He found what no one wanted to look at.

The weapon had Ramira’s fingerprints, yes, but also partial remains of another person never properly identified due to “poor quality of the evidence collection.” The famous witness who claimed to have seen her leaving the house that night contradicted himself on two different occasions. And the report by the psychologist who interviewed Salomé included a disturbing phrase, noted in the margin and then ignored: “The minor insists on a man with a conspicuous watch, but her narrative seems to have been tainted by post-traumatic stress.”

Contaminated.

That word had been enough to bury the only clean voice in the case.

At four in the afternoon, Salomé was taken to a simplified photo identification room. Among several images of men in suits, some known to her father, others added as a control, the girl immediately pointed to one.

He didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t waver.
He didn’t even need to touch the photo.

-That.

It was Hector Becerra.

Lawyer.
Financial advisor.
Close friend of Esteban.
And, according to a note lost in accounting appendices, a man implicated in a series of documents that Esteban refused to sign months before he died.

When Méndez saw the pointed-out photo, he felt an icy pang in his stomach. He remembered that surname from somewhere else. Not from the trial. From a private call he’d received a week earlier, when the sentence could still be carried out quietly. A voice told him that “the Fuentes case” should be closed as it was, for everyone’s sake, and that dwelling too much on the past only tarnished respectable institutions.

They didn’t mention any names.

It wasn’t necessary.

Now it was really needed.

He called the state prosecutor’s office directly.

Not just any office.
To the wrongful conviction review unit.

He shouted.
He demanded.
He used thirty years of service as if they were finally serving some useful purpose.

That same night a special prosecutor arrived with two agents and a skeptical expression that transformed into something else as she listened to Salomé repeat the story of the clock, the back door and the “I wasn’t going to sign”.

Ramira did not return to her cell.

She was transferred to a secure room while the formal suspension of her execution was issued and an urgent review of the sentence was requested.