The taxi pulled away from the curb before the rain reached the hem of my coat.

By nine o’clock the next morning, I sat across from Samuel Ortiz in his downtown office, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling volumes of property law.

Samuel set a blue leather file on his mahogany desk and turned the first page toward me.

“Your father set up the Varela Trust when you turned twenty-one,” Samuel said, clearing his throat softly.

“Every square meter of the sixty-acre Valle de Bravo estate is registered to that one entity.”

I touched the thin gold band on my right index finger and looked at the plot map.