In the original, the land was divided between the two brothers. Dolores understood everything. Sara discovered the will was fraudulent, she was going to report it, and someone silenced her before she could.
That night, Carmela called Dolores, her voice trembling. “You have to come. It’s about Salomé. There’s something you need to see.” Dolores arrived home an hour later.
Carmela was waiting for her in her office, her expression grave. “The girl has nightmares every night,” Carmela said. “But there’s something I haven’t told her before, something I was afraid to mention.” What is it?
She screams a name. Every night the same name. But it’s not her father’s or her mother’s name, it’s another name. Which one? Martín. Martín cries out, “Help me!” over and over again. Dolores frowned.
They met at Patricia’s office the next day. Time was running out. Less than 40 hours remained. Patricia examined the drawing with a magnifying glass, taking notes. The strokes are consistent with a child between three and four years old, she said. The pressure of the crayon, the shapes of the figures, the limited perspective. This drawing is authentic. Dolores, a young child, made it. Could it represent real trauma? Undoubtedly, children who witness traumatic events often process them through art.
This drawing shows a violent scene, one figure on the ground, another standing in a dominant position. The use of red here indicated stains on the lying figure. It shows that the child understood there was blood, and the man in the blue shirt is the most significant detail. Traumatized children remember specific elements: colors, smells, sounds. If the girl drew a blue shirt, it’s because the real aggressor wore a blue shirt. That’s a sensory memory, not an invention.
Dolores showed the photographs of Gonzalo that Carlos had collected. In every single one, without exception, he was wearing shades of blue. Ramiro Fuentes always wore dark colors, Dolores said. Black, gray, brown, never blue. Patricia nodded. If you can prove that the girl drew this days after the event, you have psychological evidence that she saw someone other than her father commit the crime. It’s not legal proof on its own, but combined with other elements, it can reopen the case. Exactly. Dolores carefully put the drawing away.
She had a piece of the puzzle, but she needed more. She needed to find Martín. Carlos arrived that night with more information. He had investigated Sara Fuentes’s past and found something crucial. Sara had a close friend, Beatriz Sánchez. They had known each other since college. According to phone records I was able to obtain, Sara spoke with Beatriz the night before she died. A 40-minute call. Beatriz Sánchez, a relative of Aurelio, her cousin, but they hadn’t spoken in years. There had been a family fight a while back.
Beatriz lives on the outskirts of the city. She’s a retired nurse. Dolores visited Beatriz that same afternoon. She was a 60-year-old woman who lived alone with three cats and memories of better times. Sara called me that night, Beatriz confirmed. She was scared. She told me she’d discovered something about Gonzalo, Ramiro’s brother, fraud involving their parents’ will. What else did she say? That Gonzalo had been harassing her since before the wedding. Ramiro never knew. Sara didn’t want to cause problems between the siblings, but in recent months Gonzalo had become more aggressive.
He threatened her if she didn’t keep quiet about the will. Why didn’t she ever report this to the police? Beatriz lowered her gaze. My cousin Aurelio visited me two days after Sara’s death. He told me that if I opened my mouth, he would investigate my taxes, find irregularities I didn’t even know about. He said he could destroy my life with one phone call. I was afraid, Dolores. I was afraid and I kept quiet. And I’ve lived with that guilt for five years. Would you be willing to testify now?
Beatriz looked
or through the window where the sun was beginning to set. Sara was my best friend. I let her innocent husband be condemned out of cowardice. If testifying now can fix any of the things I did wrong, I’m willing. Dolores left Beatriz’s house with a recording of her testimony and renewed hope. But when she got to her car, she noticed something strange: a black vehicle parked at the end of the street, the same model she had seen in front of her house days before.
She pretended not to notice and drove home. The black car followed her at a distance. Dolores changed routes, taking side streets. The car followed her. Her heart was pounding, but she remained calm. In her years as a lawyer, she had faced worse threats. Finally, she stopped in a well-lit area in front of a police station. The black car drove past, but something fell from its window as it sped off. Dolores waited a few minutes before getting out, picked up the object from the ground—a religious medal, one of those that mothers give their children for protection.
