Chapter Fifty-One
CAMILA
My grandmother had been staying late at the bookstore, excited about planning the renovations. That day, I was very grateful for that, because I would hate for her to see me come home in that state and ask me what happened.
How could I explain what I alone was unable to understand?
I went straight to my room, followed by Waffle. I changed his water, cleaned his litter box, and put food in his bowl, but he didn't care about any of these things and just came to the bed where I lay down, lying down next to me. It was like he somehow understood that I wasn't okay.
“Humans are so confusing, Waffle...” I blurted, stroking the hair on the back of his neck. “I believe, or want to believe, that he said that horrible thing just to push me away, but... it hurt so much.”
The cell phone in my bag, which I had thrown on the floor next to the bed, rang. I didn't have the energy to answer it.
“If it's him... I'm so angry, I don't want to say anything right now, or I risk saying something stupid. Do you see, Waffle, how confusing humans are?”
After a few minutes, my cell phone rang again and, even though I didn't want to talk to Michael at that moment, all that insistence made me aware of the possibility that something serious had happened.
It could be something with my grandmother.
Or something related to Alice.
I took the device out of my bag and saw that the contact displayed on the screen was not Michael's, nor my grandmother's, but rather Dr. Janet Rodriguez's.
Even though I had her number saved, she had never called me.
Intrigued, I answered.
“Good evening, Mrs. Rodriguez,” I greeted.
“Camila! Please tell me that my airhead client is near you.”
I rolled my eyes. And I thought it was him calling me when, in fact, he was ignoring phone calls too, definitely avoiding talking to me if I called him.
“No, he's not.”
“What the hell! I'm trying to call him, but the jerk isn't answering his phone. Since you answered my call, I can tell you what happened.”
“Yes, you can. Is there a problem?”
“Does the name Julian Green mean anything to you?”
The surname didn't mean anything to me, but I soon remembered where I had last heard that name.
“The guy from the hotel?”
“The man himself. I found out the hottie's new address. And you won't believe where he's living. Does the city of Denver ring a bell too?”
It did. Too much.
Denver, the capital of Colorado... It was about two hundred miles from Aspen.
I immediately remembered the license plate of the car that kidnapped Alice. It was from the state of Colorado.
“My God... We were very close to him, in Aspen, and... Janet, do you think he had anything to do with Alice's kidnapping?”
“Do I think so, my love? I'm sure. It's not easy to find good accomplices to do your dirty work. The Harrises found one, they wouldn't waste him on just one mission, would they?”
“Do you have his address?”
“I have an address and a lot of suspicions, but no proof.
I honestly don't know exactly what to do with this.
If I had gotten this two or three days ago, I could go to Denver and try to talk to this man, get something out of him, I don't know.
But we're less than forty hours away from the hearing.
I don't have the means to go back and forth and prepare everything I have pending, and I honestly didn't want to have to leave this in the hands of another lawyer on our team. So I thought I'd talk to Michael to...”
“No,” I interrupted her. “Please don’t say anything to Michael. Don’t even mention this to him, or he’ll want to go over there and talk to Julian. There’s a good chance he’ll lose his temper and do something stupid. Not to mention that any unforeseen event could make him late or miss the hearing.”
“But... if he can't do that, then...”
“Then you can leave it to me.”
I went to my closet and opened it, looking around until I found my old backpack from college. It didn't fit much, but it was a short trip, so it would be more than enough.
“I’m going to Denver in the morning,” I concluded.