“I couldn’t sleep.”
I looked at her.
“That makes two of us.”
She noticed the notebook.
“You discovered something.”
I stepped aside.
She came inside.
I showed her the entry.
Her expression changed when she noticed Gabriel’s initials.
“You knew him.”
“My father did.”
“And you were there.”
“Apparently.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
She studied me as if trying to decide whether that could possibly be true.
I couldn’t blame her.
“I was twenty years old,” I said. “Half my life was spent following my father into rooms where nobody explained what anything meant.”
“What kind of father does that?”
“The kind who thought explanations were weakness.”
She sat opposite me.
“Was he harsh?”
I nearly gave her the simple answer.
Yes.
But reality was more complicated.
“He was afraid.”
Maria looked surprised.
“Of what?”
“Losing control.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he raised me to become exactly like him.”
It was the first time I had ever spoken those words aloud.
The room seemed different afterward.
Maria glanced toward the notebook.
“Did it work?”
“What?”
“Did you become like him?”
I started to respond.
Then stopped.
“I used to believe I had.”
“And now?”
My gaze shifted toward the hallway.
Toward the room where Sofia was sleeping.
“I don’t know.”
Maria remained silent for several seconds.
Then she said, “That’s probably a good sign.”
I laughed once.
“You don’t know much about people like me.”
“I know enough.”
“That sounds judgmental.”
“It isn’t.”
“What is it?”
She met my gaze directly.
“Observation.”
I leaned backward.
“I like you less when you’re comfortable.”
“No, you don’t.”
That pulled another laugh from me.
A genuine one this time.
Maria smiled.
Only slightly.
But enough.
The expression transformed her face completely.
For one strange moment, the photograph, Vincent, Gabriel, the locked room—all of it vanished.
There was only a woman sitting inside my office after midnight.
A woman who had entered my home searching for evidence against me. A woman I probably should have dismissed immediately.
Instead, I asked, “Why didn’t you leave?”
She understood exactly what I meant.
“When?”
“When you realized I might not be responsible.”
Her smile disappeared.
“I considered it.”
“What stopped you?”
She rubbed her thumb along the notebook’s edge.
“Sofia likes being here.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“She likes Mrs. Greene.”
“Our cook.”
“And the garden.”
