The next day Margaret visited St. Helena Children’s Home, where Isabella had been living under state protection. The director, an elderly woman named Lucinda Hart, initially refused to talk. But eventually she revealed that Isabella had arrived six months earlier after being brought by her uncle Victor, who claimed he could no longer care for her.
The girl had arrived bruised, silent, and terrified.
Since returning from the prison visit, she had stopped speaking entirely.
Margaret watched Isabella playing alone in the yard. Whatever the girl had whispered to her father had clearly been a heavy burden.
That night Margaret studied the old case files. Officially, everything pointed to Mateo. He had lost his job days before the crime, had been drunk that night, and had woken with blood on his hands and his wife Elena dead on the floor.
But as Margaret read deeper, cracks appeared.
A neighbor named Luis Morales originally told police he saw “a man” leaving the house. Only later did he claim it was Mateo. The prosecutor handling the case had been Victor Morales—Luis’s relative.
Coincidence? Margaret no longer believed in coincidence.