33. Silas
Istand in her bedroom and try to gather every piece of information, every small detail that could explain what happened here.
The house has been in this state for over twenty-four hours. Some surveillance footage has been deleted. Downstairs, everything smells of disinfectant, and my chest tightens. Because it’s spotless. Not a speck of dust. Not a smudge of dirt on the floors.
Nobody uses professional-grade disinfectant in their own home. Which means someone wanted to cover their tracks.
“There have been no transactions at all on the family’s cards,” Andreas tells me, coming up behind me.
I expected as much. Her uncle hasn’t been seen by the neighbors in over a day. Not a single pair of eyes caught anything out of the ordinary, and the headache I’ve been carrying for the last twelve hours comes back, blurring the edges of my vision.
I haven’t slept since Camila told me what she did, and this is a reminder to myself to deal with her too.
“She talked about a professor from high school, Gustav or something. Maybe he knows something.”
“On it.”
“Oh, and find everything you can on Camila Fuentes and make sure it goes public,” I tell my best friend, without inflection.
“Absolutely everything I find?”
“Absolutely everything.”
I want her destroyed. I want the university to force her resignation. I want her to feel what it’s like when your life loses all its color without warning, because that’s what she did the moment she pushed away the only person who had been warming my existence.
Sebastian and Karina are my family, but Amalia is the one who made me realize how alone I had been before her.
“I’ll handle it now,” is all he says.
It’s easy to tell which side of the room is hers and which is her sister’s, just from the colors.
Where Lupe has muted tones, Amalia has five different colors on the bedding alone.
Where Lupe’s desk is covered in makeup, a hair straightener, and handbags, Amalia’s holds three containers of colored markers, her laptop, a stack of books against the back, and a basket full of hair clips.
Without meaning to, my hands move to her clips, all of them different shapes and colors, and I pick one up.
It’s the one Javier touched, I realize, and I close my fist around it.
Where are you, baby?