Julián’s voice did not sound sleepy.

Sonaba limpia.

Like when I talked to the neighbors after breaking something in the house.

“You’re going to slip up there,” he said. “It’s raining.”

I pressed the notebook to my chest.

I looked for another way out.

The roof was a rectangle surrounded by low fences, water tanks, rusty pipes and clotheslines. On the left side, after a row of sheets, was the laundry room where Doña Elvira kept her buckets. On the right side, a fence separated our building from the one next to it.

It wasn’t very tall.

But downstairs there were four floors of emptiness.

Julian knocked on the door.

“Don’t be silly.

I crouched behind the blue water bottle and put my notebook, cell phone and shirt in my sweatshirt. My hands did not stop shaking.

Then I heard another voice.

More serious.

“Open it at once, Julián.

The manager.

Don Raúl.

The one who collected the rent, changed light bulbs and knew which neighbor was late, which woman was crying, which door should not be opened.

“She’s scared,” Julian replied. “Leave her to me.”

“You screwed up too much.

I covered my mouth.

There were two men on the other side.

And I, barefoot, with the floor wet and my heart hitting my teeth.

I looked at the screen of my cell phone.

No signal.

Of course.

In that building the signal always died on the roof, as if the walls also kept secrets.

The door shook again.

“Sofia,” Julian said, more quietly. “Think carefully. No one is going to believe you. The old woman has already been buried. Your sister left because she wanted to. You’re nervous. You’re always nervous.

Always.

That word burned me.

Always nervous.

Always exaggerated.

Always crazy.

That’s what he said when he pushed me and then hugged me in front of my mother.

That’s what he said when I appeared with dark glasses in December.

That’s what I was going to say when they met me in the courtyard.

I got up slowly and ran to the laundry room.

The door was stuck.

I pushed her with my shoulder.

He relented.

Inside it smelled of old soap, damp cloth and dried basil.

There were brooms, buckets, a broken chair and plastic boxes. On the wall, taped to the wall, I saw a photo of St. Jude Thaddeus, blackened by dust. Underneath, an unlit candle and folded paper.

I opened it without thinking.

It was Doña Elvira’s handwriting.

“Sofi: if you get here, you’re not crazy. I didn’t fall either.”

I felt my legs go away.

I continued reading with the blue light of the phone.

“Mariana lives. They had her for two days at 402. They took her down the elevator in a laundry basket. Ask for the auto parts shop in Dr. Norma. Don’t trust Raul. Don’t trust your husband. Don’t go down the stairs.”

Mariana lives.

The words stuck in me.

Not as hope.

Like an order.

Outside, the sheet metal cracked.

Julián was opening.

I stuffed the paper into my sweatshirt and looked for something to defend myself. I found a short, rusty rod, perhaps from an old antenna.

I took it with both hands.

The roof door opened.

“See?” Julian said. “I told you I wasn’t going to jump.”

He hadn’t seen me enter the room.

Or yes.

And he was playing.

His steps moved over the puddle.

Don Raúl coughed.

“Quick. Before some meddler turns on the light.”

A dry laugh came from Julián.

“Nobody lights anything here.

They approached the blue water tank.

I heard the plastic in the bag move.

“He’s not there,” Raul said.

Silence.

Then Julian’s footsteps turned to the laundry room.

“Sofia.”

He said my name tenderly.

That was what scared me the most.

“Love, come out. We can fix it.

I lifted the rod.

The shadow of his body appeared under the crack.

“You don’t know what Mariana did,” he whispered. “She came to provoke me. Just like the old woman. Just like you when you get difficult.”

Something inside me broke.

But it didn’t break like a plate.

It broke like a chain.

When he pushed the door open, I hit him in the hand with all my might.

Julián shouted.

The rod fell to the floor, but he backed away and slipped.

I ran.

Don Raúl wanted to grab me by the hair.

He pulled out a strand of my lock, but he didn’t stop me.

The rain hit me in the eyes.

I reached the fence of the building next door and climbed up using a pipe as a step. The cement scraped my knees. The sweatshirt got stuck in a wire.

Julián was coming behind.

“Sofia!”

I didn’t look down.

If I looked, I would die.

I passed one leg.

Then the other.

I fell on the other side over a mountain of garbage bags and empty bottles.

The blow took the air out of me.

On the other side of the fence, Julián cursed.

“Raúl, turn it around!”

I sat up as best I could.

