He received Dolores in his office with distrust.
I don’t know what you’re trying to do, ma’am. The girl is under protection.
“You can’t have unauthorized visitors. I just want to talk to you,” Dolores said about Salomé, about how she got here. Carmela was silent for a moment, assessing the woman in front of her.
Something about Dolores inspired confidence in him. Perhaps it was her age, perhaps the weary gaze of someone who had fought many battles.
“The girl arrived 6 months ago,” Carmela began. Her uncle Gonzalo brought her. He said he couldn’t take care of her anymore, that his business didn’t allow it.
But there was something strange. Strange. How so? The girl had marks, ma’am, bruises on her arms that no one wanted to explain, and since she arrived she hardly speaks.
She eats little, sleeps even less, has nightmares every night; Dolores felt a chill.
And after the meeting with her father, has she seen her? Carmela lowered her gaze. Since returning from prison, Salomé hasn’t uttered a single word.
The doctors say there’s nothing physical wrong. It’s as if something has closed up inside her, as if she’s said everything she needed to say and now she’s silent forever.
Dolores looked towards the window, where a blonde girl was playing alone in the yard.
What did Carmela say to her father? Does anyone know? No one. But whatever it was, it’s destroying that girl from the inside out.
Five years earlier, on the night that changed everything, the Fuentes house was silent. Sara had put Salomé to bed early, as she did every night.
The 3-year-old girl was sleeping, hugging her teddy bear, oblivious to the hell that was about to break loose.
In the room, Ramiro Fuentes was drinking his fourth glass of whiskey.
He had lost his job that week. The carpentry shop where he had worked for 20 years closed without warning. At his age, he didn’t know how to start over.
Sara was on the phone in the kitchen. Her voice was a furious whisper. “I told you not to contact me anymore. What you did is unforgivable. If you don’t fix this, I’m going to talk.”
I don’t care what you threaten me with. She hung up violently and saw Ramiro watching her from the doorway.
Who were you talking to? Nobody. Go to sleep. You’ve had enough to drink. Ramiro wanted to ask more, but the alcohol was already clouding his thoughts.
He slumped down on the living room sofa and closed his eyes. Within minutes he was fast asleep.
What happened next, Ramiro wouldn’t remember, but someone else would. Salomé woke up to the sound of a door. She got out of bed and walked toward the hallway.
From the shadows she saw something that her 3-year-old eyes could not comprehend, but that her memory would keep forever.
A figure entered the house. A man the girl knew well. A man who always wore blue shirts and brought her sweets when he visited. Sara screamed, then there was silence.
Little Salome hid in the hallway closet, trembling, as the man in the blue shirt walked towards where her father slept.
Dolores spent the entire night reviewing the Fuentes case file.
Hundreds of pages, photographs he preferred not to remember, testimonies, expert reports, everything pointed to Ramiro, his fingerprints, his clothes, his lack of a solid alibi, but there were cracks, small, almost invisible, but they were there.
The first witness, a neighbor named Pedro Sánchez, initially stated that he saw a man leaving the house at 11 pm.
Three days later, in a second statement, he specified that he was Ramiro. Why the change? Who pressured him? The physical evidence was processed in record time.
Forensic analyses typically took weeks. In this case, the results came back in 72 hours, just in time for the arrest.
The prosecutor in charge of the case was Aurelio Sánchez.
The surname matched that of the neighbor who witnessed the incident. Coincidence or family connection? Dolores looked for information about Aurelio Sánchez.
What she found deeply disturbed her. Aurelio was no longer a prosecutor. He had been promoted to judge three years earlier, just after securing Ramiro’s conviction.
His career took off thanks to this case, which he solved with exemplary efficiency, according to the newspapers of the time. But there was more.
Aurelio Sánchez had business connections with Gonzalo Fuentes, Ramiro’s younger brother. Together they had purchased several properties in the last 5 years.
properties that previously belonged to the Fuentes family.
