Ismael had kept a voice recording.

He would not say, over the phone, how he had come by it, only that Aurelio needed to hear it, and that it concerned Araceli’s death.

They played it in the moving car.

Araceli’s voice came first — weak, frightened, unmistakably ill. “Griselda, please.

Call an ambulance.

Whatever you’re giving me is making it worse, not better.” And then Griselda’s voice, calm, unhurried, answering a dying sister without a trace of alarm — speaking not of medicine or doctors but of what would come after: that once it was over, she would take charge of the boy, and of the insurance, and of the trust; that as long as Santiago was alive and under her control, the money would keep flowing.

Aurelio sat frozen in the seat of his own car.