He pretended not to notice and drove home. The black car followed her from a distance. Dolores changed route taking secondary streets. The car was following her. His heart was pounding, but he remained calm. In her years as a lawyer, she had faced worse threats. He eventually stopped in a lighted area in front of a police station. The black car drove past but something fell out of its window as it accelerated. Dolores waited a few minutes before leaving, she picked up the object from the ground, a religious medal of those that mothers give to their children for protection.
it had the initials engraved. Mr. Martín Reyes. He was following her. Not Gonzalo’s men. Martín. Dolores looked around looking for the black car, but it had disappeared. However, now he had one certainty. Martín was alive, he was close and he was trying to communicate. The question was, why wasn’t it shown openly? Who was he so afraid of that he preferred to remain in the shadows after 5 years? The answer would come sooner than I expected. That night Dolores could not sleep.
He gathered all the pieces on his table. The drawing of Salomé, Martín’s medal, the false will, the recording of Beatriz, 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. Salome could not speak. Martín hid. Without an eyewitness, everything else was circumstantial.
The clock struck 3 in the morning, there were less than 30 hours left for the execution. Then Dolores’ phone rang, an unknown number. Mrs. Medina. The voice was masculine, trembling. Who is talking? My name is Martín. Martín Reyes. I know he’s been looking for me and I know time is running out. Dolores felt her heart stop. Where is it? Why is he hiding? Because if they find me they eliminate me. as they tried to do 5 years ago. But I can’t keep quiet anymore.
They are 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 he see? Sara Fuentes did not die that night, Mrs. Medina. I took her out of that house before Gonzalo finished her off. Sara is alive and has been waiting for this moment for 5 years. And Dolores couldn’t process what she had just heard.
Sara Viva, 5 years in hiding while her husband awaited execution. That’s impossible, he said. There was a funeral, a death certificate. The body, the body was so damaged that the identification was by records. Dental, Martín interrupted. Records that Aurelio Sánchez commissioned to falsify. The body they buried was not Sara. Whose was it then? A woman without a family who died that same week in a hospital. Aurelio has contacts in the morgue. He made the change. Everything was planned to bury the case along with the alleged victim.
Dolores needed to see to believe. Where is Sara now? Close, but I can’t tell you where on the phone. We don’t know who may be listening. I need you to come to San Jerónimo tomorrow to my mother’s house. I will explain everything to him there. Time is running out, Martín. There are less than 30 hours left. I know, that’s why I decided to speak out. Sara wanted to wait until she had all the legal evidence, but there is no time. If Ramiro dies, Gonzalo wins forever. And Sarah has sacrificed too much to allow that.
Dolores hung up the phone with trembling hands. If this was true, it was the most extraordinary case of his career. A woman who faked her death to protect her daughter. An innocent husband convicted of a crime that never existed. A brother willing to destroy everything out of greed. He packed a small suitcase. Tomorrow he would travel to San Jerónimo. Tomorrow I would know the whole truth. What he 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 the dream brought back memories that he had blocked for 5 years. He saw himself on the sofa at home, drunk, about to faint. He heard voices, Sarah’s voice, first calm, then frightened, and another voice, a voice he knew well. You shouldn’t have gotten into this, Sara. I warned you, Gonzalo’s voice. Ramiro tried to move in the dream. He tried to get up to defend his wife, but her body was unresponsive.
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