“I will be careful, sir.”

“Do not touch anything else,” my father added.

“We must leave the folder exactly as she left it, but I must see what she wrote.”

He looked at the monitor showing the main staircase.

Patricia was walking up the steps, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood.

She looked relaxed, almost victorious as she moved through our home.

She passed the door to my room and Martina’s room without stopping.

My father watched her disappear into the master suite at the end of the hall.

“She is gone,” Ramiro said, looking at the screen.

“Go,” my father ordered.

Ramiro slipped out of the monitoring room, leaving my father alone in the dark.

The screens flickered, casting blue and white shadows across his face.

He stared at the blue binder on the screen.

He thought of Rosa, who had raised us since our mother died.

He thought of the trust funds he had set up to protect our future.

Everything we had was at risk.

He waited in the silence, counting the minutes in his head.

On the screen, the study remained dark and still.