM, Camila was strapped into a medical transport van under heavy armed escort, her arm encased in a hard plaster cast. The pain medication was beginning to numb the physical torture, but her mind was burning with a cold, terrifying clarity.
They were driving toward the Santa Martha Acatitla women's detention center.
"Why are we going here?" Camila asked, staring out the reinforced mesh window at the bleak rain-slicked highway.
"Because your mother refuses to talk to the federal prosecutors," Valeria explained from the seat beside her. "She’s terrified of Arturo. She thinks if she stays silent, his lawyers will get them both out. You are the only person who can break her, Camila. She needs to see that you aren't afraid of him anymore."
The van pulled into the dark, intimidating courtyard of the prison. The massive steel gates groaned shut behind them.
Camila was wheeled into a bleak interrogation room with gray concrete walls, illuminated by a single flickering fluorescent bulb. A thick pane of bulletproof glass separated her from the adjacent holding cell.
A minute later, the heavy metal door on the other side opened.
Elena was led in, handcuffed to a waist chain. Her hair was wild, her mascara smeared down her pale cheeks, and her vest was missing. She looked small, broken, and completely hysterical.
When she saw Camila sitting in the wheelchair on the other side of the glass, Elena threw herself against the barrier.
"Camila! Camila, tell them!" Elena wept, her voice coming through the small metal intercom speaker. "Tell them it was an accident! Arturo’s lawyers are outside! They said if you drop the charges, they will buy us a house in Cuernavaca! We can start over! Just tell the prosecutor you made up the recordings!"
Camila looked at her mother. Really looked at her.
For sixteen years, she had idolized this woman. She had taken blows meant for her. She had starved herself so Elena could buy nice clothes. She had stayed quiet because she thought her mother was just another helpless victim trapped in Arturo's web.
"Did you give Dad the sodium nitrate?" Camila asked, her voice deadly flat.
Elena froze. The hysterics vanished instantly. Her face turned into a mask of pure, unadulterated ice.
"Who told you that?" Elena whispered through the speaker.
"It’s in the autopsy file, Mom," Camila said, leaning closer to the glass. "You poisoned him. You killed Dad for insurance money, and then you gave him to Arturo like a reward."
Elena let out a short, bitter laugh. It was a sound that made Camila’s skin crawl.
"Your father was a nobody!" Elena spat, her eyes flashing with a wicked intensity. "He worked twelve hours a day at a hardware store and brought home pennies! We were living in a hovel! Arturo offered us a real life! Real money! A real future!"
"By breaking my bones?!" Camila shouted, tears of fury hot on her cheeks. "By letting him beat me until I couldn't breathe?!"
"You were a sacrifice!" Elena snapped, pressing her face right up against the glass, her eyes wide like a lunatic. "Every family has to make sacrifices to survive! I took care of you! I fed you! And now you’re going to destroy everything because you couldn't keep your mouth shut?!"
Camila felt a strange calm wash over her. The last piece of her innocent childhood died right then and there in that cold room.
"I’m not destroying everything, Mom," Camila said softly. "You did that three years ago."
Camila pulled a small piece of paper out of her cast.
"What is that?" Elena asked, sudden panic flaring in her eyes again.
"Before Arturo snapped my arm tonight, he told me where he hid Dad's old phone," Camila said. "He kept it as leverage against you, didn't he? In case you ever thought about leaving him. He hid it inside the water tank on the roof."
Elena’s face turned gray. "No... no, Camila, don't..."
"I gave the location to Federal Prosecutor Mendez twenty minutes ago," Camila said, standing up from her wheelchair despite the pain, staring down at her mother through the glass. "They just raided the house. They found the phone. And they found the text messages between you and Arturo planning Dad's murder."
Elena let out a guttural shriek, slamming her chained hands against the glass. "You little monster! I am your mother! I gave you life!"
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"And today," Camila whispered, turning her back on her mother, "I take mine back."
As Camila walked out of the room, Elena’s screams echoed down the long concrete hallway: "He will find you! Arturo has people everywhere! You’re dead, Camila! YOU’RE DEAD!"
