Chapter 14: Esteban waits above the quarry

The climb to the viewpoint smelled of wet iron and eucalyptus. Below, the Cruz quarry opened its white wound towards the sea, staggered, motionless, as if someone had tried to tear half the body out of the mountain and then left the tool stuck.

Esteban was already there, with a folder under his arm and the collar of his coat raised against the wind. He didn't greet Daniel.

He looked at Clara as one would look at an old debt. "You're more like your mother when you're angry," he said.

Clara didn't get close enough to shake his hand. "You didn't bring me here to talk about similarities." Esteban placed the folder on the concrete bench.

Inside were three letters, a photocopy of a plan and a sheet with underlined figures. The paper shook under his fingers.

«Adela discovered that the extraction reports were being falsified at the quarry. Trucks that left at night, unregistered blasting, money that didn't go where it should.

He wanted to report it. Then he wanted to leave with the girl. Daniel took a step, just one.

"And you prove that with letters that you have kept for twenty-four years?" Esteban ignored him. He took out the first page and handed it to Clara.

The letter, slanted and tight, said Adela's name at the end. In two lines he spoke of going to Oviedo; in another, that "Teresa insists" and that "I don't know how much more money she's going to ask me for."

The second was worse: a veiled accusation, the fear of leaving Julia "close to certain people." The third bore, in the upper corner, a red seal from the town hall.

Clara felt the exact hit of the last name in her throat: Vega. Adela Vega.

His mother written by a dead hand. "Teresa didn't save you," said Esteban, with an overworked calm.

«He stole from you. First out of spite.

Then for money. Adela trusted her and she took advantage of the accident. "What accident?" The wind strained the folder.

Esteban held the papers with his open palm. «The night of the coastal road.

Adela came to look for me. I wanted to get you out of here before that thing blew up.

"It never came." Clara read the sealed letter again. The red was too bright.

The shield too clean. He raised his eyes to Daniel.

He was already looking at the same corner. "Why is it registered with the town hall?" she asked.

"Because I tried to move this in the right direction." Daniel raised his hand. "That seal did not exist then." For the first time, Esteban looked him in the face.

"They certified it later." "No," Daniel said. «That shield is the new one.

They changed it with digitalization. Four years ago." The silence came dry, without the noise of birds or traffic.

Only the sea pounding far below. Esteban collected the letters with more haste than he wanted to show.

"That doesn't change the essential thing." "It changes that someone has touched these tests," Clara said. «And it changes that you come to tell me a closed story with a paper opened yesterday.» Esteban's jaw hardened.

He took a step towards her. "The bottom line is that Teresa lied to you every day of your life." "And you have waited half a lifetime to deliver the truth to me in installments." A gust tore the sheet from the plane and threw it against the railing.

Clara moved before anyone else. He caught it by an edge; Esteban arrived at the same time and grabbed his forearm.

His breath smelled like cold coffee. "Don't play with this," he murmured.

"They've played with me enough." As he released the map, his hand brushed the inside pocket of Esteban's coat. He noticed the smooth edge of a card.

He took it out in the same gesture with which he returned the paper. He didn't notice, or chose not to notice.

"If you keep moving the quarry," Esteban said, putting the letters back, "you're going to find people less patient than me." Clara stepped back. "Then make sure that the next forgery does not bear today's date." They went down without speaking.

The path was slippery and Daniel waited until the curve of the pine forest hid the viewpoint before stopping it next to the car. "You have access to the town hall," he said quietly.

«Or someone gives it to him. "That letter passed through recent hands." Clara put her hand in her coat pocket.

My fingers were frozen. When he opened his palm, the white card flashed for a second in the drizzle.

Cantabrian Sea Hotel. Below the logo, written in blue pen, was a number: 214.

The House Where Nobody Asks

The House Where Nobody Asks