Five minutes is not long unless a guilty person is waiting inside it.

Andrés spent the first minute laughing. He said the whole thing was ridiculous. He said I’d always hated him. He said Valeria had been filling my head with lies, even though Valeria had barely spoken.

In the second minute, he demanded to see the deed. In the third, he told Doña Rebeca to sit down and be quiet. In the fourth, he called someone on his phone, but whoever answered didn’t give him the reassurance he wanted.

In the fifth, headlights swept across the kitchen wall.

The doorbell rang.

Salgado came in first. Behind him were two security men and a notary with a leather folder held to his chest. No one shouted. That was the beautiful thing.