“I’m fine, Professor. Granted, I have no idea why I look so sick, but I assure you that I’m not suffering from some disease, and I am certainly not on drugs. My God, I don’t even like it when my sister brings vodka home.”
Prof. Loreno sat down. She opened her desk drawer and fetched her fan, hoping to repel some of the pressing heat. “I can’t believe it’s this hot at night, can you?” she sighed, fanning herself and showing instant relief at the brief waves of moving air she generated.
“That’s what I thought was causing me to feel under the weather,” he answered.
“So, how is your sister doing?” she asked suddenly, leaving him vulnerable at her unexpected change of subject. “Has she been faring better with the therapy?”
Javier was dumbstruck. Left speechless for a long awkward minute, he tried to make sense of the conversation. Since Madalina had fled, Javier had forgotten that not all the world knew about the incident. He was so deeply immersed in the nightmare, he had forgotten that the outside world was carrying on, regardless. Forgotten. Forgotten were so many things about normal life that he hardy realized that only he, and a handful of others, knew about his emotional toils.
“Have you not seen the newspapers?” he asked.
“I have. Why?” she frowned. “I mean, I don’t buy them, really. I sometimes just leaf through them while I wait for the bus or when I take a break in the university staff room. Why? What did I miss?”
Astonished, he sat glaring at his teacher with his mouth open. He could see that the professor was feeling utterly self-conscious about her error, perhaps even a little taken aback by his response. “What am I not aware of here?” she asked again. “Tell me.”
“My sister was involved in a bad situation that occurred at a local motel, Professor,” he divulged with a heaviness that filtered through his tone. “It was in all the local newspapers.”
Frowning, she looked to the floor, trying to recall the extensive headlines and bylines she had scanned in the past few days. Javier was actually somewhat relieved that his teacher did not know about the ghastly act that had caused him such misery. “Oh God, I hope she is alright?” she finally said, wide-eyed. “I can’t remember reading anything of the sort off hand, but then again, this heat makes it difficult for me to even perform basic mental tasks. Please tell me nothing bad happened to her.”
He hesitated. There was enough bad speculation surrounding Madalina and the circumstances under which she’d abducted a child and killed his mother. Here he had a chance to relay the terrible ordeal with more tact to a clean slate like Prof. Loreno. “My sister is missing.”
That seemed to be the best way to put it — concisely. He left her to make her own assumptions based on this little bit of information, waiting for her to ask questions. But, to Javier’s relief, his tutor trusted his words and asked very little else. It was good to know that some people did not feast on the misfortune of others simply for the sake of judging them. Prof. Loreno gave him a look of mild sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Javier. Do you think she ran away? I hope to God nobody took her. What do you think happened?”
Javier knew that his sister had fled of her own accord to evade capture, but he could not disclose this freely. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “All I know is that I hope she makes contact with me before I have to hear that she’s come to harm.”
“Oh, my dear, I hope so too. I’m sure she will be okay,” she said trying to console him, yet her eyes looked doubtful and her voice wavered. “If she makes contact with you, I’m sure you will start to heal quickly. I’m certain that it is her absence that is causing your physical malaise. Once you know where she is, I just know we’ll be able to see the betterment in your condition.” She smiled warmly.
Javier nodded in agreement, smiling to accommodate her efforts to cheer him up, but inside he felt grim. The silence was cumbersome, so Javier made an effort to end the meeting. He stood up and shouldered his bag. “Are we done here, Professor? I have to get home. I have work tomorrow.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, jumping slightly in her realization of the time. “I have to be getting on too, before my husband gets unclean ideas of my tardiness.” The fifty-something lecturer chuckled sheepishly and switched on her main light to sign off on her work after Javier left her company.
Outside the streets were teeming with parties of people out for a drink or dinner. Their congregations everywhere reminded Javier even more of how lonely he really was since his home was now void of Madalina’s presence. He had many friends and acquaintances, but a lot of them had abandoned social interaction with Javier since the incident. Long lines of cars were parked along the narrow roads, crowding up the already cramped streets.
“Javier!” he heard a few meters behind him. “Javier, wait!”
He turned to find one of his closest friends, Aldo, with two unknown men accompanying him. A bolt of panic shot through Javier’s body. Who were they? Cops? Why were they with Aldo? The three of them approached Javier from across the street, dressed in jeans and hoodies. He prepared to run if he had to. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Aldo, but he could very well have been held up to bluff Javier into their trap.
“Hey!” he exclaimed moderately, not sounding too enthusiastic, but at the same time leaving enough for a dual response. “I’ve not seen you since last week.” He tried to sound casual. The other two men babbled among themselves as Aldo skipped onto the pavement and dragged Javier aside against the wall of a closed store.
“Who are these guys?” Javier asked under his breath.
Aldo frowned, looking a bit lost at first. Then he realized Javier was enquiring about his friends. “Oh, these guys? Just two of my friends from football practice. Listen, I have a message for you and I have to make it quick.”
“A message from whom?” Javier whispered.
His friend looked around briskly, surveying the crowds frequenting their immediate vicinity. In a hushed tone he said, “Listen, I don’t want to get involved in this shit with Madi, okay? I want you to know that this is a once-off favor I’m doing and then I am out, get it?”
Confused, Javier frowned, “Out of what?”
“Out of this whole jam with you and your sister and the cops. Just fucking listen. Madi called me from a landline in Sax, in Alicante. She can’t e-mail you and she chucked her phone, so you have no way of contacting each other. Obviously they are watching your texts and e-mails, right?”
“Right, but what…?” Javier tried, but his friend shoved him against the wall and gestured for him to shut up.
“Sax, Alicante. Got it? Here,” Aldo whispered urgently, and shoved a small piece of paper in his hand, “are the coordinates she gave me. No address, just this. No involving me. Got it?”
“Sí, sí,” Javier promised, feeling his heart flutter happily. Before he could thank him, Aldo and his pals had dashed off into the crowd opposite the street and disappeared.
17
Alicante Calling
Javier hastened home to pack his bag for the trip to Alicante. His chest burned and his heart thundered, mostly because he had confirmation that his sister was alive and well. Although he was perfectly aware that it could have been a trap set for him, he could not think of a rational explanation for a set-up. No one was after him. They were looking for Madalina, so if Aldo were setting him up they would be sending Javier to Alicante for absolutely no reason. This, among a thousand other notions and scenarios, darted through his mind as he crammed a few articles of clothing into a canvas bag.