"I'm going to call the police and report the disappearance," Philip said with determination. "Flynn would never disappear that way. He always left at least one person aware of each of his steps. He just doesn't leave the house and leaves everything behind like this. Even on trips he takes the dog. Not to mention that he didn’t call his dad last night. They talk to each other every day.”"Wod he not want to disappear even if he was sad? "I asked."Wor would he be sad? "Philip asked, frowning. "Are you done?”"No... It's just that last night he ended up falling into the conversation of a friend of mine who likes to make predictions about other people's future... She said about seeing a shadow in him that indicated that he would be sick at some point, in which he ignored and asked her to see some things in gypsy letters to him. And I thought he would be bothered by what she said, although in the end it was a good thing.”Paul listened carefully, although his expression was distant, as if
I've always been the kind of person who avoided going to hospitals. If it was to make an appointment or in order to treat something urgent. I only entered a hospital when I thought there was no medicine in the world to improve what I was feeling. I was the kind of person who believed that as long as there was hope for improvement, I shouldn't pass by the door of a hospital. Not out of belief or fear, but simply because I didn't trust anyone who studied for more than ten years to learn how to cut and sew bodies. Medicine was a delicate subject for me. And I thanked him every day for not being a person who fell so easily by any illness, because that way I was free to cross my path with some doctor.Meanwhile, in the face of what happened with Flynn and the constant presence of the police in my life, I had to surrender to that distrust and start attending one of the few private hospitals in the city. I didn't have much to complain about my country's health system as a whole, since I was
Flynn pretended not to listen, and went to where I was, taking me by one hand and directing us to the door. His father kept talking, raising his voice so we could listen, but I heard Paul try to calm him down and then the sound of footsteps in a quick race. The sun hit our faces when we got to the courtyard, and Flynn didn't say anything, although he still held me firmly, and again I had the impression that he feared I would run away."Flynn" called Paul, in which Flynn just pressed the step, dragging me along with him. Paul got in our way and held out his palms in front of his friend to prevent him from continuing to walk. "Flynn, listen to me. You will need a car to leave. I have a car. I'll take you wherever you want. You don't have to run away. You can't disappear with so many questions that still need to be answered. If you keep hiding like this, people will end up thinking that your disappearance was on purpose for it to be found at the crime scene. You can't keep making things
I didn't want to talk in there. First because I feared Flynn's reaction. He was very quiet, and making a point of talking to me alone, he kept looking out the window all the way of Paul, who absent-mindedly began to follow the route to his house, and did not sketch emotions while I threw worried glances in his direction. The only moment he spoke in a civilized way and without shouting, was when he asked Paul to take him to my house, and his friend obeyed.Leaving us on the sidewalk in front of the building, Paul asked me to call in case something went wrong. And Flynn gave him a deadly look, as if he repudiated his friend's insinuation that he could do anything that negatively affected me. I nodded and thanked, following Flynn as he hurriedly approached the gate of the building, ripping off his disposable mask and throwing it in the first trash can he saw. He waited while I unlocked each door, until the last one that really led to my apartment, and as soon as he came in and I closed t
I noticed that despite the tearful words and the mourning over his shoulders, Flynn also had some kind of admiration for the way Diana did not want to surrender. I knew that even after she died that woman would continue to occupy a very large space in her heart. The only thing that comforted me was knowing that now he could no longer go to her house in all the crises she invented to be having. She had got what she wanted. She joined her son after all."What else did they do? "I asked." Why did they put Diana's body in your car?”"Because they wanted to incriminate me. Because they had run my fingers through the knife, and would leave her by my side before carrying her body out. They put her in the seat inside the car, to stage that everything had happened inside, then they threw her in the suitcase like an unwanted luggage "he contained a sigh. "You heard she was in my truck because you read in the reports?”"No," I answered, and I didn't have to pretend I was shaken, because the memo
"why do you seem so far away from us all of a sudden, huh, van? " Ellen asked, sitting next to me on the floor. "I've been asking for days how your life is going. As far as I knew, you were going out with the blonde and he worked in the same office as you, after that, you started going to have lunch somewhere other than here and we were never able to talk again. You got rich and forgot about your friends, did you?”I had spent the ten minutes since the closing of my cashier, sitting arranging the soap holder of the perfumery corridor, because now the management thought it was unnecessary for all the cashiers to remain until the end of the shift in their sectors, and they take turns the orders to always send us to a corridor or sector that needed help for the closure.It turns out that after the rush of Christmas Eve, things became calmer in the city, although that was the first night after the new year, many people had preferred to go to the supermarket earlier, so that, with twenty m
