Barranguitas

Barranguitas is a mountain destination named in Sharon’s account of what happened to Victoria Rogers after her miscarriage. Its remoteness—Jaime says a person must know where it is to get there—and his prediction that Victoria will never be seen again make the place a point of disappearance as well as a location: her absence removes the prosecution’s principal witness in the case against Fonny.

Location and Access

Sharon reports that Victoria was taken to the mountains, to a place called Barranguitas. She emphasizes that reaching it requires knowing where to go, suggesting a destination that is not readily found by an outsider. The account gives no further description of the landscape or settlement; Barranguitas is defined chiefly by its mountainous setting and the difficulty of locating it.

Victoria’s Removal

Before the journey, Victoria suffers a miscarriage. Sharon says that Jaime was present when people carried Victoria away, and that Pietro Alvarez carried her down the steps while she was already bleeding. Sharon later recounts that Victoria was taken to Barranguitas. These details place the destination at the end of an abrupt departure from the building where Sharon had confronted her, rather than presenting it as a place Victoria chooses or describes herself.

Consequences for the Case

Jaime tells Sharon that Victoria will never be seen again. The narrative immediately connects her absence to the prosecution’s loss of its principal witness against Fonny. With Daniel also unavailable to the family, the Rivers family considers asking for the charge to be dismissed while preparing for the possibility that they will have to seek bail. Barranguitas therefore marks a practical reversal in the case: the witness whose identification helped sustain the prosecution is beyond the family’s reach, and the trial’s future becomes uncertain.