That same afternoon, Patricia filed a missing person report at the public prosecutor’s office in Gustavo A. Madero. The officer who took her report—a middle-aged man with a tired look—handled it with a mix of routine and skepticism that Patricia found unsettling.
“Ma’am, many men leave for a few days and come back when they cool off or run out of money.”
Patricia insisted that Roberto wasn’t like that, that something terrible must have happened. The officer sighed, filled out the forms, and gave her a case number. She was told to wait 72 hours before it would be considered an official disappearance requiring active investigation.
Those 72 hours were an eternity.
Patricia didn’t sleep. She constantly called Roberto’s phone, which remained off. She visited hospitals and Red Cross clinics in the area, asking if any man matching his description had been admitted.
Daniel and Alejandro asked where their father was, and she didn’t know what to tell them. She said that their dad had to go on an urgent work trip, but the children sensed her anguish.
The house felt strangely empty without Roberto’s steady presence—without the sound of his footsteps, without the smell of his cheap cologne and the cigarettes he secretly smoked in the patio.
When the 72 hours passed and Roberto still hadn’t appeared, the police finally began a formal investigation. They checked his last known location, spoke with coworkers, neighbors, and relatives.
What they found was baffling. Roberto had simply left his house that morning and vanished. There were no credit card charges, no cash withdrawals, no phone calls. His last recorded signal was at 7:45 a.m., when his phone pinged a cell tower near Lindavista metro station.
After that, nothing. Absolute silence.
