Chapter 2: The Phone Beneath the Trees
The phone kept ringing.
At first, I thought I was imagining it.
Maybe my mind was breaking after everything I had seen.
Maybe eight years of anger, loneliness, and unanswered questions had finally caught up with me.
But then it rang again.
A sharp vibration hidden somewhere in the darkness.
I turned slowly.
The forest stretched in every direction.
The criminals were gone.
The van carrying Beatriz Alcántara had disappeared down the dirt road.
My father was gone too.
Just like before.
Except this time, he left me with something.
A key.
A warning.
And a thousand questions.
I tightened my grip around the small metal key engraved with my mother's name.
Lucía.
My mother's name had always been the only thing in my life that felt safe.
Even after she died.
Especially after she died.
I stepped toward the sound.
Every instinct told me not to.
The smart thing would have been to leave.
Go somewhere far away.
Forget I ever saw anything.
People like Mauricio Alcántara didn't lose sleep over someone like me.
They could erase me without anyone noticing.
That was the truth.
A homeless nineteen-year-old man disappearing from the streets would not make headlines.
Nobody would search.
Nobody would ask questions.
But then I remembered Beatriz's eyes.
The way she looked at me before those men took her.
She wasn't asking me to be a hero.
She was asking me not to let her become invisible.
The phone rang again.
Closer.
I pushed through the bushes until I found a small backpack hidden beneath a fallen tree.
It was old.
Dirty.
Almost impossible to notice.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a cheap cellphone.
A notebook.
And an envelope with my name written across the front.
Diego.
I froze.
Nobody had written my name like that in years.
Not as a reminder.
Not as someone important.
I picked up the envelope.
My fingers hesitated.
Then I opened it.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
My mother's handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
The curves of the letters.
The way she crossed her t's.
The tiny marks she made when she wrote quickly.
My eyes blurred.
“Diego,
If you are reading this, something happened that I hoped would never happen.
Your father came back.
And you found the truth before I could tell you myself.””
I stopped breathing.
I read the words again.
Your father came back.
My hands started shaking.
My father hadn't abandoned us because he stopped loving us.
At least, that was what the letter suggested.
I kept reading.
“Your father did not leave because he wanted to.
He left because someone threatened our family.
Someone who wanted everything we built to disappear.””
I looked toward the road where the van had gone.
Mauricio.
The name repeated in my mind.
The businessman.
The partner.
The man who wanted Beatriz gone.
The letter continued.
“I was afraid Diego would become a target.
So I made Raúl promise me he would leave before they could use you against him.””
I sat down hard on the ground.
The forest moved around me.
My whole life had been built around one belief.
My father left because he didn't care.
Because I wasn't worth staying for.
Because losing my mother had been too much and he chose himself.
But what if that wasn't true?
What if every night I spent wondering why he abandoned me was based on a lie?
I wanted to be angry.
But I couldn't.
Not yet.
Because there was still something missing.
The truth.
The phone suddenly buzzed.
I almost dropped it.
An incoming call.
No number.
Unknown.
I stared at the screen.
Then answered.
“Hello?””
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then a woman's voice whispered:
“Diego?””
My entire body went cold.
“Who is this?””
The woman breathed heavily.
“Listen carefully. You don't have much time.””
I stood up.
“Who are you?””
“My name is Elena.””
The voice sounded terrified.
“I worked for the Alcántara family for twelve years.””
I looked around the forest.
“Where are you?””
“That doesn't matter.””
Her voice cracked.
“What matters is that you need to leave that forest immediately.””
I gripped the phone tighter.
“Why?””
A pause.
Then she said:
“Because your father wasn't the only person watching tonight.””
A chill moved through me.
“What are you talking about?””
“I saw you.””
I looked behind me.
The trees.
The darkness.
The empty clearing.
“You saw me?””
“Yes.””
Her voice lowered.
“And someone else did too.””
My heart started racing.
“Who?””
Before she answered, the call suddenly became distorted.
Static filled the line.
Then her voice returned.
Barely audible.
“Diego… don't trust—”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Don't trust who?
My father?
Mauricio?
Everyone?
I looked at the backpack again.
The notebook inside caught my attention.
It was old and worn.
The cover had my mother's initials.
L.H.
I opened it.
The first pages were filled with numbers.
Dates.
Names.
Business records.
I didn't understand any of it.
Then I reached the middle.
And saw a name written over and over.
Mauricio Alcántara.
My stomach tightened.
My mother had been investigating him.
Why?
I flipped through more pages.
There were notes.
Short sentences.
Warnings.
“Something is wrong with the accounts.””
“Beatriz trusts him too much.””
“Raúl found evidence.””
“Need to protect Diego.””
Then one sentence near the bottom made me stop.
“Lucía Hernández — if anything happens to me, the proof is hidden where Diego's first memory began.””
My first memory.
I closed my eyes.
The old house.
The house where I grew up.
The one my father sold after my mother died.
The place I hadn't seen since I was eleven.
My father's words returned.
Find the old house where your mother kept her things.
Before Mauricio finds it first.
Suddenly, headlights flashed between the trees.
I turned.
A vehicle was coming back.
My first thought was that my father had returned.
But then I saw the car.
A black SUV.
Not the van.
Not my father's vehicle.
The doors opened.
Three men stepped out.
They weren't wearing uniforms.
They weren't police.
They moved slowly.
Like they already knew exactly where they were going.
One of them held a flashlight.
“Check near the clearing.””
My blood turned cold.
They were looking for someone.
Me.
I grabbed the backpack and ran.
Branches scratched my face.
My shoes sank into the wet dirt.
I didn't think.
I didn't plan.
I just moved.
Behind me, a voice shouted:
“Someone was here!””
Another voice answered:
“Find him.””
I ran faster.
For the first time in years, I wasn't running because I had nowhere to go.
I was running because I had something to protect.
The notebook.
The truth.
My mother's final message.
I reached a small hill overlooking the forest and dropped behind a group of rocks.
The men passed below.
One of them spoke into a phone.
“He found the bag.””
A pause.
Then he smiled.
“No, Mauricio. The boy has it.””
My chest tightened.
They knew my name.
They knew about the bag.
And they were reporting directly to him.
The man listened for a moment.
Then his expression changed.
“What?””
Silence.
He looked around.
“No, that's impossible.””
Another pause.
Then he whispered:
“Raúl's son is alive.””
I stopped breathing.
They weren't surprised that I existed.
They were surprised that I was alive.
Why?
The man lowered the phone.
“Find him before sunrise.””
The three men disappeared deeper into the woods.
I stayed hidden for almost an hour.
Until I was certain they were gone.
Then I looked down at the notebook again.
My hands trembled.
My mother had known this day might come.
She had prepared for it.
She had left clues.
And somehow, the person who was supposed to protect me had been hiding the truth.
My father.
The man I hated for eight years.
The man who might have sacrificed everything to keep me alive.
I stood up.
The sky was beginning to change.
The first light of morning was coming.
And somewhere in this city, Beatriz Alcántara was still trapped.
I had a choice.
I could disappear.
Return to the streets.
Pretend I never saw anything.
Or I could find the truth my mother died protecting.
I looked at the key in my hand.
Lucía.
For the first time in eight years, I whispered the name out loud.
“Mom…”
The wind moved through the trees.
And for a second, I felt like she was there.
Then my phone buzzed.
A new message appeared.
Unknown number.
One sentence.
*If you want to know why your father left, go to the old house before Mauricio does.*
Below the message was an image.
A photograph.
A picture of my mother.
My father.
And me.
Taken one week before she died.
But someone had written something across my mother's face.
May you like
Four words.
*She knew the truth.*
