Salomé glanced at Ramira first, as if asking permission, and her mother nodded immediately, gripping the edge of the table with trembling hands.
The girl took a slow breath.
“The man who died that night… he wasn’t alone in the house,” she said softly.
The words landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.
Ramira closed her eyes for a moment as if reliving the night that had destroyed her life.
“I told them that,” she whispered. “But no one listened to me.”
Méndez stood up slowly, his mind already revisiting the trial file that had seemed so complete.
There had been a witness who claimed to see Ramira leaving the house.
Fingerprints on the knife.
Blood on her clothes.
All the pieces had fit too perfectly.
Maybe too perfectly.
“Who else was there?” Méndez asked the girl carefully.
Salomé looked directly into his eyes, and something in her gaze made the seasoned officer feel unexpectedly uneasy.
“My uncle Mateo,” she said.
Ramira gasped.
The name struck her like lightning because Mateo had been her husband’s younger brother, the man who had testified during the investigation claiming he arrived after the crime had already happened.
“No…” Ramira whispered, shaking her head slowly.
But Salomé continued.
“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.
Méndez rubbed his chin slowly.
