Esteban moved around Ludmilla’s house as if it were his own. While talking on the phone, he opened a kitchen cupboard—hitting the right one on the first try, the one where Ludmilla kept the glasses. He grabbed one and filled it with tap water.
“I need to get into María José’s house,” he said flatly. “Where’s the key?”
Ludmilla’s eyes widened.
“I don’t have a key to her house.”
“Oh, come on! You live next door to each other, you’re two retired women, and you’re friends. Don’t tell me you never exchanged keys!”
The German woman blushed. She was attracted to the assertive, mysterious man, but even so, she wasn’t keen on letting him into María José’s home. What if they found something embarrassing, or even compromising?
“We never thought it was necessary to exchange keys.”
Esteban said nothing, just held out his hand. He playfully curled and straightened his fingers, as if urging Ludmilla to hurry up.
“What could be in María José’s house that might help us?”
The man remained silent. He stared deep into Ludmilla’s eyes, then raised his outstretched hand a little higher.
Reluctantly but obediently, Ludmilla set off toward her bedroom. Esteban cleared his throat in satisfaction.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Esteban said. “Even the pros. I’m hoping whoever took them was a little more careless here than they were with Carlos.”
He kicked off his shoes, pulled on a pair of gloves, and with a few swift steps, he was already upstairs.
“Why do you think that?” Ludmilla asked, panting as she hurried up the carpeted stairs after him.
“Because they’re human.”
“I mean, why do you think they’ve even been kidnapped?” she wheezed, gasping for air.
She was no longer used to moving with such intensity, and she usually took the stairs at a slow, steady pace. She felt uncomfortable seeing how much fitter the man was compared to her. Despite her worry for her friend, she couldn’t help but notice that Esteban was the most attractive man she had ever dealt with.
“They went to the restaurant, had dinner, and then disappeared without asking for the check. They left twice the amount they owed on the table. That’s pretty clear. Especially knowing they didn’t rush back here or to Carlos’s house for an impatient session of sex.”
The word rolled off the man’s tongue as though he wasn’t naming an object of desire, but rather a dangerous weapon.
Ludmilla shuddered from head to toe. The fear of the mysterious disappearance mixed inside her with a sudden, intrusive desire—triggered precisely by the way Esteban had pronounced that word: sex.
But she didn’t have much time to dwell on that peculiar feeling.
“What’s this?” Esteban asked suspiciously.
He nodded toward one of the bedroom dresser drawers.
Ludmilla stepped closer and looked inside the white chest with carved handles. A cold chill ran down her spine at what she saw. Someone had clearly rifled through the underwear drawer and emptied the document holder hidden beneath the bras and panties. The small, leather-bound case, about the size of a book, lay open atop the fabrics, with only a lonely driver’s license left inside.
“What else was in that document holder?”
“Passport, insurance card, ID…” Ludmilla whispered in terror.
She never would have thought that exchanging keys and showing each other where they kept their important documents would actually prove useful.
The pleasant excitement she had felt just moments before was instantly replaced by an ice-cold terror that pierced her to the bone.