Chapter 8 - The Hospital Room They Tried to EmptyJavier arrived within twenty minutes.
He looked as if he'd been fighting someone, although he insisted that he was unharmed.
“Miguel's car was abandoned,” he told me. “The police found it near the river.”
“Was there blood?”
“No. Nothing like that. But his phone has been switched off, and he hasn't contacted anyone.”
“What if Carmen found him?”
“We don't know.”
I wanted to ask more, but a nurse entered and told us that our daughter had been moved to a different intensive care room.
For the first time, we were allowed to stand beside her incubator for several minutes.
Our little girl lay beneath a warm light, her tiny chest rising and falling with the help of a breathing machine.
Her identification bracelet read Sofía Méndez.
I had chosen the name before she was born.
Seeing it attached to her tiny wrist made the world feel real again.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I whispered through the incubator opening. “It's Mama.”
Sofía's fingers curled weakly.
I began to cry.
Javier stood behind me, one hand resting gently on my shoulder.
“She'll be okay,” he whispered.
I wanted to believe him.
Then a nurse hurried into the room.
“Mr. Méndez, we need you at the reception desk.”
“Why?”
“There's an administrative issue concerning the baby's records.”
Javier's expression tightened.
He kissed my forehead and followed her outside.
A minute later, I heard raised voices in the corridor.
I couldn't make out every word, but I recognized Carmen's voice.
“You have no right to deny me access!”
A hospital administrator responded.
“Ma'am, the mother has explicitly refused permission.”
“I'm the grandmother!”
“And this is a medical facility.”
I tried to stand, but the pain in my abdomen forced me back against the bed.
The door opened.
Javier returned, his face pale.
“She tried to authorize a transfer.”
I stared at him.
“A transfer where?”
“To another hospital. She told the administration that you had agreed.”
“I never agreed to anything!”
“I know.”
“How could she even do that?”
“She used a document claiming you had authorized her to make decisions on your behalf.”
I felt sick.
“Was it the same document she wanted me to sign?”
Javier nodded.
“She must have prepared a version before you saw it.”
He took my hand.
“The hospital stopped everything. Sofía hasn't moved.”
I looked through the glass at my daughter.
Carmen wasn't merely trying to win an argument anymore. She was willing to enter a hospital and attempt to move a premature infant without her mother's consent.
I pressed the emergency call button.
When the nurse arrived, I told her I wanted security notified and every visitor restriction documented.
Javier immediately supported me.
We also contacted the police and provided the guardianship paperwork, the video recording, and Elena's copied emails.
By evening, an officer had taken statements from both of us.
Carmen was warned not to approach the hospital without authorization.
But she didn't disappear.
She sent a message to Javier.
You have made a terrible mistake. Once the family learns what Laura has done, you'll understand why I tried to protect you.
Javier showed it to me.
I read the sentence several times.
“What does she mean by what I've done?”
“I don't know.”
“She's setting us up.”
He nodded.
Then he opened another message, one sent by an unknown number.
It contained a photograph.
The image showed a folder lying on a desk. The cover bore Javier's full name, followed by the words:
CONFIDENTIAL ACCOUNT REVIEW.
Beneath it was a second line.
UNAUTHORIZED TRANSFERS APPROVED UNDER JAVIER MÉNDEZ'S SIGNATURE.
My husband stared at the photograph.
“I never approved these.”
I believed him.
But the image showed several documents bearing signatures that looked remarkably like his.
Someone had been using his name.
Someone had been moving money through the family company.
And if Carmen had planned to make me look like an unstable mother, she might also have been preparing to make Javier look like a criminal.
I reached for his hand.
“She wants to destroy both of us.”
He stared at the photograph.
“No,” he said slowly. “She wants us to destroy each other.”
Then his phone rang.
It was the police.
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They had found Miguel's car.
And they had discovered something hidden in the trunk.
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