The first thing she had done that morning when Jaime went jogging was to snoop around in his drawers and closets with the intention of finding some evidence, such as a photo or a letter, to prove that he was dating a girl. She even went unsuccessfully into his private files stored on the computer. The man looked like a loner. Like me. Then, when he returned, she had intentionally provoked him by confessing what she had been doing, and even asked about his sentimental life. Instead of an indignant scolding on his part, the question seemed to surprise him positively. He mumbled something ironic and went into the shower while shouting, "No woman can stand me, Aly!"
So she was irritated with him. Damn it, Jaime had treated her in two days better than anyone else in her life.
She continued lying there as she listened to Jaime brushing his teeth and as he left the bathroom. To aggravate her anger, he had just locked himself in his bedroom without even saying good night. The last thing she heard was the hollow punch made by the mattress when Jaime fell on top of it, two feet away from her on the other side of the wall. She rose uneasily, went to the window, and stared into the darkness where the offices were once lit. She stayed in that state a few minutes before making a decision.
Jaime Vergara was reading a novel by Stephen King when he heard a creak in the doorway. Glancing up from pure reflection, he saw Alyssa standing under the doorframe. She was completely naked.
"What-what are you doing?" He asked, uneasy as if a rotten zombie had just entered his room.
He rummaged under the covers and covered himself to his neck, as if he were nude.
She shrugged her shoulders. Then she went to him, took the book from his hands and kissed him on the lips. Jaime swallowed hard as he pulled her away to look into her eyes, thirsty and submissive. He had an erection. As he did not complain, Alyssa climbed onto the bed and straddled him. She kissed him again and stroked his erection. Jaime was puzzled. He pulled her away from his body.
“Aly... this is not right. You’re a child.”
“A girl?” She said, suddenly looking offended. “Well your crotch doesn’t think the same. I want to sleep with you and it’s obvious that you want to sleep with me. What’s the problem?”
"Well, we barely know each other, Aly. I don’t know anything about your life and...” The words stuck in his mouth. “And you just got naked in my bed, for God's sake.”
"Well, don’t be a fool, and take advantage of the fact that you have me naked in your bed, all for you," she countered, this time deciding to tackle the ear area with her tongue.
Jaime pushed her arm away again, so hard this time that he pushed her out of bed onto the bedroom floor.
"I'm not one of those who fuck anyone at first," Jaime snapped, suddenly irritated, and was immediately struck by a terrible sense of guilt.
“Anyone?” Alyssa repeated from the position of a simple companion dog. She was on the floor, naked, humiliated “Very well.” She sat up and went to the door, very dignified. “Good night.”
Jaime received the "good night" as a poisoned dart directly to his heart.
In the next few seconds, which turned into a frankly embarrassing moment, Jaime watched as Alyssa disappeared from his sight leaving behind a painful slam. When at last he was alone in the dark, it took him more than two hours to sleep.
Neither of them had noticed an apparently insignificant detail that night, Alyssa had forgotten to turn off Jaime's computer, leaving open the software she had used. One of them was the chat application, whose webcam pointed to the center of the room, right where Jaime's bed was. By the time Alyssa got naked between her sheets, there was a user logged in to chat. Almost 500 kilometers away to the north, in his room, wallpapered with posters of football players, a ten-year-old boy who adopted the pseudonym Jasper who had just witnessed everything.
When Jaime left his room with the first lights of the next morning, Alyssa still slept peacefully in the living room. He had an orange juice, trying to make as little noise as possible, showered in a hurry and went out the door with the intention of going to buy stamps and invest in a tenth lottery. To tell the truth, it was only a cheap excuse to avoid the irremediable moment of meeting up with Alyssa again (Jaime had not sent a letter in the mail for years, and rarely bet). And it was irremediable because, whether he liked it or not, she lived in his house and he couldn’t get out of it, so that if he didn’t want to flee like a coward, he didn’t consider it as an option, he had no choice but to face her. To face her. An expression too hostile for the warmth he had taken to her.