Dolores dialed a number on her phone. “Carlos, I need you to investigate Gonzalo Fuentes’s businesses. Everything: every property, every transaction, every partner.”
And I need to know if Sara Fuentes knew something she shouldn’t have. Gonzalo Fuentes arrived at the Santa María home in a luxury black car that contrasted sharply with the modesty of the place.
He wore an impeccable suit and a blue tie, always blue.
Carmela saw him come in and felt a chill.
There was something about that man that reminded him of snakes. Elegant on the outside, poisonous on the inside. “I’ve come to see my niece,” Gonzalo said without greeting her.
“I have the right. I am her legal guardian. You relinquished that guardianship 6 months ago when you left her here,” Carmela replied firmly.
She is now under state protection. Circumstances have changed. With everything that’s happening with my brother, the girl needs a family.
She needs someone to take care of her. To take care of her like she was taken care of before she was brought here with bruises on her arms.
Gonzalo’s eyes darkened. Be careful what you imply, ma’am. I have connections.
Important contacts. I can shut this place down in a week if I set my mind to it. He’s threatening me.
I’m informing you. I want to see Salomé now. At that moment, Carmela noticed movement behind her office door. Salomé had heard everything.
The girl was pale, trembling, her eyes fixed on her uncle. There was pure terror in that look. Gonzalo saw the girl too.
For a second, his mask of respectability slipped. What Carmela saw in his eyes convinced her of something. That man was dangerous, and Salomé knew it better than anyone.
“Go away,” Carmela said. “Go now or I’ll call the police.” Gonzalo smiled. A cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
This isn’t over, ma’am. I’ll be back. And when I do, no one will protect that girl from her family. The prison visiting room felt colder than ever.
Ramiro waited handcuffed to the table, but his demeanor had changed. He was no longer the defeated man of two days ago. There was fire in his eyes.
Dolores sat down opposite him and studied him silently. My name is Dolores Medina. I was a criminal defense attorney for 40 years.
I saw your case on the news and I need you to tell me everything. Why does he care? Nobody believed me for five years.
Why would you be any different? Because 30 years ago I let an innocent man be condemned.
I couldn’t save him. That haunts me every night.
I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. Ramiro looked at her for a long time, assessing whether he could trust this stranger. Finally, he spoke. I drank a lot that night.
I had lost my job. I was devastated. I fell asleep on the sofa and don’t remember anything else until I woke up with blood on my hands and Sara on the floor.
I called emergency services, tried to help her, and when the police arrived they arrested me. Did you hear anything? Did you see anyone?
Nothing, but now I know something I didn’t know before.
Dolores leaned forward. “What did she say to you, Salomé?” Ramiro closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were filled with tears. “My daughter was there that night.”
She saw everything from the hallway. She was three years old and she saw everything. She told me that someone came into the house after I fell asleep. Someone she knew, someone she trusted.
Who? Ramiro uttered a name Dolores already suspected. My brother Gonzalo, my own flesh and blood.
Dolores arrived home after midnight. Ramiro’s revelations were swirling in her head. A traitorous brother, a child witness.
Five years of silence. Why did Salome never speak? What kept her quiet for so long? She opened the door and turned on the light. What she saw paralyzed her.
Her house had been searched. Drawers were open, papers were scattered on the floor, and books had been knocked off the shelves. Whoever broke in wasn’t looking to steal; they were looking for something specific.
The Fuentes case file walked carefully through the clutter to his desk.
The file was still there, seemingly intact, but on top of it was something that hadn’t been there before: a photograph.
It was an old photo of Sara Fuentes, smiling, young, full of life. Someone had drawn a red X over her face with a permanent marker. Underneath it was a handwritten note.
Some truths must remain buried. Stop investigating or you’ll end up like her. Dolores’s hands trembled, not from fear, but from rage.
Whoever sent this message did not know Dolores Medina.
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