“Is that why you stand there while she makes up a crime?”

“Go upstairs and start packing your things,” Alejandro said, turning his back to me as he grabbed the bronze handle of the dining room door.

“Oscar is drafting the paperwork right now.”

I walked up the wide stone staircase to the master bedroom and picked up my mother’s brooch from the dresser, where Doña Victoria had left it after the associates went home.

I set the pearl brooch gently in a black velvet jewelry box and pulled my small leather suitcase down from the closet shelf.