Chapter 23
The air conditioning in my office was set to eighteen degrees, but I felt as if the collar of my shirt were being pulled by an invisible string. The coffee in my cup had already gone cold, and the engineering reports on my desk were nothing more than meaningless scribbles.
My mind was a minefield. It had been days since I’d kicked Maria Rita out, and the lack of news about her whereabouts was eating me alive.
The perfect, logical plan to cut her out of my life was crumbling under the weight of uncertainty.
Where was she? Why hadn’t she tried to withdraw money, use my name, or sell her story to the tabloids?
The sharp click of the glass door opening snapped me out of my stupor.
Henrique Ferraz, chief legal counsel for my company and my family, entered the room. His usual relaxed demeanor was gone. He walked with heavy steps, deep furrows creasing his forehead, and gripped his black leather briefcase hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
“Eduardo,” Ferraz began, closing the door and making sure we were completely alone. “We have a problem. A monumental twist in the investigation.”
I sat up straight in my chair, my muscles instantly tensing. My heart—that wretched traitor—leapt in my chest at the prospect of finally hearing news about her.
“Did the police find her?” My voice came out hoarse, almost faltering. “Did they arrest her, Ferraz? Was the arrest warrant issued?”
Ferraz stopped in front of my desk, rested both hands on the glass, and shook his head.
“The police didn’t have to find her, Eduardo. She went to them.”
I blinked, completely stunned.
“What? What do you mean, she went to them?”
“Maria Rita showed up at the police station this morning. She walked in through the front door, head held high, passed through a hallway full of reporters, and gave a formal statement to Detective Carvalho. And what’s worse: not only was she not arrested, but her statement brought the investigation to a standstill.
Carvalho admitted that he has no legal basis to petition for pretrial detention at this time. ”
The shock took my breath away.
A con artist, a cold-blooded killer who knows she’s cornered, doesn’t walk through the front door of a police station. She flees, tries to strike a deal—but Maria Rita had gone head-to-head with the system.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered, rising from my chair. “Carvalho is a ruthless veteran. How could he have let an uneducated girl dismantle his narrative? Did she confess to anything?”
“Maria Rita isn’t just ‘a girl’ anymore, Eduardo, and she wasn’t alone.” Ferraz opened his briefcase and pulled out a printed photograph from a news website, tossing it my way. “Your wife was in very good company.”
I looked at the photo.
The image showed Maria Rita climbing the stairs at the police station.
Her face was a little paler, her posture tense, but her chin was held high.
My wife didn’t look like the girl cowering in the rain that early morning.
However, what made my blood run cold wasn’t her, but the man walking ahead of her, his arm outstretched in a gesture of absolute protection against the cameras.
A tall man in a dark suit, with a gaze as sharp as a predator’s.
“Who the hell is he?” I demanded, pointing at the photo with a trembling finger.
“Henrique,” Ferraz sighed, the name coming out with a professional gravity mixed with reluctant respect.
“One of the greatest criminal defense attorneys this country has ever seen. He built a fearsome reputation in Curitiba and, a few years ago, moved to S?o Paulo, where he’s been sweeping aside the competition.
The man is a wall, Eduardo. He walked into Carvalho’s office, dismissed Lurdes’s testimony as ‘biased’ and challenged the police to provide concrete proof of the shove.
The guy tore the investigation in half.”
My business mind started racing, calculating variables that made no sense at all. The pieces of the puzzle I’d put together with such hatred were all upside down.
“Henrique…” I repeated the name, pacing back and forth in the office. “A guy of that caliber doesn’t take on anyone for less than a million reais just in initial fees. How is she paying for him? Was my mother right? Was there an accomplice? Had she been hiding money all this time?!”
Ferraz shook his head once more, his heavy gaze that of someone delivering the worst possible news to a general.
“That was the first thing I looked into when Carvalho called me, Eduardo. I reached out to my contacts at his firm. Henrique hasn’t received a single cent from Maria Rita. He’s defending her pro bono. For free.”
I stopped in the middle of the office. Silence reigned—heavy and unsettling.
Pro bono.
My mind tried, with all its might, to cling to the cruel logic of my own cynicism. My armor of ice demanded that I find a vile explanation for it.
“Publicity,” I blurted out, letting out a dry, humorless laugh.
“That’s it. It has to be that. The Vasconcelos name is a media gold mine.
A Curitiba big shot wants to cement his name once and for all among S?o Paulo’s elite, and what better stage than defending the poor daughter-in-law accused of killing the billionaire matriarch?
He’s using her story to make the magazine covers and grab the spotlight across the entire country.
Maria Rita is just a puppet in his hands. ”
I spoke the words aloud, needing to hear my own conviction for it to become true. If Henrique was doing this out of vanity, then Maria Rita was still the fraud I’d accused her of being. Just a fraud who was lucky enough to find a mercenary lawyer hungry for fame.
But Ferraz looked at me with an expression of pity that turned my stomach.
“Eduardo… I know Henrique’s reputation. The man isn’t just some careerist who needs scandals to pay the bills.
He handpicks who he defends. He turns down corrupt politicians and millionaire heirs almost every day.
If he took this case, if he shielded Maria Rita for free… he believes in her innocence.”
The ground beneath my Italian leather shoes crumbled.
I turned my back on Ferraz, resting both hands on the glass of the huge window overlooking the city.
The reflection of the pale man with haunted eyes staring back at me wasn’t that of a grieving widower demanding justice.
It was that of an inquisitor who was beginning to realize that perhaps he had burned the wrong witch.
If she’s innocent… what have I done?
The question sprang up from the depths of my mind, a seed of paralyzing terror that took root.
I threw her out onto the street, left her out in the rain, without a coat, without money, without a family…
If Maria Rita wasn’t the cunning murderer that my mother and my grief swore she was, how did she survive that entire week?
Where was she sleeping? And, worse, how did she cross paths with a criminal defense attorney who was willing to risk his own career for her?
“Keep the detectives on the streets, Ferraz,” I ordered, my voice now a thread, scratching at my throat filled with invisible dust. “I want to know everything about the connection between her and this Henrique. Find out where she’s living. I need to know how she got to him.”
“Eduardo, let the police do their job. If you interfere now, Henrique might claim persecution and harassment…”
“Do what I’m telling you!” I shouted, slamming my open palm against the windowpane. The muffled thud echoed through the room.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass, closing my eyes. The shield of arrogance that had kept me standing over the past week had cracked. My certainty had abandoned me, leaving only the unbearable dread that the monster in this story wasn’t Maria Rita Vasconcelos.