“And Ramona,” I said. “She’s always repeating something about the wolf, cuidado con el lobo. I heard you sing that tune this morning. Ramona must have learned it from you.”

“What on earth is she talking about?” Angélica asked Elisa.

Elisa frowned. For the first time, I noticed how much her gestures resembled Catalina’s, and yet they were so different.

Everything made sense now. Elisa had put Mayra in Aquilino’s house to get information about me and my father’s will. She’d forged my father’s check. Of course, she had access to his checkbook, to his signature, and she’d paid Franco with the pocket watch and promises of a fortune she would share with him. I glanced at Catalina. She was the woman he’d loved and he’d done this to be worthy of her.

“Caperucita,” Elisa said, void of emotion. “It was a show we put up for the kids.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were Elisa?” Angélica said. “You’ve been living here for three and a half years!”

“I was going to do it,” Elisa said, unable to look Angélica in the eye. “I came here with every intention to tell the truth. After our mothers died, there was no reason to hide anymore, but Don Armand, with that problem in his brain, couldn’t remember me. At first, I told him who I was, and he hugged me.” Her voice broke. “But then, the next day, he’d forgotten all about me. He asked who I was again and again. In his mind, the only daughter he remembered and who really mattered was María Purificación, his firstborn, his legitimate, European daughter.” Her voice turned bitter. “I was an embarrassment to him because I was the daughter of a mestiza,” she scoffed, “the maid.” She dried her tears and straightened her back. “And his wife didn’t want us here.”

Catalina sat down, pressing her hand against her forehead.

“I know that!” Angélica sounded annoyed. “My parents argued about you all the time.”

“You knew?” Catalina asked.

“But there’s something I don’t understand, Ju . . . Elisa,” Alberto said, his voice rusty. “Why did you think that if Puri died, you would get her part of the inheritance?”

Elisa crossed her arms.