Chapter 68: It is about Mateo. He is the father of Kite.

"Tell us about it, then." Felix caught a quick look at Dune, before he looked back at Carmen. She was sitting rigidly in her chair, with little Javier balanced against her shoulder. "Tell us about what you know concerning her disappearance."

"I haven’t said that I know anything about her disappearance." Carmen’s tone became sharper. "All I said is what I heard and what I saw. Men coming into her house, and then I overhead them while they were speaking from the other side of the wall. I thought they worked for Sterling where Marisol used to work."

Felix folded his arms as he leant a little back. "Tell us about why you fought with her then."

She fell silent for a bit, as if she was deciding on the words she wanted to use. "It is about Mateo. He is the father of Kite."

"Wait," Felix paused, thinking about the name. "Kite had told me that he didn’t know anything about his father. That means that Mateo wasn’t close to the family."

"Yes, that is true." Carmen adjusted her position with Javier, patting his back. "Mateo had not set foot in town for six years, when he heard that Marisol was pregnant, he fled without waiting to see whether it was a boy or girl. He returned to the town one year ago. I still don’t know how she got tangled up with him again. His face alone makes me sick every time I think of it."

Felix took a sideways glance at Dune; she sat with blank paper resting on her knee as she carefully jotted down some notes on it. Felix gave a brief nod to Carmen to continue with her story.

"At first when Marisol told me about it, I didn’t believe her. But she seemed afraid; very afraid. I told her to leave him alone since he had already messed up her life once and shouldn’t do it again. For some time it seemed like everything was going to be fine; she kept doing the same thing as always: work during the day, go home at night and Kite came to play with my son. But then one day she showed up crying at my door, saying that Mateo wanted more money or he will hurt Kite."

Carmen clenched her jaw as she held Javier with an increased strength to make him stir a little bit. "That was the moment when I understood that she had been talking with him for much longer than she had told me; she had been giving him most of her earnings and living on what remained. I told her that we needed to report it to Alvaro, my husband. He knows people, people who can handle someone like Mateo. But she would not hear of it."

She shook her head. "I still wonder why she was allowing it to happen to herself."

"I’ve seen a few similar to that." Felix muttered.

"I had managed to hide this from Alvaro and kids for some time and helped Marisol in secret: gave her anything she needed; mostly food and sometimes some coins if it was possible to do it unnoticed by him."

Carmen breathed out. "Of course, it didn’t last long. Alvaro found out eventually and asked me directly what was going on. I told him everything. He knew about Mateo’s reputation in our town; everyone did, and he was furious. I told him to keep calm; Mateo would most likely disappear on his own, as he did it the previous time."

"But he did not," Felix interjected.

"No," said Carmen, lowering her voice even further. "He did not. Things only got worse and worse for Marisol. And then I got pregnant with Javier."

She took a glance downwards, towards the baby who seemed to have finally fallen asleep against her chest. "We could not support her anymore in front of the whole neighborhood and all because of the man who hung around her constantly. With Javier’s arrival, we were broke. Broke beyond our wildest imagination. But that was not what the main problem was, believe me. The truth was that Alvaro was fed up with Mateo long before that. He had seen him several times near her street, just wandering around like he had some sort of a right to be there."

Carmen looked down at her son lying quietly in her arms. "And so Alvaro decided that he would talk to her in person. We left the children in our house and went to her place one night. They talked for hours and hours while I sat there and listened. Marisol kept insisting that everything was alright and she was able to manage. But I do not think that it was really Marisol who spoke those words. There was something different in the way she acted. Like she had some kind of an obligation to Mateo and could not refuse his requests."

She took another breath, trying hard not to burst into tears. "In the end, Alvaro threatened her. He told her that he would never help her again if she did not get rid of that guy from her life once and for all."

Felix reclined in his chair as he considered what she had just told him. "And since then, she hasn’t come back. Nor Kite as far as I know. And after a week, you hear people talking about how she disappeared?"

"Yes." Her arms held the baby even more tightly, her eyes cast down towards the floor.

"But without sounding harsh here, why didn’t you go talk to Kite yourself? He’s still a child. You’ve seen him grow up practically side by side with your own son."

"I wanted to." Her voice faltered on the statement, and she turned her eyes away. "I really did want to go check on him. It’s just... I couldn’t do it. I kept wondering whether it was because of us that she disappeared, that we pushed her into this situation, that she ended up doing something crazy like this. Or maybe Mateo took her. It wouldn’t leave me thinking anything else, especially thinking about my own children at the same time. If he was actually the one behind it all, he could come back and come for us next. I couldn’t put Javier at risk like that."

"I understand." His voice softened slightly. "Given the circumstances, you did what you could. For now, keep Kite here with you, if that’s all right."

"We most certainly will. We’ll keep him safe." She said quickly, some of the guilt lifting off of her shoulders already.

Felix forced himself from his chair. "Well, that concludes our conversation here, then. We might come back if we learn any new information."

"Thank you." She whispered her thanks.

Dune rose beside him, and they left the house together, closing the door quietly behind them. Once he had cleared the front steps, Felix stretched his arms overhead to work the tension out of his shoulders.

"I really don’t like where this is going," he breathed out slowly.

"Where do we go from here?" Dune asked beside him.

"Let’s pay Sterling a visit first." Felix walked down the road. "Let’s hope they’ve got their story prepared for us."