Chapter 27

Blood dripped from the staircase of the house, dropping on the calacatta floor. Emma uttered a loud cry. It echoed in Leo’s head, and he observed that his palms were blood-stained. He cringed. Suddenly, Leo stirred awake and realized he had been dreaming. The nightmares were back again, he thought.

He got up from the bed to go to the toilet to ease himself when he saw a photograph on the floor. He picked it up, looked at it, and dropped it almost immediately. His fingers trembled. It was a picture of little Lionel sitting before a blue cake. Leo had taken the picture with his mom’s camera and had given it to Emma. But what was it doing in his room? Had she left it here before her family was kicked out of the house? And even if she had, why hadn’t the maids gotten rid of it?

Something wasn’t right, Leo thought. The incident surrounding the photograph crawled into his mind. It was one of those days when the grapes in his family’s vines were being harvested. And baby Lio wa