A small notebook.
A child’s sketchbook.
Its corners were bent, the pencil marks faint and uneven.
At first glance, the drawings looked like typical children’s doodles.
But the more Ruiz looked at them, the colder he felt.
One drawing showed two tall shadowy men standing outside the front door.
Another showed her father holding a phone, his mouth open as jagged lines represented shouting.
In the kitchen drawing, her mother sat at the table with her head lowered while tiny dark dots—tears—fell onto the page.
Then Ruiz turned to the last drawing.
The room went silent.
In it, Sophie had drawn herself awake in bed, eyes wide open.
And on the staircase behind her—
a large, dark figure descending slowly toward the basement.
The figure had no face.
Just a heavy shadow.
Too big to be her father.
Ruiz later asked her about the drawing.
Sophie hugged her stuffed rabbit tightly.
“I heard footsteps,” she whispered.
She hesitated.
“They were heavy… not like Dad’s.”
The Truth Begins to Surface
That single sentence changed everything.
It meant someone had been inside the house before her parents went to sleep.
This wasn’t random.
And it wasn’t an accident.