The neighboring rooftop was larger. There were empty bird cages, dry flower pots, and a metal door that led down to another building.

I ran.

This door did open.

I went downstairs in the dark, holding on to the railing so as not to fall. On the third floor I heard a television on. On the second, a baby cried. On the first, a dog began barking as if it had seen the devil.

I arrived on the street without shoes.

The Doctores neighborhood at that time seemed like another city.

The closed stalls were shadows of sheet.

The puddles copied the yellow spotlights.

In the distance, along Dr. Lavista, a patrol car passed by without stopping.

I wanted to scream, but I didn’t get a voice.

I took out my cell phone.

A sign line.

I called my mom.

He did not answer.

I called again.

Nothing.

Then I remembered the role of Doña Elvira.

Mariana lives.

Auto parts workshop at Dr. Norma.

I walked close to the walls, my sweatshirt soaked and my hot blood running down my knees.

Each engine made me hide.

Every man standing on a corner looked like Julian to me.

Two blocks away, I saw an open pharmacy.

Entered.

The boy at the counter looked up and froze.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

I put my cell phone on the counter.

“I need to call. The police. My mom. Whoever.

He hesitated.

Behind me, the automatic door rang.

A man entered.

It wasn’t Julián.

But it came with him.

Don Raúl.

He was wearing a black jacket and breathing heavily.

“Sofia,” he said, feigning concern. “Daughter, what a fright you gave us.

The boy from the pharmacy looked at both of us.

“I don’t know him,” I said.

My voice was broken, but it came out.

“He wants to kill me.”

Raúl changed his face.

Just a segundo.

Then he smiled.

“It’s wrong. Her husband is looking for her. She has a crisis.

The boy looked down at the phone.

That second was enough.

I took a bottle of antibacterial gel from the counter and threw it in Raul’s eyes.

He shouted.

I ran to the back of the pharmacy, throwing boxes, pushing a plastic curtain. I walked out through a door that led to a narrow alley.

The boy shouted something.

I don’t know what.

I was already running again.

When I arrived at Dr. Norma, the dawn barely stained the sky.

There were workshops with closed metal curtains, grease on the sidewalks, and car parts piled up like bones.

I searched one by one.

Until I saw a white van.

The plates were those of the notebook.

It was parked in front of an unnamed place, only with an old sign that said “Suspensiones El Güero.”

The curtain was raised a few inches.

Inside there was low music.

An old corrido.

I approached and saw a light in the background.

I also saw dried blood on the floor.

Not much.

Just a line, as if they had dragged something.

I should have run.

I had to wait.

I should have called.

But a sister doesn’t wait when she’s been burying someone alive in her head for six months.

I got under the curtain.

The workshop smelled of oil, metal and unlit cigars.

There were chests, car doors, tires and a small altar to Santa Muerte with rotten apples.

In the background, behind some tarps, I heard a moan.

—¿Mariana? —susurré.

Silence.

Then, very quietly:

—¿Sofi?

My body bent.

I pushed the tarps aside.

Mariana was in a chair, tied by her wrists, with her mouth split and her hair cut unevenly.

She was thinner.

Paler.

But alive.

Viva.

I knelt in front of her.

“Forgive me,” I said. Forgive me, forgive me.

She cried quietly.

“Don’t cut the ropes,” he whispered. There is alarm.

I stood motionless.

“What?”

Mariana moved her eyes upwards.

I saw a thin wire tied to the leg of the chair, connected to a tin full of screws on a shelf. If I moved the chair, the can would fall.

“They come in the morning,” he said. The manager told them that Doña Elvira knew. That’s why they killed her.

“Who?”

Mariana swallowed.

“Julián doesn’t work alone. They steal cars. They keep women. They move them in trucks. They used me because you are their wife. Because no one was going to look here. Doña Elvira saw me.

My throat burned.

“The photo… You were helping him.

Mariana closed her eyes.

“They forced me. It was another girl. I thought that if I obeyed they would release me.

I covered my mouth.

The horror did not fit in my body.

Then my cell phone vibrated.

Another audio.

Doña Elvira.

This time it lasted twenty seconds.

I opened it with my breath cut off.

“Sofi, if you arrived with Mariana, that’s almost. Everything is in my notebook, but what I recorded on the old cell phone is missing. The skipper arrives at the workshop at six. Don’t be brave alone. Be smart, mija. Turn on the light.

He takes the luz.

The phrase from before.

“If one day you can’t speak, leave a light on.”

