Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Mirror
The private laboratory in Santa Fe was empty except for three people: Alejandro, Dr. Morales, and a geneticist named Dr. Arispe.
The rain beat against the high glass windows of the lab as the centrifuge hummed in the corner. Alejandro sat in a black swivel chair, his coat thrown over the back, his right sleeve rolled up. On the silver tray beside him sat two glass vials of blood—one drawn from his arm fifteen minutes ago, and one drawn from Sofía’s tiny arm back at the mansion.
Mariela was not there. Alejandro had ordered two of his most trusted private security guards to stay with her and Sofía in the mansion’s guest wing. They were not prisoners, but they were not allowed to leave. No one was allowed to leave.
“It will take four hours for the fast-sequence PCR analysis, Alejandro,” Dr. Morales said softly, setting a cup of black coffee on the table. “Are you sure you want to sit here the entire time?”
“I’ve waited ten years,” Alejandro said, his eyes hollow. “Four hours is nothing.”
Dr. Arispe, a silver-haired woman who had handled medical testing for Alejandro’s companies for decades, adjusted her glasses as she prepared the DNA samples.
“Alejandro,” she said carefully, “you must prepare yourself. Even if the bracelet matches, children get lost, trinkets get traded on the black market... the odds of a child surviving a high-impact aviation crash in the mountains are—"
“She has Elena’s eyes,” Alejandro interrupted, his voice raspy. “She has the crescent mark on her neck. And when she looked at me today... when she put that inhaler in my hand... I felt something I haven't felt since the day the plane went down.”
He looked down at his calloused hands.
“I felt alive.”
Dr. Arispe fell silent and returned to her machines.
While the centrifuge spun, Alejandro pulled his phone from his pocket. He dialed a number he hadn't called in months.
The line rang three times before a smooth, polished voice answered.
“Alejandro? What a surprise. Donoso called me earlier and said you had some kind of medical episode at the house? Are you all right, brother?”
Gabriel de la Vega.
Alejandro’s younger brother. The vice president of De la Vega Enterprises. The man who managed the family’s charitable foundation, the man who had stood beside Alejandro at the funeral, holding him up as the three mahogany urns were lowered into the family mausoleum.
Alejandro swallowed the rage rising in his throat, forcing his voice to remain steady and weak.
“I’m fine, Gabriel. Just... a spike in my blood pressure. The doctor says I need to rest.”
“Thank God,” Gabriel sighed over the line. He sounded relieved—almost too relieved. “You scare me sometimes, Alejandro. You work too hard, living in that big empty house all by yourself. You need to let me take over the board meeting tomorrow with the German investors. You shouldn't be stressing yourself.”
“Yes,” Alejandro said quietly. “Perhaps you’re right. Tell me, Gabriel... do you remember the search team you hired in Guadalajara? The ones who recovered Elena and Lucía?”
There was a tiny, split-second pause on the line. A pause so short no one else would have noticed it, but Alejandro had spent thirty years reading men across negotiation tables.
“Of course I remember,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a solemn tone. “It was the worst week of my life. Why are you bringing that up now, brother?”
“I was just thinking about them,” Alejandro said. “The lead investigator... what was his name again? The captain from the state police?”
“Captain Rivas,” Gabriel replied smoothly. “Why? Alejandro, searching through those old memories is only going to hurt you. The doctors said—"
“I know what the doctors said,” Alejandro cut in. “I’ll see you at the office on Thursday, Gabriel.”
He hung up before his brother could reply.
Alejandro turned to Dr. Morales. “Find Captain Rivas. I want to know where he is, who pays his pension, and where he was on the night of October 14, 2016.”
Three hours later, the centrifuge slowed to a stop.
Dr. Arispe pulled the printout from the digital analyzer. She read the lines of code, her eyebrows rising behind her spectacles. She read them again, then turned to look at Alejandro.
She didn't say a word. She simply handed him the paper.
At the bottom of the page, printed in bold green text, were the results:
PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.9998%
SAMPLE A (ALEJANDRO DE LA VEGA) AND SAMPLE B (SOFÍA / LUCÍA DE LA VEGA) SHARE MATCHING ALLELES ACROSS ALL 24 STR LOCI.
Alejandro’s hands shook so violently the paper rattled like dry leaves.
His daughter was alive.
May you like
His little girl, the one he had mourned for three thousand six hundred days, was sleeping in his guest room, wearing a maid’s daughter’s faded cotton dress.
And someone in his own family had buried her alive in a lie.