All night long he had tried to forget the image of her without clothes and the way she looked at him with her particular docile gesture from the threshold of his room. On several occasions he drew in his mind the silhouette of the fragile body under the white tank top, walking impassively with the swagger so sexy that it caused the image of her walking in her black boots with heels, darker than an abyss itself. It was an image that caused desire. He had come to the conclusion that what really terrified him was that his carnal instinct would take control of his decisions the moment he faced her again. That he simply had no idea how he would react when they were back in the same room.
After almost two hours walking the streets of the neighborhood in which he tried to classify without success what his brain and heart told him, he decided to face the harsh reality: he had to go home and talk to Alyssa. Apologize.
He experienced a strange euphoria that grew as he approached his building. He went to the portal and went up the stairs two at a time.
"Aly!” He shouted from the hallway, realizing that Alyssa had already risen. The sofa bed in the living room had returned to its original shape and the curtains billowed with the autumnal breeze coming through the hollow of the window, Jaime went to the kitchen and then to the bedroom. The calm was absolute.
"Alyssa?" He insisted, now with a thread of concern in his voice.
"Where the hell are you?" He muttered as he looked around the house. It was as if the earth had swallowed Alyssa.
On the table in the living room he found a notebook paper that, in a blue pen and irregular calligraphy, read as follows:
Dear Jaime. I'm sorry to disappear as if by magic and without warning. I have to do something with urgency and it would be dangerous for you to accompany me.
I cannot thank you for everything you've done for me these days. However, you deserve to know all my truth. Now I do not have time, and besides I do not want you to find out through a letter, but if you are still interested in me and in my history, it is in your hands to know it. Travel to the town of Ámber, in Cantabria, and ask for Óliver Morales. He lives in a beautiful house surrounded by a white fence next to the beach. He will give you answers.
Take care of yourself; I hope to see you again.
Love,
Aly
PS: I hate sea bass...
In Jaime’s mind came three very definite thoughts and in a very specific order. The first thing he regretted immediately after reading the note was Alyssa's disappearance from his life. She had vanished as if by magic, as she herself had said. Suddenly, now completely open he felt alone in his own home, and experienced an uneasy sensation in his heart area.
The second feeling replaced that pain with anger and impotence. He realized that Alyssa had broken her part of the bargain. Not only had she disappeared without a trace, but also she hadn’t moved a finger to help him in the Shapiro case, as she had promised. He felt like a complete fool.
For the third thought he needed to take a few seconds of reflection, because what had just happened inside his head required it. Subconsciously he had regretted, and with more force, the loss of Alyssa than her betrayal. And that was troubling. He knew that the Shapiro case, his loss of employment, and his more than possible condemnation had been relegated to the background, for, incredible, as it may seem, the feeling of loneliness after her departure had invaded him more than he had come to think.
Not knowing very well what was going to be his n
ext step, he sat down on the couch. He missed her. He wanted to see her again, and he wanted to go back in time to have her back in his sheets.
Had she left him, hurt and embarrassed by what had happened the other night? It was most likely. He regretted referring to her as anyone, and using the force to throw her out of bed had been the last straw to break the camel’s back. Deeper repentance came over him, and then guilt. He had expelled her that was the only reality.
He shook his head to get rid of ideas that could only harm him, and read the note a second time.
Ámber.
Where had he heard that name before? Was it not Sara's town? A relentless spark burned in his brain. Sara! At that moment he remembered the psychiatrist's call the other afternoon informing him of the call on Skype. He had taken it for granted, and then... then came Alyssa and...
"Damn!" He shouted again and again in the air, as if he were the coach of a team that had just got the decisive goal in a final. "Shit, shit, shit!"
When he calmed down and tried to think, he realized that he had no way of getting in contact with Sara, except to travel to Oxford and look for her there. Impossible! On the other hand, he could travel to that northern town, find Óliver Morales, and discover the great secret of Alyssa, which was what his soul really wanted. If he left now, he could be there before sunset.
It took less than fifteen minutes to prepare a backpack with some essential hygiene and food items. He went down to the garage, where he started the Porsche, and he took the northern highway, ignoring the speed limits set by the law.