I looked around.

On the wall of the workshop was a large, industrial switch.

I didn’t know what I was lighting up.

I put it down.

The whole place was suddenly lit up.

And outside, in the street, an alarm began to sound.

Not the workshop.

From a house across the street.

Then another.

And another.

The lights in several apartments were turned on at the same time.

Doña Elvira had not sent me alone to the roof.

She had left a neighbor’s trap.

An old, humble network of women who looked out the window when no one else was looking.

A lady came out on the balcony wearing a dressing gown.

Another opened a curtain.

A man shouted:

“Elvira’s light has already been turned on!”

I didn’t understand.

Until I saw, in the corner of the workshop, a purple lamp pointing towards the street.

The same light that Doña Elvira asked me to turn on once.

The light that I never turned on.

In less than a minute, the phones were started.

Voices could be heard in the street.

“It’s here!”

“Call 911!”

“To Locatel too, which is violence!”

“Don’t let it close!”

I ran to Mariana and looked for a way to deactivate the can. Carefully, I lifted the cord and held it while she barely moved her feet.

The can shook.

He did not fall.

I started to untie her.

Then the metal curtain roared.

Someone picked it up from outside.

Julián entered with his face distorted and his hand wrapped in a cloth.

Behind him came Raúl and another man he did not know.

The pattern, I thought.

Fat, white shirt, clean boots.

That one didn’t run.

That one was in charge.

Julián saw me next to Mariana.

For the first time since I met him, he didn’t pretend.

He didn’t smile.

He did not put on a victim face.

It just showed what it was.

“I told you,” he murmured. I told you not to get involved.

The man in boots looked at the street on fire.

“Asshole,” he said to Julián. They followed you.

Julian took a step towards me.

I grabbed a cross key from the ground.

“Touch it and I scream.”

He laughed.

“Now you are yelling?”

Yes.

Now yes.

I screamed with everything I hadn’t shouted in years.

The number of Mariana.

I shouted Doña Elvira’s.

I shouted that there were women there.

I screamed that my husband was a murderer.

I screamed until my throat opened.

Outside, the neighbors responded.

Not with silence.

With saucepans.

With stones against the curtain.

With voices.

“We’ll call!”

“It’s recorded!”

“Don’t go out, you bastards!”

The boss pulled out a gun.

Everything stopped.

Mariana stopped breathing.

Julián raised his hands.

“No, not here.

The man pointed at me first.

Then Mariana.

And then something happened that I could never fully explain.

Doña Elvira’s old cell phone, the one I had turned off in my sweatshirt, began to ring.

It didn’t vibrate.

It rang.

An old ring, from a home telephone, loud, impossible.

The man turned around.

Julián too.

The screen lit up inside my clothes with a greenish light.

And Doña Elvira’s voice came out of the loudspeaker, clear as if she were standing behind us:

“I’m watching you, Raul.”

Don Raúl fell to his knees.

Not because of fault.

Out of fear.

“No,” he whispered. No, I saw you dead.

The voice continued.

“Mariana also saw you. Sofia also saw you. Half a building is also watching you.

The skipper turned to Raul, furious.

That second was enough.

I threw the cross key in his face.

The shot thundered.

I felt no pain.

Only the noise.

Mariana fell on her side, still tied up, but alive.

Julián threw himself at me.

He threw me to the floor.

He hit me once.

Dos.

I smelled his sweat, his blood, his rage.

“You were mine,” he spat.

I reached into the sweatshirt and pulled out the stained gray shirt.

I smeared it in his face.

“No,” I said. I was a witness.

The police arrived with sirens.

They entered by breaking the curtain.

After that everything was noise.

Boots.

Orders.

Screams.

An officer pulled me back.

Another handcuffed Julián.

Raúl cried and repeated that the dead woman had spoken to him.

The boss tried to say that he owned the workshop, that they did not know who they were messing with.

But the neighbors continued to record from outside.

And Doña Elvira’s notebook, soaked against my chest, was still there.

When they untied Mariana, she came on me.

We hugged each other like girls.

We cried with our faces glued.

I touched her hair, her forehead, her shoulders, as if I needed to check every part of her.

“Mom,” he said. You have to call mom.

I nodded.

But first I looked at my phone.

There was one last message from Doña Elvira.

It wasn’t audio.

It was text.

“You can wake up now.”

I read it once.

Then another.

The screen went out.

It never lit up again.

The investigation lasted months.

