The fire had been deliberately started in two separate rooms.
Mariana did not cry.
She pushed herself up from her parents’ dining table so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
Her mother, Patricia, reached for her.
“Careful, sweetheart.”
“I need my phone.”
“Mariana—”
“My phone, Mom.”
There was something in her voice Patricia had not heard since the night of the fire.
Not fear.
Purpose.
Jorge handed it to her.
Mariana dialed the number printed beneath Teresa Aguilar’s name.
The woman answered on the second ring.
“Atlas Investigations, Teresa Aguilar speaking.”
“My name is Mariana Salgado.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Then Teresa’s voice changed.
“Mrs. Salgado, where are you?”
“At my parents’ house.”
“Is your husband with you?”
“No.”
“Are you alone?”
“My parents are here.”
Teresa exhaled.
“Good. Please don’t call Mr. Cárdenas yet.”
Mariana looked at Jorge.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been trying to get truthful answers from him for almost three weeks.”
So those were the calls.
Not a lover.
Not a secret client in Monterrey.
An investigator.
“What exactly are you investigating?”
Teresa hesitated.
“More than one insurance claim.”
Mariana sat down again.
“What does that mean?”
“The day after the fire, your husband submitted a property-loss claim associated with equipment belonging to Prisma Norte. Cameras, lighting systems, computers, lenses and other production equipment.”
“That equipment wasn’t in our house.”
Teresa went quiet.
Mariana’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“I know because I helped choose some of it. Rodrigo kept everything at the studio in Anzures.”
“That is one of the reasons I need to speak with you.”
“How much did he claim?”
“Just over 4.3 million pesos.”
Jorge’s face changed.
Mariana stared at him.
Teresa continued carefully.
“There’s something else. Twelve days before the fire, Mr. Cárdenas requested a significant increase in the policy covering the contents temporarily stored at the residence.”
“I never knew about that.”
“The modification required the acknowledgment of both named occupants.”
Mariana looked at the page in front of her.
“My signature.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t sign it.”
“I suspected that.”
“Why?”
“Because according to the digital record, you supposedly signed the authorization at 3:42 p.m. on a Thursday.”
“So?”
Teresa paused.
“You were appearing live at a Casa Luminaria event in Guadalajara at 3:42 that afternoon.”
Mariana stopped breathing for a second.
Casa Luminaria had livestreamed the event.
Hundreds of people had watched her from another city at the exact moment someone had supposedly used her electronic signature from the apartment in Mexico City.
Jorge stood.
“I’m calling our lawyer.”
“No,” Teresa said through the speaker. “Call one, absolutely. But before anyone contacts Rodrigo, I’d like Mariana to come in.”
“When?”
“Today, if she’s physically able.”
Mariana looked down at her bandaged arm.
Four months earlier she had crawled through smoke to reach a man who could not save himself.
She could sit in an office.
“I’ll be there.”
Three hours later, Mariana walked into Atlas’s investigation department wearing a loose blouse, a scarf around the healing skin on her neck, and the compression sleeve her surgeon had ordered.
She had stopped covering the left side of her face with her hair.
Not because she suddenly felt brave.
Because she needed both eyes unobstructed.
Jorge came with her.
