Chapter 9 - WHEN THE EVIDENCE TURNED AGAINST HER
The records created exactly the problem Carmen needed.
The first withdrawal contained Lucía’s handwritten signature.
The later requests used her online account, security questions, and stored authorization information.
Carmen hired an attorney.
Through him, she released one statement to investigators:
Lucía had wanted Andrew’s children and was now denying it because she feared losing her religious life.
Beatriz said something similar.
She admitted providing sleep medication.
She denied giving it without permission.
She claimed Lucía had been anxious before “treatments” and preferred not to remember them clearly.
It was an appalling explanation.
It was also difficult to disprove immediately.
The diocese suspended Beatriz from all ministry and removed her from Santa Clara while its review continued.
Our sisters split emotionally.
No one openly defended what Beatriz had admitted.
But several asked the question Lucía feared most.
What if she had agreed and later regretted it?
Then the DNA results arrived.
Mateo and Emiliano were both overwhelmingly consistent with being Andrew Bennett’s biological children.
Elaine Bennett drove from Pittsburgh to Lancaster with her husband, Patrick.
They met Lucía in her attorney’s office.
Elaine stared at photographs of the boys for nearly a minute.
“Mateo has Andrew’s left eyebrow,” she said.
Lucía covered her mouth.
There was no celebration.
Too much had been stolen from all of them.
Elaine did not ask to take the children.
She did not threaten court.
She asked one question.
“Did Andrew know you wanted to do this?”
“The first time?” Lucía said. “We talked about children for years.”
“And the second?”
Lucía’s eyes hardened.
“There was no second decision.”
That night Keystone sent a second batch of records.
Buried beneath ordinary storage invoices was a scanned letter received after Mateo’s birth.
It was signed by Lucía.
It instructed Keystone not to release any additional samples without fresh written consent verified directly with her.
The account should have been frozen.
It had been.
For eleven weeks.
Then someone requested a password reset.
The reset was completed using information only a person close to Lucía would likely know.
Her childhood street.
Her confirmation name.
The name of the hospital where Mateo was born.
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Investigators still needed to determine who had done it.
But I already knew who had spent twenty-seven years collecting every answer.
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