“I saw him that night,” the girl said quietly. “He told me to stay in my room and not come out because adults were talking.”
The social worker straightened immediately.
“Salomé, you never mentioned this during the investigation,” she said, her voice now tense.
Salomé lowered her gaze slightly.
“No one asked me what I saw,” she replied simply.
Those eight words made the air in the room feel heavier.
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Méndez rubbed his chin slowly.
He remembered reading that the girl had been asleep during the incident.
That assumption had been accepted without questioning.
“What exactly did you see?” he asked again.
Salomé took another breath.
I woke up because they were arguing,” she said. “My father was shouting, and Uncle Mateo was shouting louder.”
Ramira’s hands began trembling again, but this time from shock rather than despair.
“What were they arguing about?” Méndez asked.
“Money,” Salomé answered. “And something my father called a betrayal.”
The colonel felt a cold sensation crawl along his spine.
The official report had stated the victim, Ramira’s husband, had been attacked suddenly without warning.
No mention of an argument.
No mention of Mateo being present earlier.
“Then what happened?” Méndez asked slowly.
Salomé’s voice became even quieter.
“I heard something fall… like a chair,” she said. “Then my father shouted once more, and after that everything became quiet.”
Ramira covered her mouth, tears flowing again.
“Oh God…” she whispered.
Salomé looked at her mother and continued speaking gently.
“When I opened my door a little, I saw Uncle Mateo holding the knife,” the girl said.
The room froze.
Even the guards stopped breathing for a moment.
“He saw me watching,” Salomé continued. “He told me if I said anything, you would go away forever.”
Ramira collapsed back into the chair, shaking violently.
Five years.
Five years believing her daughter had slept through the nightmare.
Five years never knowing the child had been carrying the truth alone.
Méndez’s mind was already racing through the legal consequences unfolding in front of him.
If the girl’s testimony was accurate, the entire investigation had been built on a manipulated timeline.
Mateo had placed Ramira at the scene while hiding his own presence.
And Ramira’s fingerprints on the knife suddenly made terrible sense.
“He forced me to pick it up,” Ramira whispered suddenly, remembering something she had buried under years of trauma. “He said if I didn’t, he would hurt Salomé.”
The colonel’s expression hardened.
Everything was beginning to connect.
