Chapter 6 - Father Mateo Came Back VoluntarilyHe surprised everyone by returning.
Four days after disappearing, Father Mateo walked into the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office with an attorney.
He wore clerical black.
Silver cross.
Calm expression.
The same man Lupita had trusted her whole life.
He denied fleeing.
He said he had been on retreat and turned off his phone after learning “confused accusations” were spreading.
Investigators showed him the cellar documents.
He admitted signing some.
“I served as Lupita’s pastoral advocate.”
“She was twenty-two during the first pregnancy,” Ortega said. “Why did an adult woman need you to consent to a reproductive procedure?”
“I did not consent for her.”
The document said otherwise.
Mateo claimed it was administrative shorthand.
He insisted Lupita knew she was participating in a confidential fertility ministry.
That claim almost made Ortega lose his composure.
“She spent six years asking what happened to her children.”
“I was told she later experienced psychological instability.”
“By whom?”
“Mother Beatriz.”
Convenient.
Then investigators played an old audio file recovered from Cross’s laptop.
Mateo’s voice.
She cannot know before conception. Anxiety interferes with compliance.
Cross:
Sedation this heavy is unnecessary.
Mateo:
She wakes frightened. It is kinder.
The interview ended.
Mateo was arrested later that afternoon on charges supported by the evidence then available, with additional counts expected as the investigation expanded.
Lupita refused to watch the footage of his arrest.
“He’ll look sad.”
Inés understood.
“He always looked saddest when he wanted me to forgive him before I knew what he had done.”
That night Lupita remembered something else.
Before she entered Santa Clara, Mateo had taken her to a private clinic for a “vocation health examination.”
Blood tests.
Pelvic ultrasound.
Hormone tests she did not understand.
She was nineteen.
“You need a clean bill of health before vows,” he told her.
Inés frowned when Lupita described it.
“I never had that.”
“What?”
“My pre-vow physical was blood pressure, vaccines, routine examination. Nothing like fertility testing.”
Lupita’s skin went cold.
The first medical tests connected to the scheme may have happened before she entered the convent.
Before Beatriz controlled her meals.
Before the tea.
Before any wealthy family appeared.
May you like
Father Mateo had evaluated her fertility before sending her to Santa Clara.
That possibility would become the center of the case.
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