Chapter 2 - THE GLASS WITH THE BLUE WATCH
Rafael did not ask Júlia to open the door again.
Instead, he stood in the corridor and listened while she described the man at table four: pale linen jacket, neat hair, broad gold ring, an expensive watch with a crack running diagonally across its blue face. He had arrived after Dante, spoken to him briefly, and shifted a glass from the center of the table toward Dante's right hand.
“Did you see him put anything inside?” Rafael asked.
“No.”
“Then you cannot say he poisoned it.”
“I didn't say that. I said I saw him move it.”
A pause followed. “You're right.”
She was surprised by the admission.
“What happened to the glass?” he asked.
“It broke when you pulled me back. But there was another glass, and a silver pitcher. Somebody took the dishes upstairs after the ambulance came.”
“Who told you?”
“I won't give you his name. He's frightened, and I don't want him fired too.”
“You don't trust me.”
“You accused me of trying to kill a man. Trust would be ambitious.”
Rafael sighed quietly. “Fair enough. I shouldn't have handled it that way.”
The apology sounded stiff, as if he had to push every word through a locked door. Júlia did not forgive him on the spot. She simply said she wanted any further questions through a lawyer and slid the card back beneath the door.
“I can't afford one,” she admitted.
“I can give you the number of an independent legal clinic. No connection to Mr. Montenegro.”
“Do that.”
When she finally heard the elevator close, she leaned against the wall and let herself breathe.
That afternoon, Dante asked to see all photographs taken in the restaurant before his collapse. Rafael brought a tablet loaded with images gathered from guests' social accounts. Between pictures of seafood towers and expensive watches appeared the man in the linen jacket.
Dante enlarged the face.
“Vicente Farias.”
Rafael nodded. “He left before the ambulance arrived.”
Vicente was a businessman with investments in freight, private security, and property development. To the newspapers, he was a generous sponsor of hospitals. To Dante, he was a former partner who had learned how to use respectable companies as curtains around criminal money.
They had argued six months earlier over a warehouse purchase. Dante had refused to approve shipments that lacked documentation. Vicente had smiled, said he respected the decision, and begun buying up Dante's suppliers.
“Where is he now?” Dante asked.
“We don't know.”
“Then start with the person who invited him.”
“Armando says Farias was a walk-in.”
“Armando tells people what keeps his restaurant open.”
Rafael hesitated. “Júlia saw him move the glass.”
“And you believe her?”
“I believe she's telling us what she saw. She won't say more than that.”
Dante stared at the photograph. “Good. We need witnesses who understand the difference between memory and certainty.”
Meanwhile, Júlia went to a neighborhood employment clinic. She took the dismissal letter, her pay stubs, and a photograph of the unsigned confidentiality agreement. A lawyer named Camila Rocha examined the documents.
“They can dismiss an employee,” Camila said, “but they cannot make you sign a false statement to receive wages already earned. We can demand your records and challenge any improper deductions.”
“Could they sue me for speaking to the police?”
“Not merely for giving a truthful statement. We will document the threats.”
Júlia took a breath. “The people involved are dangerous.”
“I've handled cases involving powerful employers before. We do everything in writing. You don't meet anyone alone.”
She left with a plan and the first small measure of confidence she had felt since the restaurant.
At home, Tomás was waiting with noodles and a library book open beside his plate.
“Did you find a lawyer?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Did the mafia guy send his people?”
“Yes.”
Tomás pushed back his chair. “Júlia.”
“I didn't let him in.”
“Good.”
“He apologized.”
“That doesn't make him safe.”
“I know.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes before Tomás said, “I got an email from the engineering program. There's a paid placement at a materials laboratory. It starts next month.”
She smiled. “That's wonderful.”
“It's on the other side of the city. I'd need help with transport for the first few weeks.”
“We'll figure it out.”
“You always say that.”
“Because we always do.”
He set down his fork. “You don't have to solve everything alone.”
She wanted to tell him that she did not know how to stop. Since their mother died, every bill and decision had settled on her shoulders. Taking care of him had become the shape of her life.
