Show Me Chapter 2

To my new readers: Welcome! I strongly encourage reading the first fic, "Turning Tables" as some things in this chapter are mentioned in the previous fic!

Anyway on with the chapter! Hope you enjoy!

No one could say a word. Enrique looked very worried and upset as Martinez's words slowly began to sink in. The Rodriguez family is no longer cooperating with the investigation. Elena looked furious, angry tears forming in her eyes. This was a family that had been wronged and they deserved justice for what de la Cruz did to them as well.

Elena looked ready to whack Martinez with a chancla, but her son put his hand on her shoulder. It had taken nearly a year for Miguel to start trusting her again and that could easily be ruined with one wrong action. After Héctor's funeral, many of the town had forgiven Elena for her actions to protect her family. Others, though, were still very angry and outright refused to allow their children anywhere near the Riveras.

"Mamá, calmése," Enrique murmured. "Let him explain."

"Qué?" Enrique asked, once he got his voice back. "Por qué? It's been nearly a year since the investigation started. Why back out? What happened?"

"Apparently the press found out about the Rodriguez investigation, Enrique." Martinez said wearily as he addressed the family. "Someone in my office was leaking information to the media, including the home address of Rodriguez's eldest granddaughter and the contacts we used during your case. She filed charges against us for invasion of privacy, breach of trust and has refused to have anything to do with the inquiry."

Enrique frowned. Despite watching a couple of Casa Cerrado episodes with Berto and having no legal training, something seemed wrong. Especially with how quickly the family had decided to stop cooperating.

"It sounds like someone managed to get to them and threaten them," Enrique guessed. "Like someone paid them to keep silent."

Elena shook her head, anxious to get on with the topic at hand. "But what can we do? We need to help them somehow!"

Martinez nodded and answered, "And I agree with you, doña, but we need to tread carefully. The studio will still do anything they can to make sure that story will be "fixed" in some way to make it sound like the leak was done on purpose."

By that point, other members of the family arrived, some of them holding musical instruments. Miguel came in as well, nearly dropping his guitar in shock as he took in what Martinez said.

"But what's going to happen next?" Gloria asked pointedly. "We've talked to the press nearly a dozen times already."

Gloria was careful not to mention Miguel's adventure; it had been decided two years ago that the story of where Miguel really went would stay in the family. An abbreviated version was told to the press and to the public that Miguel had run away to the outskirts of town and wound up falling asleep in a cenote. The reason behind grabbing the guitar? Miguel had needed it for the competition to prove himself to his family. "It's not a complete lie," Miguel said to his family at the time. "That part is true."

At first, it made absolutely no sense to the family, but they quickly realized that Martinez had a point; why travel all the way to America?

Then the pieces fell together. De la Cruz had gone on an American tour just months prior to his death and that was the last place he was seen with Rodriguez. Despite the investigation going on for nearly a year, having Rodriguez's living family suddenly decide to stop cooperating was puzzling. It seemed reasonable from the media leak, but definitely suspicious, making it seem the family was hiding something that they didn't want to become public.

Curious Miguel asked, "But why next month, Señor? Por qué esperar?"

"Miguel," Elena warned. "No seas grosero. Let him finish."

"No, it's alright, Señora," Martinez said as he turned to address Miguel. "I want to gather some more information on the investigation here in México before I go to Texas to talk to Rodriguez's granddaughter. I'm also going to need to look through Héctor's notebook again to see if either Héctor or Coco mentioned Rodriguez, but I am fairly certain that none of them have ever met each other."

Elena sighed, wishing that things could be made simpler for everyone involved. After Martinez left to allow the family some time together, there was a hush. No one said a peep as the silence hung in the air like an unwashed blanket being aired out.

Miguel took a deep breath as he touched his left arm, "Can we try and help, Abuelita? Go to America to help them?"

Elena nodded, drawing her grandson into her arms, "We're going to try and do everything we can to help, mijo. But going to America may not be for some time. It's not cheap to fly to America."

Nodding, Luisa, Miguel's mother, said. "The shop is doing well and so is the museum, but I don't want to have to worry about seeing you and your primos on the news again, Miguel. We'll do what we can here to see how we can help."

The rest of the family made noises of agreement, promising to do what they could to find out more about de la Cruz's time in the United States. Before heading off to bed, Miguel also agreed to try and contact the ancestors in the Land of the Dead. Even though Dante was now staying mostly in the Land of the Dead as Héctor's alebreje, he would often come by and visit Miguel and deliver messages.

When the children had gone back to bed, the adults remained behind, stunned and sad of the case's turn. They had hoped that once things would settle down once everything concluded but now it looked like things would be going back to square one.

"I just don't understand why someone would do this to them," Carmen said as she held little Socorro on her lap. "The Rodriguez family has been through so much this past year and they don't deserve this."

The other adults agreed, knowing that Miguel especially would be having a tough time dealing with the shocking development.

"We need to help them, but we'll have to be very careful who we mention this to," Enrique said. "Whoever did this have powerful connections, either to Lopez or the de la Cruz estate. Absolutely not a word to anyone."

Everyone agreed to it, with Elena adding that Benny, Manny and little Socorro not be told. "They're too young to understand what's going on," Elena said. "And we don't need to scare them." But Berto had one more condition.

"No secrets, Mamá. We need to be open and honest with Rosa and Miguel about what's going on with the investigation." Berto said firmly.

"And we need to be careful about how we present any information to them," Gloria pointed out. "None of us want a repeat of what happened in August."

That had been quite a scary story. During the search for Héctor Rivera's body, Miguel had received death threats and notes from Santiago Lopez, the owner of de la Cruz's crypt. At first, the family had kept the notes from Miguel but when he found out, he ran away to confront Lopez. The reminder of how close the family came to losing Miguel again was terrifying. Especially since Miguel had been injured during the confrontation.

Patting her daughter on the shoulder, Elena stood up and said, "We'll do everything we can to help the Rodriguez familia, Glorita. Even though we've never met them, they are family to us now and family always comes first."

Editor note from Halloween Foxface: I should have put this in the first chapter but that's ok. We're back in action guys! Super excited to help bring the next chapter of the amazing Rivera family!0