" Me too, my friend. My heart really broke when I found out... And I didn't even see him leaving the supermarket on the day of his resignation "I lied, shaking my head, like someone who feels deeply upset. "I liked Leo so much. I so wish he could take a turn in life, you know? We came from the same city. We had similar dreams. And the only thing I've known now is that you said about them not showing up anywhere. I think he must have returned to his homeland. Nobody wants to be struggling in a city where there's no one, right? I feel very sorry for him.”And I was even more sorry to have encouraged him to commit a cold-blooded crime, and that he still had plans to rob the supermarket. I suspected that he would still wait a while longer. At least until the dust has dropped since the murder of Diana Garcia. Because the news still provided information about the progress of the investigations, and so far the police of the capital still remained in the city, trying to seek as much evidence
About ten minutes before the time we needed to hit the point to leave, my friends and I managed to sneak up to the stairs that led to the employees' closets, and hid there to be able to move our cell phones until the time for us to go down. Small groups of employees did the same, hiding behind the cabinets so that the cameras would not catch them. I sat on the floor, put my backpack on my lap and unlocked my cell phone to see the message Flynn had sent me after I returned from my lunch break."I miss you," he said, with a sad emoticon."I miss you too," I replied, opening a smile."Do you have plans for tonight?""No. I usually spend my New Year's Eve alone. Beatrice and Gildeon, those two friends of mine who invited you for Christmas, are at his family's house. So, I only have my bed and some books as company.""So we're going to celebrate at my house.""Just the two of us?""My father and my dog too.""All right. I accept.""You had no choice.""I always have a choice, Mr. Ashton."
I almost no longer needed to use the tracker I had installed on Flynn's cell phone at the beginning of everything. I only used it because I still couldn't stop that mistrust when I noticed that he spent too much time working. But the conversations were always the same with the customers. And I didn't suspect that he was going out with other people, because there was no time when we weren't together. Still, I couldn't totally trust him. There were days when I didn't sleep. Not until I was really alone at home.My sleep problems remained the same. Always caused by that fear of being vulnerable next to someone else, and also by the constant nightmares about the murders I've been orchestrating with the help of someone else. I never told my therapist the truth. I never let him reach more than the edge of my feelings. At the same time I was policing myself to act and speak the way everyone expected Tasha Santos to do, although deep down there was that rabid animal that was always ready to a
"Can you behave like educated children? "He scolded my sister, pulling one of my nephews by the ear. "That's why I never go out with you!”" Jenyfer, it doesn't have to be so hard," countered my brother-in-law, reaching the smaller child who wouldn't stop climbing on the couch and throwing the cushions up. "They are too small to understand. And I'm sure your sister doesn't mind them playing, does Tasha?”"They will understand very well when their aunt put them on platters and bake for our lunch," shouted Jenyfer, looking with her eyes for any confirmation that I would be really furious.I left the platter with pasta in white sauce on the table and stretched my neck to see through the open door of the kitchen, finding my brother-in-law with my three-year-old nephew on his lap who kicked and shook his golden curl hair, in a desperate attempt to get back to mess up everything he found on his way. While my sister held her eldest son, ten years old, by the tip of her ear. It should be hurt
I still hid many secrets from Flynn. The biggest of them was also a surprise that left me in shock for at least three days, until I remembered that I needed to act normally so that he had no idea what was happening to my body, until I found the perfect opportunity to use this against him. At the moment, we were fine. We had sex every day. We ate in fancy places. We slept in the moonlight. And sometimes we resumed the sexual provocations and attacks within the company.Everything seemed very good in my life. So good that sometimes I even wondered where the hidden cameras of the prank were. Because trying to compare the woman of months ago who barely had time to eat and sleep because of the two jobs that they couldn't even pay the bills, and trying to find similarities with the woman who was having the life of dreams, was impossible. I still worked during the day and dedicated myself to writing in my free moments, wanting to reach higher and higher levels in that achievement, and willin
