The call came when the sun still hadn't decided whether to sink completely.
It was 7:23 a.m., and in the Arvezu household, breakfast was growing cold.
Alexandra hadn't come home all night.
Her mother tried not to panic, but still called her husband.
"Hello?" Senator Arvezu answered, irritated at being woken.
"Alex didn't come home."
The senator sat up.
"Who is it?" asked the woman beside him.
"My wife," he replied. Then, into the phone: "Didn't she say she was staying at her friend Sonia's?"
"With Sofia, right. I'll call you back."
"No. Don't call me back—only if they really don't show up, then you can call." The senator joked. His lover's laughter spilled through the line.
Mrs. Arvezu dialed again.
"They never arrived," said Sofia's mother. "I thought they'd gone back to your place—you know how they are. So they're not with you?"
Alexandra's mother hung up. "Fucking idiot," she muttered.
Sofia, her daughter's best friend, hadn't come home either.
Mrs. Arvezu tried to hold off the alarm. She thought of traffic. But 7:30 a.m.—there was none. They'd been gone for more than twelve hours. Then she thought maybe their phones had died.
She checked the moms' WhatsApp group. Nobody else seemed nervous.
Alexandra and Sofia had gone out together, that much was certain. They'd said they were going to Valeria's. Just for a little while. Then they'd sleep over at Sofie's.
At 8:07, Mrs. Arvezu called Valeria's house. The maid answered.
"No, Miss Valeria left at five. No, she wasn't with them, she only went to the dentist and then the gym. They weren't here. Weren't they with you?"
"No?" Click.
At 8:15, Mrs. Arvezu called Sofia's mother again.
"Have you heard anything? They weren't with you?"
"No. They told me they were with Vale."
The line went silent for several seconds. Then both women began firing questions at once.
At 8:29, Alexandra's mother called the senator. He didn't answer.
He was busy. With Julia. In an apartment in Polanco not under his name. The phone buzzed on the kitchen counter while his lover poured wine with trembling hands.
When he finally picked up, he heard the word missing three times before he reacted. He stood up. Didn't say goodbye. Slammed the door behind him—a door slam that wasn't really for her. Or maybe it was.
In the car, he called Estefania. He trusted her. They had worked together before. He considered her a valuable ally. Ever since she had spared him a night in jail for drunk driving—and the potential fallout on his political career—the senator turned to her for everything, sometimes more than to his lawyer.
Estefania wasn't one to ask too many questions.
And the senator always told her more than he should.
"Are you on shift?" he asked in a low voice.
"I'm heading out. What happened, Senator?"
"I need you to check something. Discreetly. My daughter hasn't shown up. Nor the friend she was with."
Estefania didn't answer right away. She started the engine, tucked her gum into her cheek, and shifted her voice.
"Give me their names. How long have they been gone?"
"They left a bar yesterday, sometime between five and seven in the evening."
"Have you called security? Other families?"
"Yes. My wife spoke with the mother of the girl she was supposed to stay with—they're not there."
"Where were they? What's the other girl's name?"
"I don't know where they were. Valeria—her name's Valeria. I'll send you her last name on WhatsApp."
The senator's wife sent Valeria's full name. And a terrifying message:
"They left with each other and five more kids, boys and girls, from school. None of the eight have come back."
The senator should have been angry.
But something told him this wasn't anger—it was cause for real concern.
Estefania felt a tingle behind her eyes. Something about this stank.
"Do you want me to issue an alert?"
"No. Not yet. I don't want this reaching the press. Or the Party. You understand?"
"I understand."
She hung up. Sat staring through the windshield.
The traffic outside had become a swarm of red.
The man who had run over a family in Tlalpan was barely making the news. Metro cameras were out of service on the main lines. And now this.
She turned the car around. Today, there would be no pilates at home.