Chapter 3 - The Secret of Carmen Ruiz
The penthouse of the Mendoza estate was bathed in the soft glow of a customized nursery, but Rafael could not sleep. It had been three days since Diego had been discharged from the hospital with a perfectly clean bill of health. The doctors called it a "spontaneous neonatal resurrection," a term Rafael knew was medical jargon for we have no idea what happened.
Rafael knew exactly what had happened. A woman whose name he didn't even know had breathed life back into his son.
He sat at his massive mahogany desk, staring at a file folder. Standing across from him was Alejandro, his head of personal security and a former intelligence officer.
"I want her found, Alejandro," Rafael said, his voice dangerously quiet. "I have the best security apparatus in the country, and you're telling me a cleaning woman has vanished off the face of the earth?"
Alejandro sighed, placing a thin document on the desk. "It’s not that she vanished, boss. It’s that she didn't exist until three years ago. The hospital records list her as Carmen Ruiz, hired through a third-party subcontracting cleaning agency. Her address is a run-down tenement in the poorest district of the city. But when we went there, her landlord said she packed her bags the morning of the incident and left."
"Why would she run?" Rafael frowned, rubbing his temples. "I want to reward her. I want to make her rich. Why would she flee after saving a child's life?"
"Because Carmen Ruiz is an alias," Alejandro revealed, opening the file. "Her real name is Dr. Camila Vasquez. Five years ago, she was the Chief of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at the central hospital in Caracas, Venezuela."
Rafael’s eyes widened. He sat up straight. "A pediatrician? Then why was she scrubbing floors in my city?"
"Political turmoil and a highly personal tragedy," Alejandro explained. "Her husband was a corrupt government official. When she discovered he was using her pediatric foundation to launder money, she threatened to expose him. He framed her for medical malpractice, leading to the death of a child—a complete fabrication, but with his connections, she was stripped of her license and faced prison. She fled the country with nothing but a fake passport. If she is found, she risks deportation back to a regime that wants her dead."
Rafael looked at the photograph in the file. It was a picture of Carmen—no, Camila—in a white lab coat, looking confident, beautiful, and proud. It was a stark contrast to the frightened, exhausted woman in the green uniform he had seen three days ago.
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"She didn't just save my son, Alejandro," Rafael whispered, a deep sense of respect and empathy washing over him. "She risked her entire freedom to do it. If she had been caught practicing medicine without a license, she would have been deported. She knew the stakes, and she still chose to save Diego."
He closed the file with a firm snap. "Find her. Not to expose her, but to protect her. She is under my wing now, whether she knows it or not."