I knelt before the well-kept and immaculate tomb of one of the farthest cemeteries in the city, depositing my set of small yellow flowers below the concrete tombstone, which read "Diana Garcia. 08/23/1991. 12/24/2020."Despite bringing a handkerchief in my hands and touching it from time to time in the waterline of my eyes, I wasn't crying. In fact, the only emotion I felt was the pure satisfaction of having accomplished all my goals without anyone realizing where I was wanting to go. Diana Garcia had been the woman who gave the bad luck to cross her path to mine, when she decided to mistreat me and demoralize in front of her ex-husband, and my current fiancé, Flynn Ashton. I persuaded an unstable and deeply shaken man to take his life. I manipulated and orchestrated every step taken, and I still became some kind of national victim who was too traumatized to give clear statements to the police. Diana Garcia was my perfect victim, and Landon the criminal who freed me from paying for an
"What's going to happen now? "I asked against your chest. "What do we do with life? With the police? The investigator was here earlier. He asked me about my relationship with Leo, the man who held me hostage at the end of the robbery. In the researcher's opinion, I seemed to be too friendly with someone who always presented unstable behaviors.”"I knew," he said, leaning his chin on my head. "They want to discredit us in every way, Tas. But you don't have to worry. I have a real team of lawyers. No one will get enough arguments to cause fear. They have nothing to suspect, at the end of the day. The point is that it is much more interesting to focus on the relationships we had with the people involved in the crime, than to actually solve it. That's the problem with the police in this place.”"I'm still afraid, Flynn. "I commented in a trembling voice. "I'm still afraid that they might catch me off guard and make me confess something I didn't even do. I've never been in front of police
"I don't feel vulnerable," I said, already feeling in which direction that conversation would take. I had to show that I was very stubborn and the owner of my own will. "And I think this whole situation may have made you a little paranoid, Flynn. I'm not criticizing. I think anyone in their normal state would become a little suspicious. But if you're suggesting that I need security guards, I refuse. I can’t work every day knowing that when I leave the supermarket I will get into a car with two armed men and that they will leave me at home, or that they will take me to your house, because you no longer trust the people who live in my building, and that’s why you prefer to avoid it. I don't want bodyguards, just like you don't want to either. And I don't think that being with you will make me a target. I think this can even increase my security, since no one will want to mess with someone so powerful.”"I know the question is strange to you," he said, still without looking me in the eye
Flynn totally entered the room, and seeing him was like opening the curtains in a dark room. He was my sun on that rainy night outside, and I was really happy to see him. The hair was loose on his shoulders, and the smooth and silky strands slipped smoothly to make the face even more beautiful and shiny. He took off his mask and kept it in his pocket, while still watching me, looking as happy and radiant as I should be."The nurse told us that the number of visits was limited," Cristiano said somewhere far from my attention. "I don't think she'll be happy to see so many people in here. Tasha just went through a traumatic situation. She needs rest. You can't keep getting so many people in the room like that.”"You're right," said Flynn, looking away for a quick moment to observe Cristiano. "You can leave now. I've arrived.”"I'm not going out," Cristiano said with a dull giggle. "I arrived first.”"Oh, for God's sake! "Beatrice grunted, rising from a jump. She pulled Cristiano violentl
"Look, Cris... I really like you. I really loved you more than anything in this life. But you're not the guy I can call when the situation gets tight, you know? "I said, performing a mouth-in-mouth. "You're the guy who amuses me, makes me laugh, but that's all. All you do besides that is hurt me. And I know you may be being sincere in saying that you really realized that we were born for each other and that we should continue together, but now, after all, you no longer fit into my life, Cris.”"No, Tas. You don't have to say anything. "He interrupted, pretending that I hadn't really said anything. "I understand that you are already with someone else. And I don't want this guy to suffer, thinking that you'll be able to love him as you love me. I know you can't love anyone the same way you loved me, and I think he'll need some time to understand that. But I don't want to force anything. I don't want you to tell him out of nowhere that you don't want to see him anymore. We can make it wo
Beatrice snorted, but went to sit in one of the chairs, watching Cristiano like an eagle watching the chicks in her nest."What do you need to know? "He asked."How did the police arrive so fast? "I asked Beatrice, disappointing Cristiano's expectations. "How did they know what was happening in the supermarket, if the employees were surrendered before they had time to call them?”"The police had been following Flynn since the first crime," she replied, undoing the angry expression. "They considered him a suspect, yes, but the point was that they believed that the bandits would not leave Flynn alive to tell the story of what had happened. And, being a billionaire man in the middle of Brazil, they took on the role of following his every step to know if they would not meet the bandits at some point. And the moment came when Flynn came to pick you up that night. They were waiting across the street, in plainclothes, when they noticed that masked men entered the establishment. All we really