They found more notebooks in the 402, hidden inside milk cans, behind flower pots, under a loose closet board.

Doña Elvira had written everything down.

Names.

License plates.

Schedules.

Departments.

He had recorded conversations from his window, from the stairs, from the rooftop.

They called her metiche because she saw.

They killed her because she did not stop seeing.

His niece confessed that Julián had given her money to speed up the burial.

The report said accidental fall.

The new autopsy said otherwise.

Blows.

Choking.

Defense under the fingernails.

They also found traces of chlorine on the floor, in the hallway and on the walls of the bathroom in the 402.

The whole building had smelled of crime.

And we had all breathed without wanting to name it.

Mariana testified three times.

I declared five.

My mom sat between the two of us in the prosecutor’s office, with a bag of sweet bread on her legs, trembling as if the world had suddenly aged her.

When he saw Julián enter handcuffed, he did not cry.

He only told him:

“I hope you remember my daughter’s face every night.

He did not answer.

She no longer had the voice of a worried husband.

I no longer had a house, no bed, and no fear of hiding.

Don Raúl spoke.

Cowards always speak up when they no longer feel protected.

He gave names.

Workshops.

Routes.

Wineries.

The boss fell later, in a house in Iztapalapa.

There were more women found.

Not all of them alive.

I don’t know how to tell that part without breaking down.

That’s why I’m just saying that Doña Elvira didn’t save one.

He saved many.

Sometimes they ask me if I think she was the one who sent the audios.

Police said they could have been scheduled.

An expert explained things about applications, backups, old phones and automatic connections to the building’s Wi-Fi.

I nodded.

They needed an explanation.

Everyone needed it.

But no one could explain why the switched off cell phone rang in the workshop.

Nor why Raúl heard his name in the voice of the woman he helped kill.

Nor why, when they cleaned the laundry room, they found the St. Jude candle freshly melted, even though it had been weeks without matches.

I don’t argue.

There are dead people who are leaving.

And there are dead people who stay a little bit, just to close the right door.

I moved out of the Doctores neighborhood three months later.

Not out of fear.

By air.

I needed walls that wouldn’t sweat chlorine.

Mariana came with me.

At first I slept with the light on and a kitchen knife under my pillow. So do I.

Then we started buying plants.

Basil first.

Then geraniums.

Then a bougainvillea that he didn’t want to live until Mariana spoke nicely to him.

On Sundays we go to see my mom.

She still lights candles.

But they are no longer just to ask for Mariana to appear.

Now he also lights one for Doña Elvira.

He puts bobbins in a paper bag, as if the lady were going to knock twice and say:

“Mija, I bought too much.

In the old building, the neighbors painted the door of 402 purple.

They say that no one wanted to rent that apartment.

They say that at night you can hear soft footsteps on the stairs.

They say that if a woman cries in an apartment, a light on the roof turns on by itself.

Julián wrote me a letter from prison.

I didn’t read it.

I burned it in a casserole dish, in my mother’s yard.

Mariana held my hand as the paper turned black.

“Don’t you want to know what it said?”

I watched the smoke rise.

“I’ve heard his voice too much.

That night, when I returned home, I received a notification.

It wasn’t from WhatsApp.

It was an old photo that had been recovered from the cloud.

Doña Elvira appeared on the roof, with her purple sweater and a pot of basil in her hands.

Behind her was me, much younger, hanging clothes, with a bruise that I tried to cover with makeup.

I didn’t remember that photo.

I brought her closer.

In the corner, next to the blue water tank, a shadow could be seen.

The figure of a man looking out from the doorway.

Julián.

And underneath, written with his finger on the dust of the tinaco, there was a phrase:

“You’re still in time.”

I cried.

Not of terror.

Out of anger at not having read it sooner.

Of gratitude because someone did read it for me.

Since then, every time a neighbor knocks on my door, I open it.

Every time I hear a bang in the apartment next door, I don’t turn up the volume on the TV.

Every time a woman says “I’m fine” with dull eyes, I don’t believe her so quickly.

Because I learned late what Doña Elvira always knew:

monsters don’t enter through the window.

They sleep in bed.

They greet the doorman.

They carry grocery bags.

They say “my love” with the same mouth with which they threaten.

And sometimes, to beat them, you don’t have to be brave from the start.

Sometimes it’s enough to wake up one night.

Listen to the audio of a dead woman.

Go up to the rooftop.

And turn on the light.