After almost twenty minutes, the pavement changed.
Verónica went downstairs, waited until she heard Daniel’s car leave the garage, and as soon as the sound disappeared at the end of the street, she went back up quietly. She unlocked the door, took off her shoes, and stood still in the hallway, holding her breath.
The house felt different when you were hiding inside it.
At 9:17, she heard the garage door open again.
Daniel had come back.
Her heart started pounding so hard she had to lean against the wall.
She cracked open the hallway door and saw Emilia’s bedroom door slowly open. The girl stepped out already dressed, hair neatly combed, backpack on her shoulders, and with such a serious expression that Verónica’s stomach turned cold.
Daniel spoke in a low voice:
— Ready?
Emilia nodded.
Ready.
Ready for what?
A sharp pain pierced Verónica’s chest. She didn’t think clearly. She didn’t look for more proof. She didn’t ask herself if she was overreacting. The suspicion had already taken over.
She slipped into the garage while Daniel helped Emilia into the back seat. Before he could close the trunk, Verónica lifted it slightly and slid inside, stifling a sound. She pulled it shut carefully, and the darkness swallowed her immediately.
It smelled like hot rubber, gasoline, and dust.
She curled her legs up and hugged her bag tightly to her chest to stay silent.
A second later, she heard the doors close.
Then the engine.
The car started moving.
The vibration climbed up her spine like a warning.
For the first few minutes, she tried to track the route. She counted traffic lights. Felt speed bumps. Heard distant trucks, horns, motorcycles. She expected to recognize the road to Emilia’s school or Daniel’s office, but the route began to twist into streets that matched neither destination.
After almost twenty minutes, the pavement changed.
Veronica felt it on her back before she nodded her head at it. They no longer went along familiar avenues or streets of Narvarte where the car shook due to potholes or speed bumps. Now the journey was smoother, straighter, longer. As if they had left the area where they normally moved.
He tried to breathe slowly, but the air inside the trunk was getting thicker. The heat and confinement squeezed his chest. Outside you could no longer hear so many honks or vendors, but long stretches of constant engine and, from time to time, the hum of a trailer when passing.
They didn’t go to school.
They didn’t go to the office.
They didn’t go anywhere normal.
He leaned his ear against the back seat, trying to hear better. For a while he could not distinguish anything. Then Daniel’s voice, soft, too soft.
“Don’t be nervous. Today it is going to be fixed.
There was a silence.
Then Emilia’s little voice, just a thread.
“What if my mom finds out?”
Veronica’s heart pounded so hard that she thought they were going to hear it from the seats.
Daniel replied almost immediately.
“Your mother doesn’t have to find out. This is for their good as well. When it’s all over, they’re not going to have any problems.
Veronica closed her eyes.
The “everything” sounded like a threat to him.
He thought of clandestine hospitals, of people buying children, of debts, of things that were too horrible. His body asked him to hit the trunk, scream, jump on them as soon as the car braked. But another part of her—colder, clearer—told her that she still didn’t know enough. If she got out too soon and Daniel had an explanation, she would go back to being the paranoid wife, the upset mother, the crazy woman who imagines things.
They continued to advance for almost half an hour more.
Then the car slowed down. He turned twice. He entered through a gravel surface. The sound changed. Pebbles hitting the tires. Then a slight drop. The engine went out.
Veronica stopped breathing.
He heard the doors open.
Daniel’s first.
Then Emilia’s.
“Get off slowly,” he said. Remember what we practice.
We practice.
Veronica felt dizzy.
The back door closed. Daniel walked away with Emilia. His footsteps sounded on gravel and then on something hollow, perhaps a porch of wood or sheet. A metal door creaked. Distant voices. A woman waving. Then silence.
He waited.
One.
Dos.
Five minutes.
