“Shadows scare her,” Thomas said from where he sat on the stairs.

“She sees things that aren’t there.”

Daniel stayed standing right over him, his weight back on his rear heel, watching the dark doorways down the hall.

“Stay sitting down, Mr.

Miller,” Daniel said.

Inside the bedroom, María ran her light along the inside wall behind the painted bed frame.

A narrow wooden panel door sat flush with the plaster, opening onto an unheated storage closet tucked under the slope of the roof.

Screwed to the outside of the frame was a heavy iron slide bolt, set three feet off the floor with two shiny new steel screws.