Instead, she reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
That night, Camila received a call from a private attorney representing Dante. The attorney wanted Júlia to know that the police were investigating the suspected poisoning and hoped she would give a formal statement. Camila insisted on a neutral interview room and written confirmation that Júlia was not a suspect.
Detective Almeida asked Júlia to draw the layout of table four. Júlia took the paper and sketched the position of the chairs, the bar, and the corridor that led to the restrooms. She marked where she had been standing when the man moved the glass and where the silver pitcher was set down.
“Was the man alone when he approached?” Renata asked.
“No. A waiter walked behind him with a platter. But he was the only guest near the table at that moment.”
“Did he speak to Mr. Montenegro?”
“I couldn't hear the words. He leaned forward. Dante looked irritated, but that's an impression, not something I can prove.”
Renata nodded approvingly. “That distinction helps.”
They went over the sequence a second time, and Júlia realized she remembered the watch better than the man's face. The crack was shaped like a shallow lightning bolt across the blue dial. She had spent a whole childhood looking for tiny mistakes in things her mother sewed and repaired. Little details stayed with her.
“You don't have to invent what you can't remember,” Renata said. “We can work with the detail you do remember.”
Later, Camila explained why the interview had been recorded. “People may challenge your account. A careful, consistent statement made early is stronger than a dramatic one created afterward.”
“Could they still say I did it?”
“They can make accusations. They have to support them.”
Júlia looked at her notes. “I still wish I hadn't tried to give him water.”
“Then say that honestly. Someone who makes a mistake while helping is different from someone who intended to cause harm. Medical professionals have to assess the actual effect.”
At the apartment, Tomás listened to her describe the interview and then insisted she eat something. He reheated rice, beans, and chicken from the previous evening, setting the plate in front of her without argument. She smiled at how much he sounded like their mother.
“I'm twenty,” he told her. “I can make dinner.”
“I know.”
“You act like the whole building falls down if you stop.”
“Maybe not the whole building.”
“Just our apartment?”
She laughed, and for a few minutes the frightening world beyond their kitchen loosened its grip.
Before bed, she opened her phone and found a photograph of Beatriz teaching Tomás to plant beans in a yogurt container. Her mother was laughing in the picture. Júlia saved another copy, afraid someday even the photographs might be taken from her.
She did not yet understand that someone else was still afraid of what Beatriz had kept.
The interview took place two days later.
Detective Renata Almeida sat opposite Júlia, with Camila at her side. Rafael waited outside. The detective asked her to describe everything from the moment Dante arrived until the ambulance doors closed.
Júlia spoke slowly. She remembered the smell of grilled fish, the white napkin under Dante's hand, the man in the pale jacket leaning forward. She remembered Dante's sudden confusion and the way he tried to draw a breath that would not come.
“Why did you approach him?” Renata asked.
“His lips changed color. My mother went through something that looked similar. I was afraid he would die.”
“What illness did your mother have?”
Júlia hesitated. “A toxic exposure. The doctors said it affected how her blood carried oxygen.”
Renata wrote something down.
“What was your mother's name?”
“Beatriz Nascimento.”
The detective's pen stopped.
She looked up. “Where did your mother work?”
“At a cleaning contractor near the old port warehouses. Why?”
Renata exchanged a glance with Camila, then closed her notebook.
“Because the same warehouse district appears in another case we're investigating.”
“What case?”
“A series of unexplained medical emergencies involving former employees. One was recorded five years ago.”
Júlia felt the room grow cold.
“Is my mother in that file?”
Renata did not answer immediately.
Then she said, “I think we need to look at her records.”
Outside the interview room, Rafael received a message from the restaurant's former busboy, Davi. It contained a photograph taken on his old phone: a locked service cabinet, a stack of restaurant linens, and a small evidence bag lying beneath them.
Across the bag someone had written TABLE 4 — HOLD FOR V.F.
Rafael stared at the initials.
Vicente Farias.
May you like
A minute later, Davi sent another message.
If I disappear, tell my daughter I was trying to do the right thing.
