“I need to talk to you. Lucía has just revealed something else… something that changes everything.”
The psychologist led me to a small room next to the emergency room. Her hands were clasped together, like someone preparing to deliver inevitably painful news.
“Your stepdaughter said that…” she took a breath, “…that it was her biological mother who punished her by withholding food. But she also said something about Javier.”
My throat tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That he knew what was happening. That he saw her crying, that he tried to secretly hide food from her… but that, according to the girl, he told her that ‘she shouldn’t interfere,’ that ‘her mother knew what she was doing.’”
I froze. That didn’t necessarily mean that he had been involved… but it did mean that he hadn’t done anything. Nothing.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice breaking.
“Children her age can confuse details, but they don’t create these kinds of patterns out of thin air. And most importantly: she’s saying this out of fear. Fear of disappointing someone. Fear of being punished again.”
Javier’s words echoed in my head: “She’ll get used to it.”
Now they sounded terribly different.
The police requested a formal interview with him. When they called him, I was told, he was first surprised, then indignant, and finally nervous. He admitted that the girl’s mother had “harsh” methods, but insisted that he “never imagined it was so serious.”
The officers weren’t convinced.