It had initials engraved on it. Mr. Martín Reyes. He was following her. Not Gonzalo’s men. Martín. Dolores looked around for the black car, but it was gone. However, she now had one certainty. Martín was alive, he was close, and he was trying to communicate. The question was, why wasn’t he showing himself openly? Who was he so afraid of that he preferred to remain in the shadows after five years? The answer would come sooner than she expected. That night, Dolores couldn’t sleep.
She gathered all the pieces on her table. Salomé’s drawing, Martín’s medal, the forged will, Beatriz’s recording, the connections between Gonzalo and Aurelio. Everything pointed in one direction. Ramiro was innocent. Gonzalo had attacked Sara to silence her. Aurelio had manipulated the case to protect his partner, but something was missing: the direct testimony of someone who had seen what happened that night. Salomé couldn’t talk. Martín was hiding. Without an eyewitness, everything else was circumstantial.
The clock struck 3 a.m., less than 30 hours until the execution. Then Dolores’s phone rang, an unknown number. Mrs. Medina. The voice was male, trembling. Who’s speaking? My name is Martín. Martín Reyes. I know you’ve been looking for me, and I know time is running out. Dolores felt her heart stop. Where are you? Why are you hiding? Because if they find me, they’ll kill me, like they tried to do five years ago. But I can’t stay silent any longer.
They’re going to execute an innocent man, and I have the evidence to save him. What evidence? A long silence. The night Sara died, I was there. I saw everything, and I saw something else that no one knows, something that changes everything you think you know about this case. What did you see? Sara Fuentes didn’t die that night, Mrs. Medina. I got her out of that house before Gonzalo finished her off. Sara is alive, and she’s been waiting for this moment for five years. And Dolores couldn’t process what she had just heard.
Sara Viva, five years in hiding while her husband awaited execution. That’s impossible, she said. There was a funeral, a death certificate. The body—the body was so badly damaged that identification was based on records. Dental records, Martín interrupted. Records that Aurelio Sánchez had falsified. The body they buried wasn’t Sara’s. Whose was it then? A woman with no family who died that same week in a hospital. Aurelio has connections at the morgue. He made the switch. It was all planned to bury the case along with the supposed victim.
Dolores needed to see it to believe it. Where is Sara now? Nearby, but I can’t tell you where over the phone. We don’t know who might be listening. I need you to come to San Jerónimo tomorrow, to my mother’s house. I’ll explain everything there. Time is running out, Martín. Less than 30 hours left. I know, that’s why I decided to speak. Sara wanted to wait until she had all the legal evidence, but there’s no time left. If Ramiro dies, Gonzalo wins for good. And Sara has sacrificed too much to allow that.
Dolores hung up the phone, her hands trembling. If this was true, it was the most extraordinary case of her career. A woman who faked her death to protect her daughter. An innocent husband convicted of a crime that never happened. A brother willing to destroy everything out of greed. She packed a small suitcase. Tomorrow she would travel to San Jerónimo. Tomorrow she would learn the whole truth. What she didn’t know was that someone had intercepted the call. In his cell, Ramiro Fuentes slept for the first time in years without nightmares.
His daughter’s words had ignited something in him: hope. But that night, sleep brought back memories he had blocked for five hundred years. He saw himself on the sofa in his house, drunk, about to pass out. He heard voices, Sara’s voice, first calm, then frightened, and another voice, a voice he knew well. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved in this, Sara. I warned you,” Gonzalo’s voice. Ramiro tried to move and
In the dream. He tried to get up to defend his wife, but his body wouldn’t respond.
The alcohol had paralyzed him. He heard a thud, a scream, silence. Then footsteps approaching him, a hand placing something in his, the cold of metal. When you wake up, this will be over, and you’ll be the perfect scapegoat, brother. Ramiro woke up drenched in sweat, screaming. The guards rushed to his cell, thinking he was trying to hurt himself, but Ramiro just kept repeating a phrase. Now I remember. Now I remember everything. My brother was my brother. I heard his voice. He put the gun in my hands while I slept.
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