Chapter 2: Every Lie Falls Apart
Chapter 2: Every Lie Falls Apart
Two uniformed officers stepped inside.
Behind them came a detective.
The detective immediately noticed the glowing iron.
The forged military casualty notice.
The mountain of suspicious paperwork.
And Margaret standing silently beside the counter.
"This is quite a scene," he muttered.
Alejandro handed him the casualty notice.
The detective scanned it.
His expression changed almost instantly.
"Where did this come from?"
Margaret answered first.
"It arrived in today's mail."
The detective slowly flipped the paper over.
Then pointed to the military seal.
"This seal hasn't been used in seven years."
Silence.
Her lie collapsed immediately.
"Let's try that again."
Margaret looked away.
For the first time that night...
She looked afraid.
Alejandro quietly handed over another folder.
Then another.
Then another.
Forged psychiatric records.
Canceled medical appointments.
Custody paperwork.
Surveillance photographs.
The detective's face darkened with every page.
Finally he looked up.
"What exactly was she planning to do with these?"
Nobody answered.
But suddenly...
I understood everything.
If Alejandro had truly died overseas...
Margaret would've filed for emergency custody.
She would've claimed I was mentally unstable.
Dangerous.
Unfit to raise my own child.
And with my husband supposedly dead...
No one would've been left to defend me.
She hadn't wanted to protect my baby.
She wanted to steal him.
The detective slowly turned toward Margaret.
"Mrs. Castillo..."
"Why were you trying to obtain custody?"
Margaret didn't answer.
Not yet.
May you like
But something inside her finally began to crack.
End of Chapter 2
