The judge read silently.
Her expression hardened.
“Who owns the final account?”
Sofía looked directly at Robles.
“A company registered to his brother-in-law.”
Chaos erupted.
Reporters stood.
The prosecutor demanded to examine the documents.
Robles shouted that the records were fabricated.
The judge hammered the gavel repeatedly.
Don Chema sat completely still.
He felt like he had walked into the wrong courtroom.
All his life, he had cleaned other people’s messes.
Now his daughters were cleaning his.
But Sofía wasn’t finished.
Not even close.
She turned toward the prosecutor.
“My father was convenient.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was poor.”
The word hurt.
But she continued.
“He was elderly. Retired. He had worked at the school for thirty-four years, which meant his employee information appeared throughout decades of records.”
She looked toward Chema.
“And everyone knew he couldn’t afford an expensive defense.”
Then she turned toward Robles.
“So someone copied the easiest signature in the building.”
Robles stared at her.
Sofía placed two documents side by side.
“One authentic.”
Then the second.
“One allegedly signed twenty-three months later.”
Judge Vargas studied them.
“They appear identical.”
“Exactly.”
Sofía nodded.
“Not similar.”
“Identical.”
She enlarged the signatures.
“Every curve. Every hesitation. Every tiny ink movement.”
The prosecutor understood first.
“It was copied.”
“Digitally.”
The room erupted again.
Don Chema stared at the signature.
His signature.
His name.
Used like a weapon against him.
For months, he had been asking himself whether he had accidentally signed something years earlier.
Whether age had stolen a memory.
Whether maybe, somehow, this nightmare was partly his fault.
Now he knew.
Someone had manufactured his guilt.
His eyes filled.
“Why me?”
Nobody answered.
So he asked again.
Louder.
“Why me?”
Robles looked away.
That was when Valeria stepped forward.
“Because you saw something.”
Chema turned toward her.
“What?”
Her face had lost all color.
“The night before you retired.”
Chema stared.
“I don’t understand.”
“You called me that night.”
“I called you all the time.”
“You said you had found boxes inside the old storage room.”
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