Another one was repeated several times.
Santiago Llorente.
Eduardo slumped down in a chair.
—Santiago knew you were alive.
-Yeah.
—And he never said anything.
Carolina shook her head.
Álvaro looked at Julieta.
—Did you and Santiago work together?
Julieta took too long to respond.
-At first.
Carolina felt that the answer shifted the balance once again.
Julieta explained that she had started falsifying documents due to pressure from Santiago.
He had discovered that she was accumulating debt after several disastrous investments.
He promised to help her if she temporarily transferred Carolina’s shares to a company he would control.
Julieta agreed.
He thought he would get his money back before anyone noticed anything.
But Carolina surprised her in the office.
Hours later the fire started.
—When I left the house —Julieta said— I saw Santiago near the garage.
Eduardo got up.
—And you never said so?
—Because I had just committed fraud. What do you think would have happened if I said I was there stealing documents?
—Your sister was inside!
-I returned.
Carolina looked at her.
-That?
—I went back in.
Julieta lifted a part of her wedding dress.
On the outside of his right leg was a pale scar.
Carolina had seen it hundreds of times in family photographs after the fire, but she had always been told that Julieta had gotten it during a fall.
“I got burned trying to get to the ladder,” Julieta said. “The smoke was too strong. A firefighter pulled me out.”
Carolina slowly shook her head.
—You never told me.
—I thought you were dead.
—Until you saw me in the hospital.
Julieta lowered her eyes.
That was the point he couldn’t justify.
The silence continued.
“When Santiago told me that someone had survived, I went to check it out,” he admitted. “I saw you. I wanted to call Mom right then and there.”
—But you didn’t.
—Santiago showed me the forged documents. He told me that if you showed up, he would hand everything over to the police and say that I had started the fire to kill you.
Carolina felt a wave of rage.
—So you chose to save yourself.
Julieta did not try to deny it.
-Yeah.
The word was small.
But it destroyed what little remained between them.
Elena looked away from her youngest daughter.
Eduardo closed the folder.
Álvaro slowly removed the engagement ring he wore on his right hand.
Julieta saw it.
—Álvaro…
He left the ring on the table.
—You may not have started that fire. But you saw your sister alive and chose to bury her again.
Julieta began to cry.
Carolina felt no satisfaction.
That surprised her.
I had waited for that moment for years.
However, the truth was worse than a simple conspiracy.
Julieta had been manipulated.
He had also been guilty.
He had tried to return to the house.
He had also abandoned Carolina afterwards.
Both things could be true.
And now I had to live with both of them.
It seemed that everything was over.
The police were called.
The guests began to leave the room.
Ramón handed the copies of the documents to Eduardo.
Elena finally approached Carolina and, with a trembling hand, touched one of her scars.
-Forgive me.
Carolina closed her eyes.
—You thought I was dead.
—But you’re my daughter. I should have asked more questions. I should have demanded proof.
Carolina did not respond.
I couldn’t fit six years into one sentence.
But he didn’t take his mother’s hand away either.
Then Ramón found something strange inside the folder.
A small envelope was glued to the back cover.
—This wasn’t here when I made the copies.
Carolina recognized him.
The folder had belonged to Santiago.
They had found her months earlier in a storage unit rented in her name.
Ramón opened the envelope.
Inside there was a USB drive and a handwritten note.
Eduardo read the first few lines.
His expression changed.
—Carolina.
—What does it say?
Eduardo handed it to her.
Santiago had written the note shortly before he died.
It wasn’t a complete confession.
But it did explain something that no one expected.
The gasoline had not been spilled to set the house on fire.
It had been used to prepare an insurance fraud related to two vehicles stored in an adjacent warehouse.
Santiago had hired a man to start a small fire in the early hours of the morning, when the property was supposedly empty.
But Julieta and Carolina were inside.
The fire spread much faster than expected.
When Santiago realized that Carolina had disappeared, he decided to take advantage of the chaos.
He used the forged documents to control the shares.
Then he threatened Julieta with accusing her of starting the fire.
And when he discovered that Carolina had survived, he paid to keep her away.
