Chapter 3 - The Mask Slips on the Front Porch
The red and blue lights of the patrol cars outside cast long, rhythmic shadows across the front entryway as Deputy Miller stepped between Victoria and the door.
"Doña Victoria," Miller said, pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his utility belt. "You are under arrest for attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, and suspected document forgery."
The neighborhood onlookers gathered on the sidewalk gasped in unison as the elegant, pearl-wearing matriarch of the Preston estate was guided out onto the front porch, her hands pinned behind her back.
The tears that had been streaming down her face just moments before dried instantly, replaced by a sneer of pure, unfiltered venom as she turned back to look at me through the screen door.
"You think you won, Elena?" she hissed, her voice dropping into a low register that sounded entirely foreign. "You're a nobody from a foster home. Without my family's name, you and that bastard child are nothing in this town. Alejandro will see through you eventually!"
Alejandro walked out onto the porch, his heavy tactical boots sounding like a death march behind her.
"The only thing I see through, Mother, is you," he said calmly, closing the heavy wooden door completely to shut out her voice.
The house fell into a profound, heavy silence, the distant crackle of the police radios outside fading down the driveway as the transport vehicle pulled away from the curb.
I sank onto the living room sofa, the adrenaline finally leaving my system, leaving behind an exhaustion so deep my chest ached with every breath.
Alejandro knelt down in front of me, his rough, dust-covered hands gently wrapping around my cold fingers, his eyes searching my face with a desperate tenderness he hadn't allowed himself to show in front of the officers.
"I'm sorry, Elena," he whispered, his forehead leaning against my hands. "I'm so incredibly sorry I didn't get back sooner."
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"You came back," I managed to say, a single tear cutting through the dust on my cheek. "That's all that matters. She told me you were buried in the desert, Alejandro. She showed me the papers."
"I know," he said, his jaw tightening as he looked toward the kitchen where the forged papers still lay scattered. "But the people who helped her write those papers are about to find out exactly what happens when you forge a Captain's death."
