Elena worried that constant defensive work would consume the time I needed for recovery.
She suggested setting one hour each day to process documents and leaving the rest for ordinary life.
I resisted because every unread message felt dangerous.
Then I noticed that I had missed two physical therapy exercises while watching Patricia’s online posts.
I agreed to the schedule.
The next evening I cooked dinner with Elena and left my phone in another room.
Patricia’s petition did not disappear.
But for an hour it stopped owning my attention.
Chapter 42: The Search of the Office
The investigation reached a turning point when Sato told me that several locations had been searched under judicial authorization.
She could not discuss everything investigators collected.
She confirmed that they were examining computers and storage devices connected to the monitoring account.
I asked whether the search included Patricia’s house.
She said she could not identify all locations while the investigation remained active.
I accepted the boundary, though every part of me wanted to know.
Two days later Patricia’s porch was empty.
The decorative sign she had hung beside her door had been taken down.
I did not interpret that as proof of anything.
People remove signs for ordinary reasons.
Yet I could not walk past her house without remembering her demand for the camera.
She had stood on my porch as though the device belonged to her more than my privacy belonged to me.
Now she avoided my windows whenever our paths crossed.
Sato asked me not to engage with her.
I had no difficulty obeying.
Chapter 43: The Files With Familiar Voices
The district prosecutor’s office contacted me about a private review of selected material recovered during the investigation.
A victim-witness specialist explained the process before anything was played.
I could decline to hear recordings or request support during the meeting.
I chose to listen because I needed to know what had been captured.
The first file contained my voice discussing the machine shop with Daniel.
The sound quality was clear enough to identify our words.
The second captured part of my interview with Simone Keller.
I heard myself explaining why I wanted a new job.
I also heard the soft click of Elena’s key in the front door near the end.
The third file was a short clip of our argument.
I stopped it before Elena’s voice became fully audible.
I did not need to hear the most intimate part of our disagreement to know a boundary had been crossed.