Chapter 15
"I'm going to ask you a question, Morgan, and I want you to be painfully honest.”
“Okay, I’ll try it.”
"Do you think I'm grumpy?"
"Painfully grumpy.”
"Very fast answer, it didn’t take half a second to answer! The truth is that I should have my foot in my mouth from how grumpy I've been.”
"What's the question?"
"My ex-wife always said that, she also felt that I didn’t want her enough, that I was always in a bad mood. But what happened was that sometimes I pretended that I didn’t want her just to find out what it feels like when I realized in the middle of the night that I didn’t really want to live without her. I invented motives to be a grouch because I came to find the point of pleasure in the pain.”
"Doctor, sorry to bother you, but look over there."
“What do you want me to look at?”
Sunday 12 and Monday 13 November 2006
Alyssa had never wanted so much to be swallowed by the earth. As soon as she saw in Jaime's eyes how terrible the idea of assaulting his bed had been, everything had precipitated a series of actions on the part of both of them that had resulted in an emotionally complicated scenario. During the seconds after the shameful spectacle and the slamming of the door, Alyssa stood petrified and silent by the bedroom door, perhaps in the hope that time would freeze and disappear. She replayed in her mind the words spoken and the gestures made since she entered the room until he threw her out of bed like a disobedient dog. Had she sent it all to shit? That was the second time in a few days that her eyes were wet.
"Damn it," she repeated in a very low voice, filled with restrained anger, "he thinks I'm a whore!"
She realized that she was still naked, so she put on her panties and her tank top while continuing to curse her stupidity.
Then she sank between the sheets of the sofa bed and felt an intense pain, the kind that sits deep in her chest, it invaded her. Throughout her existence, Alyssa had been raped, abused, humiliated, persecuted, and threatened, but this was the first time that lost love had taken ahold of her. Laying naked on Jaime, skin on skin and facing his eyes, had been the most beautiful and exciting moment of her life. A moment that had ended with a defeat at the foot of the bed. She ended up sleeping with a dry tear print on her cheek, not knowing that this was going to be her last night in that house.
She opened her eyes, as if in slow motion, almost nine hours later. After the initial comforting sensation of waking up to so late in the morning and naturally, her stomach contracted when Jaime returned to her thoughts; the subconscious had only conceded a few seconds. The apartment was calm, but with a somewhat stale atmosphere, and the autumn sunlight came into the room composing an idyllic awakening.
She was afraid to meet Jaime in some corner of the house, she would have to give him a simple good morning (what would he look like?), so she sharpened her hearing. Except for the roar of the engines of the vehicles abroad, she didn’t hear the slightest sound. She got up, folded and put away the sheets, and went into the kitchen, where no one was either. She shrugged and poured herself an orange juice, which she drank in one gulp. Then she went to the bedroom door (it was open), and confirmed that she was alone. The room was perfectly clean and tidy, but there was no sign of life.
Just as she was about to turn to go to the bathroom, she detected a singularity out of the corner of her eye. The blue light of a led glowed on the edge of Jaime's laptop, which lay open on the desk as she remembered leaving it the other night. A bad feeling ran through her spinal cord. When she approached the device, she checked some things, and all were bad: the computer was on, the chat application was open and the webcam was activated. It was still filming, actually, in a corner of the monitor, a conversation that had not been closed.
User: Jasper.
Time of disconnection: 01:23
She suddenly paled. She had forgotten to close the chat the other night, with the corresponding conversation, and just before...
Shit!
The shame she experienced having been rejected in full-blown seduction and in the nude, had just been doubled. Not only had she been a capricious slut in front of the man she was beginning to love, but Oli, the only friend on the planet, had witnessed it all.
She dropped onto the comforter and put her hand to her mouth instinctively.
If Oli really felt for her the affection she imagined, he must be deeply pissed and embarrassed right now. And that was what she least wanted in a moment like that. She paused for a moment thinking about her young friend’s possible state of mind, and came to the conclusion that the most appropriate word was jealousy. He seemed so sweet as he was crazy.
