Amazingly, this works, and I wait a full five minutes listening to his breathing become shallower before going to the kitchen in search of a screwdriver.

It’s nine o’clock by the time I’m able to pry the nightstand drawer open wide enough to snake my hand inside, feel for the closed but unlocked safe door, and get a fingernail into the crack. The safe swings open, and I palm the cool metal of Patrick’s keys before pushing the drawer closed.

Time to send Sam and Leo to bed.

They resist, Sam telling me he’s got just one more trick.

“Now,” I say, and wait until I hear them settle. Then I walk to the end of the hall, to Patrick’s locked office door.

I have the lie already prepared, ready to go, in case Patrick wakes up and finds me sitting behind his desk, rifling through stacks of papers and envelopes. After all, my mother’s in a hospital thousands of miles away, the language center of her brain possibly damaged beyond repair. Of course I need to call, even at the late hour. Papà won’t be sleeping tonight.

But I’m alone, me and my sticky fingers and Patrick’s neatly squared piles arranged like paper soldiers in rows across his desk. Everything looks exactly the same as it did last night, and it would, since no one has been in this room today. Olivia’s gruesome self-electrocution left no time for such banalities as paperwork. Attempted electrocution, I remind myself, trying to put the image of her burned arm out of my mind.

Everything is exactly as it was, except for the manila envelope and its TOP SECRET stenciling.

By eleven, I’ve been inside every drawer and cabinet, examined under the two fake Persian rugs, felt along each inch of baseboard molding for a loose board. Finally, I give up and lie back on the hard floor, head still pounding from my earlier fall.

I’m so tired. Like, bone tired. It would be nice to stay here, limbs stretched out and eyes half-closed, until morning.

It would be nice, and it would get me in a shitload of trouble, even with the ruse of trying to FaceTime my father.

I push myself up, willing my legs to take the weight, and go over Patrick’s desk one final time, squaring up the stacks of reports and memos with flat palms. If he says anything in the morning, I’ll tell him he tried to work while he was drunk.