Then she removed a page from the folder.
The bank had preserved a voicemail my mother left with its fraud department the afternoon before the fire.
Ortiz had heard it.
I hadn’t.
“She wanted several transfers frozen,” Ortiz said.
“She said she believed your father had moved money without her knowledge.
She told the bank she had confronted him.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“That evening.”
The fire started hours later.
For a while the machines beside me were the only sound in the room.
I had spent the morning believing my father had murdered my mother and tried to kill me inside a staged fire.
Now I understood that my mother may have walked into her final evening already knowing something was wrong.
She had challenged him.
He had answered with fire.
Ortiz didn’t dramatize it.
She didn’t need to.
“We still have to prove motive,” she said.
“But the timing matters.”
“Everything about money is timing.”
I handed the page back.
An hour later, my father returned carrying flowers in one hand and a leather document case in the other.
The flowers were for appearances.
The case was why he had come.
His face changed the moment he saw me awake.
Then he remembered what Ortiz had told him.
His shoulders dropped.
He arranged his expression into concern.
“There she is,” he whispered.
I made my eyes unfocused.
“Dad?”
His mouth trembled.
This time I knew exactly how much of it was performance.
He crossed the room quickly and took my hand.
“It’s me.
You’re safe.”
I let silence stretch.
“Mom?”
The word landed exactly where I intended.
He closed his eyes.
“She’s gone, sweetheart.”
I turned my face toward the window as if the news were reaching me for the first time.
He rubbed my knuckles with his thumb.
“The doctors said you might not remember what happened.
That’s okay.
Maybe that’s a mercy.”
A mercy.
For him, perhaps.
He set the flowers down and opened the leather case.
“There are going to be a lot of things to deal with,” he continued.
“Insurance.
The house.
Your mother’s accounts.
The hospital.