Practical agent Marcos Tena stopped the rental car in double file and continued walking up the street that crossed the avenue, two blocks ahead. He was incognito, and he didn’t want to attract attention, so when he reached the doorway, he waited for someone to enter or leave the building so he could sneak into the lobby. To kill the time while he waited, he extracted a pack of chewing gum from his pocket and put a gum in his mouth. He also used to value his work alone since Barreneche gave him full responsibility.
He felt good about himself. Not satisfied, but basically ok. It wasn’t that he was not keeping his boss's orders to the letter. Actually, there lay the problem: they were not orders whose fulfillment would cause anyone the slightest satisfaction. But in the end it was his job and, in fact, he was running like an experienced professional. He had spent the last two days working on his own. His job was to follow a trail, the trail of a missing and hidden young lady somewhere in Madrid. What used to be commonly called a needle in a haystack.
The first thing he had done was to return to Maximilian's bar the Sensations, where he was very badly received. Not only did Max not provide any extra detail about the fugitive, he was quick to knock him out of the bar between biting threats. Tena sulking, as he thought when he left the bar, that he should have poured alcohol on him (an intimidating abuse of his badge, in short), because it was the only way to get a friendly response.
He did not really hope to get more information out of that source, so he wasted no more time and went straight to the next step, the airport. At noon on Sunday the 12th she was taking a plane bound for Madrid. He knew the date and time she had landed in Oxford, in addition to the flight and the airline. He assumed, on the other hand, that someone pursued by the poli
ce would not dare to take collective public transport. That limited everything to the choice of taxis. He spent more than two hours asking the many taxi drivers who were parked at the airport if they recognized the girl in the picture. He was about to give up when a curt man that drove a Toyota and enjoyed a good photographic memory recalled the destiny of his "most peculiar customer of the day," he said. That information led Tena to his next point: the Orense Street number 53. He rented a car at the airport and drove to that point of the city. He arrived at dusk.
But he didn’t have the slightest idea of where she was hiding, assuming she was still there. He could have tried his luck by calling each one by one of all the apartment doors in the building, but that would have drawn too much attention, giving her a chance to escape. He didn’t want to lose the surprise factor. He decided to pay for a room at a nearby hotel and continue the next day. He would think of something.
That night, while he was brushing his teeth before going to bed, Julian Barreneche called his cell phone.
"Tell me you got the whore."
“Not yet. But I'm very close.”
"What does it mean that you are very close? Hell, we're not talking about Osama bin Laden's fuckin’ shit.”
"It means I'm very, very close. I'll call you tomorrow with good news.”
“Tena, don’t pull my leg...” (click)
Marcos had decided to cut the conversation by hanging up the phone. Then he turned it off. He finished brushing his teeth and went to bed with remains of adrenaline still running through his body.
The next morning he returned to door number 53, and as he had not thought of anything intelligent, he stared at the door like a disciple waiting for a miracle. Then, when he was about to give up his surprise factor in favor of asking on each floor, a young man entered the building holding two bags from the supermarket and a newspaper. Something told Tena that he should follow that guy, so he held the door at the moment in which it was about to close and slipped inwards with secrecy. He followed the man a prudent step away and tiptoed as he climbed the stairs. During the ascent he noticed that one of the bags contained two pieces of sea bass. Not one, but two. When he arrived at the destination, he kept in memory the floor and the number where the bags had been put (2C), and returned to the lobby. He approached the mailbox area and checked his identity. Dr. Jaime Vergara. There were no more names on the boxes than his. With increasing excitement, he ran to the second floor and laid his ear to Door C. He sensed an unintelligible conversation between a man (the one Jaime Vergara) and a woman (she?). Marcos knew that this did not have to mean anything, because it could very well be a single man going out to buy fish to eat with his date, or maybe the female voice corresponded to his girlfriend, who did not live with him and therefore did not have a name on the mailbox. Or it could even be his sister, or a simple friend with whom he had left that morning. But, in any case, the options that it was her were now greater than a few minutes ago. He reflected on his next action. He understood that he had nothing to do there for the time being. He returned to the hotel and made a calm plan of attack. He did not turn on the phone all day.
The Butterfly Effect Page 20