I bought a small voice recorder, and a hidden camera disguised as an ordinary phone charger — the kind of thing that plugs into a wall outlet and looks like nothing at all.

I did not fully know what I intended to do with them.

I only knew that whatever was being done to me in that house was going to be witnessed, this time, by something that could not be dismissed with a joke about my blood sugar.

And then Diane called, on a Thursday, and asked us to come early that Sunday, because Raymond had invited two important guests up from San Diego.

A chill went straight through me, because I understood, now, that in that house nothing was innocent, and that the presence of guests meant the machine was being pointed at someone — and I had a terrible, certain feeling about who.