I could hear my own breathing, ragged and heavy, like a person drowning.
My hands were shaking.
Every instinct screamed at me to charge in there and demand answers, to flip that table over, to ask him what our child had ever meant to him.
But I didn't move.
Because I knew David Delgado too well.
If I stormed in now, I'd be met with a thousand explanations.
"You're misunderstanding."
"She's a client's daughter."
"The boy belongs to a friend. We're just watching him."
He would find a hundred different ways to turn my fury into hysteria.
I pulled out my phone.
My hands were still shaking, but the lens held steady.
I aimed it at the garden.
Six photos. Then a video.
David smeared frosting from the cake onto the boy's nose. The boy giggled. The woman leaned in and wiped his face clean.
A family of three.
I hit stop.
My phone buzzed.
A message from David.
"Ellie, don't wait up for me. Might have to pull an all-nighter tonight. Make sure you eat something. Get some rest."
An all-nighter.
Right. A beautiful evening, the whole family together. Of course it would be an all-nighter.