Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Father Melchor Valverde was being handcuffed.
"It wasn't my fault!" he shouted as they shoved him into the patrol car.
The girl was dead. Fátima. Her mother had filed a report. Neighbors whispered it was witchcraft. An exorcism without permission.
The prosecutor's office treated it as negligent homicide.
"I didn't kill anyone! It was either the demon or the girl! I had to choose!"
Nobody believed him. Or maybe they did, but he still had to be taken in.
They locked him in the municipal holding cells as a preventive measure, pending review by the Public Ministry. Upon arrival, he was processed: fingerprints, mugshot, medical history, psychological test.
In the intake hall, after the medical exam, he sat waiting for the prosecutor to take his statement.
For better or worse, the Public Ministry official was drunk at El León de Oro around the corner.
Melchor crossed paths with Estefania. She was on the phone, back turned, but her tone was unmistakable. Melchor smiled and sent a text. The cops had taken one phone, but not the smaller one. The blessing of wearing a black cassock.
"There's no official report yet. But it's urgent. She's the daughter of someone important. No, it's not a formal kidnapping. But it could spiral out of control if it leaks. I need access to the perimeter cameras. Yes, I'll send you the names."
Melchor heard. He shouldn't have. But he did.
"A girl went missing?" he asked, as he was led to intake.
"Two," the guard replied. "But you focus on your own shit, Father."
Valverde closed his eyes. Breathed deep.
"I've got connections. People in the streets. Different groups. I could find out things."
"Yeah, right," the guard sneered. "The narco priest. Gonna hold mass in prison too? Or maybe the Malosos are lining up to confess?"
"I'm serious. If you let me out, I'll ask about the girl."
"The girls," the officer corrected.
"In the end, eight kids are missing," another cop added.
"No way, man—stop feeding info to the kiddie fondler!"
Estefania hung up, glanced at her phone, then looked sideways at Father Melchor. The name Valverde wasn't unfamiliar.
"You're the one from the Tijuana case," she said, without approaching yet.
"Yes. And also from Ciudad Juarez. And Atlixco. And the boy in Culiacan."
"He raped them?" one of the guards asked, the other gripping his baton.
"No," Estefania said. "But every case was stained in blood. All with victims."
A tense silence fell.
Valverde ran his tongue over his dry lips.
"If you let me out, I'll look for the girl. Even if you don't believe me. Even if I'm not paid."
Estefania shook her head.
"I can't release you. But I can't deny something smells wrong."
His intake finished. Photos taken. Melchor didn't smile. He knew this jail wasn't the worst of it. The worst was outside.
Estefania sifted through files, sipping vending machine coffee as cold as the office walls.
She read the file: Valverde, Melchor. Raised an eyebrow at him again, then returned to her phone, rereading the last message with doubt. She opened his dossier. Old. Yellowed. With more tags than a black box recorder.
Unauthorized exorcisms. "Spiritual containment rituals," as he called them. One girl who awoke from a coma. Another who died.
Rumors.
Closed cases.
And yet there he sat: alive, silent, sunk into the corner of the intake hall, eyes fixed on the floor. Waiting.
She scoffed under her breath. His file was worse than she thought.
In her internal report, Estefania wrote a single line: Doesn't seem insane. But touched by something. Contact the Archdiocese of Mexico—they'll decide.
"To Caesar what belongs to Caesar…" she muttered.
"And to God, what belongs to God," he replied, startling her. None of the guards heard.
Not fifteen minutes after she contacted the clergy, power arrived.
No announcement. No warning.
Three black SUVs. Two men in immaculate suits, smiles as hollow as men who never explain anything. A third stepped out slowly. Older, heavyset, a civilian coat failing to hide the clerical cassock beneath.
The Cardinal. Not just any. One of those who cut throats in the name of faith. The same one who had signed Valverde's excommunication years before.
He entered as if into private property, greeting everyone without looking at anyone.
"I've come for Father Melchor Valverde," he said, never raising his voice.
"By what order, Your Eminence?" an agent asked.
"Oh, come on. By the only order that matters: God's," he replied.
And everyone laughed, even the officer. Nobody objected. Because when power enters, nobody asks for ID.
Melchor was led in handcuffs to an interrogation room at the Cardinal's request, in the old wing of City Hall. The place still smelled of damp and body fluids.
There, at the table, the Cardinal removed his handcuffs himself. Turned his back. Then spun around in fury and slapped him hard.
He spoke not as a spiritual guide, but as the head of a wounded cartel.
"You're a fucking disgrace to the order! A festering wound! Mercy is not chaos! How many more girls will you break in the Lord's name? Better to rape them—it costs us less, damn you!"
Melchor's eyes widened, then, realizing the truth in it, he looked back with exhaustion. He did not lower his head.
"I don't break girls. I pick up the pieces. The pedophiles are the ones who break them, Your Eminence."
The Cardinal slapped him again. A dry, restrained blow—more symbolic than painful this time.
"If you wear a cassock again, if you present yourself as a priest again, if you speak in the name of the Church again… I won't lock you up. I'll bury you."
"I've got no other clothes…"
"Don't be an asshole." The Cardinal pulled out a roll of bills and handed him about three thousand pesos. "Screw up again, and we'll send you to the Vatican. Over there, you won't even get a trial."
Melchor didn't answer. He just breathed deeper.
The Cardinal studied him a moment longer. Then his tone dropped. No longer a shout, but a whisper.
"Do you know anything about Arvezu's daughter?"
Valverde stayed silent.
"La Maña doesn't mess with that kind of people. Not like this. Not with eight kids. This isn't an ordinary kidnapping. And you know it. That's why they want you out."
On the other side of the half-open door, Estefania was listening. Not everything. But enough.
The Cardinal left minutes later. He met no one's eyes. Walked straight to Estefania.
"He's free. On parole. No longer our responsibility."
"Nor ours," said the man of God.
He left her an envelope. Estefania didn't open it; her eyes gleamed anyway. She shoved it into the metal drawer like recyclable trash.
When Melchor walked out, he looked thinner than when he went in—not from blows, but from truths that had struck harder.
He wore no cassock now, just black clothes, a torn shirt, his collar sagging like an old rag. But he hadn't lost his gaze.
Estefania watched him in silence. He said nothing. Just walked up to her, paused a second, and murmured:
"You heard too, didn't you?"
She nodded. He had that look again—the one from before, when he believed he could save something.
Estefania waited for him outside, coffee in one hand, the other at her waist.
"Aren't you going to thank me, Father?" she said.
"You or the Cardinal?"
"Me. I thanked the Cardinal with taxes."
An awkward silence followed. Then Estefania pulled a roll of bills from her jacket pocket and offered him half.
"Aren't you going to thank me, daughter?"
"Fucking priest… By the way, is it not a sin to squeeze cash out of your ex-colleagues like this?"
Melchor smiled.
"We're not stealing. The Cardinal paid you to release me, you released me, I help you. Pure business."
He pocketed the bills without counting. Then lowered his eyes and said,
"I'm moving. I know you told me not to, but I'm going to ask about the girl."
"It's pointless. You know that."
"Yes."
"And if it's La Maña, she's already screwed."
"And if it isn't… worse."
Estefania looked at him with something like respect. But her words denied it:
"I also don't think it was her imaginary friends, Father."
Valverde smiled. He liked people who believed they didn't believe.