The photograph was the same.
Mariana.
The woman with the credential.
The wife.
I read the text almost without blinking.
She had left a clinic at nightfall.
He never returned home.
Her family suspected her romantic partner, but there was not enough evidence.
The police continued their investigation.
I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet.
Alejandro wasn’t cheating on me with a living woman who was waiting for him to leave his wife.
No.
Alejandro had hidden from me, literally under my body, the dirty remains of a story that smelled of crime.
And then I understood where that sour smell was coming from.
It wasn’t just humidity.
It wasn’t dirt.
It was clothing that had been stored wet for weeks.
Clothes with old blood on them.
Clothes with fear.
Clothing of a missing woman.
I got up as best I could.
I had to get out of that room.
I had to call the police.
I picked up the phone from the small table, but just then the screen lit up.
**Alejandro calling.**
I froze.
The phone vibrated in my hand like a trapped animal.
I didn’t answer.
The call was cut off.
A second later a message came in.
**“The meeting was canceled. I’m going back. I’ll be back in two hours.”**
Two hours.
I looked at the open mattress.
The packages.
The photos.
The letter.
Everything was scattered on the floor as if the truth had exploded inside my house.
I panicked.
I dialed 911 with clumsy fingers.
When an operator finally answered, my words got all jumbled up.
I gave him my name.
The address.
I said I had found evidence related to a missing woman.
I said the name Alejandro.
I said Monterrey.
I said blood.
The woman on the other end of the line asked me not to touch anything else.
That she leave the room.
That a patrol car was on its way.
“Don’t stay alone with him if he arrives early,” she repeated. “Do you understand? Don’t go near your husband.”
Yeah.
I understood.
Too late.
I put my phone away and wanted to run into the street, but I stopped dead in my tracks.
My purse was on the dresser.
And inside the bag, the car keys.
I took them.
That’s when I heard something that emptied my soul.
The sound of an engine entering the street.
I approached the window, barely parting the curtain.
Alejandro’s truck turned and stopped in front of the house.
Not two hours later.
Now.
Now.
I didn’t even have time to breathe.
