They went inside. Amparo carried Tomás wrapped in a towel, because Rafael had handed him back without a word and could not look at her while he did it.
He opened his laptop on the dining table and pulled up the camera system. Daniela stayed by the door, arms crossed, eyes on the floor.
“Rafael, this is absurd,” she said. “You’re going to believe the maid over me?”
He didn’t answer. He clicked into the day’s folder and dragged the timeline to the four o’clock hour.
The garden appeared on the screen. The pool, flaring white in the sun. The stroller beside the little table. Amparo stepping out of the kitchen with a glass of water. Daniela standing at the water’s edge with her arms folded.
And then, at 5:09 exactly, the recording showed all of it with brutal clarity.
The leg extending. The stroller rolling. A body crossing the garden at full speed. The jump. The lift. The rescue.
Rafael stared at the screen and forgot to breathe.
“God,” he whispered.
Daniela put a hand over her mouth. “Rafael, I—”
The front door opened. Camila walked in with her keys still in her hand and stopped dead at the sight of them — one soaked, one grey-faced, one crying.
“What is going on in this house?”
Nobody answered. Rafael simply turned the laptop toward her.
