The Photograph in the Book
Chapter 02 - The Photograph in the Book
Emiliano did not storm into the living room.
That was what the old version of him would have done.
The version Patricia praised. The version his board trusted. The version his daughters had learned to watch from corners when grown-ups spoke sharply.
He stood in the surveillance room with his hands curled against the console and forced himself to breathe.
If he entered angry, Patricia would perform. Rosa would be dismissed as dramatic. The girls would see another adult making fear larger.
So he watched.
On the monitor, Patricia reached for the book.
Daniela’s hand closed over the page too quickly.
“What is that?” Patricia asked.
“Nothing.”
“Daniela.”
The girl flinched.
Emiliano felt the sound of his daughter’s name like a bruise.
Patricia smiled in that quiet way she used when cutting people in front of guests without appearing rude.
“Give it to me.”
Rosa stepped closer.
“Miss Patricia, Mr. Duarte told Daniela to finish that book for school.”
Patricia turned her head.
“Did he also tell you to answer for his children?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
Martina stared at the rabbit on the sofa arm, tears trembling but not falling. She was six years old and already swallowing pain as if silence could make her smaller.
Emiliano’s throat tightened.
Mateo said, “Sir, if we wait too long—”
“We wait until I understand what she’s hiding.”
“Patricia?”
“All of them,” Emiliano said.
The words hurt.
But truth, he was learning in that ugly blue room, had no interest in sparing a late father’s feelings.
Patricia took one step toward Daniela.
Rosa moved again.
Not touching Patricia. Not raising her voice. Only placing herself in the space.
“The girls are frightened.”
Patricia’s face sharpened.
“They are dramatic.”
“No,” Rosa said softly. “They are children.”
That sentence entered Emiliano like a blade wrapped in cloth.
Patricia laughed once.
“Your affection for them has made you careless.”
Rosa’s eyes flicked toward the book.
Patricia saw.
She reached around Rosa and slid the photograph from the pages before Daniela could stop her.
On the monitor, Emiliano could not see the image clearly.
But he saw Patricia’s expression change.
Her face went white.
Then red.
Then controlled.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
Daniela said nothing.
Patricia turned to Rosa.
“Answer me.”
Rosa’s voice remained even.
“It was in Mrs. Lucia’s old music box.”
Emiliano stopped breathing.
Lucia.
His late wife’s name had become a room no one entered unless invited. In the three years since she died, he had kept her memory polished and distant, safe from ordinary handling. He thought that was respect.
Now he saw Daniela clutching a photograph hidden inside a book and wondered what grief he had locked away from his own children.
Patricia tore the photograph once.
Not violently. Not in a way that would look frightening on camera to anyone determined not to see.
Just a clean, cold rip down the middle.
Daniela gasped.
Martina made a small sound.
Rosa’s face changed for the first time.
“Please don’t.”
Patricia looked at her.
“There. Now no one gets confused.”
Emiliano turned to Mateo.
“Save that clip.”
“Already saving.”
“Back up every angle.”
“Yes, sir.”
On screen, Daniela looked at the torn photograph pieces on the rug.
Then she looked at Patricia with something too old for ten.
“My mother wrote on the back.”
Patricia froze.
Rosa closed her eyes.
Emiliano leaned closer to the monitor.
“What did Lucia write?” he whispered, though no one in the living room could hear him.
Patricia crouched and picked up one half of the photograph.
Her hand shook slightly.
Good, Emiliano thought.
Fear had finally changed rooms.
She read whatever was on the back.
Then she placed the pieces into her blouse pocket.
“You imagined that.”
Daniela’s voice was small.
“No, I didn’t.”
Patricia’s tone went soft.
That frightened Emiliano more than sharpness.
“Little girls who insist on ugly stories make their fathers sad.”
Daniela’s chin trembled.
Rosa stepped forward. “Enough.”
Patricia looked up.
“Pack your things.”
Rosa did not move.
“I said pack your things.”
“Mr. Duarte hired me.”
“And I will make sure Mr. Duarte understands exactly what you’ve done.”
Rosa looked toward the hidden camera.
Not at it, exactly.
Toward the corner of the room where Lucia’s portrait used to hang before Patricia suggested it made the children “morbid.”
Rosa’s lips parted.
Then she said, softly but clearly, “Then he should watch what happened in the nursery hallway.”
Mateo stiffened.
Emiliano turned.
“What nursery hallway?”
Mateo swallowed.
“It was before the new camera system.”
“You said all interior feeds were active.”
“Patricia requested privacy zones during the renovation.”
Emiliano stared at him.
“And you granted them?”
Mateo looked ashamed.
“Your authorization was on the work order.”
“I never authorized that.”
Mateo’s face went gray.
On the monitor, Patricia was moving toward the hallway with the photograph in her pocket.
Rosa gathered the girls behind her.
Daniela whispered something to Martina.
The microphone caught only three words.
“Not the rabbit.”
Patricia stopped.
She turned back slowly.
May you like
And Emiliano understood the white stuffed rabbit was not just comfort.
It was hiding something too.
