My husband blamed me for our baby’s death and walked out. Six years later, the hospital called to say our son had been poisoned… and the security footage revealed the killer.

Dr. Veronica, two detectives, and a screen were waiting for her.

The youngest detective, a dark-haired man with a trimmed beard named Ibarra, spoke with that kind of gentleness that is frightening because it always foreshadows the worst.

—We need you to prepare.

Camila wanted to say that no one prepares to exhume their son. But she couldn’t get the words out.

The recording was in black and white. Grainy. The intensive care unit looked exactly as she remembered it: dim lights, flickering monitors, nurses moving like shadows between tiny incubators. First, she appeared on screen, sitting next to Gael, her back slumped. Then she saw her stand up, kiss two fingers, and touch the acrylic of the incubator before leaving. She remembered everything. A nurse had told her to go rest for an hour, that there was no point in fainting. She didn’t want to leave. Her whole body was screaming at her not to leave her son alone. But she was broken inside and out.

Time passed. A nurse came in, checked a monitor, and left. Then the door opened again.

A figure in surgical scrubs, a face mask, a cap, and gloves crossed the room. He walked toward Gael’s incubator with unbearable composure. He glanced over his shoulder, held the IV line, and took something from his pocket. A second later, he injected the contents into the catheter port.

Camila put her hands to her mouth.

-No no…

The detective paused the image just as the figure turned toward the hallway camera. He zoomed in.

Camila stopped breathing.

She recognized the eyes first. Then the arch of the eyebrows. Then a tiny scar near the temple, barely hidden by the cap. She had seen that scar at  family meals, in society magazines, in the perfect photos Esteban started publishing shortly after the divorce.

“It can’t be,” she whispered.

But I could.