Cármen pulls into her driveway and parks her car. When she closes the garage, she spots the back door to her home wide open. She’s sure she closed and locked it before they left for the restaurant yesterday. She walks up to the front door and pushes the door handle down. It’s locked. This is a confirmation to herself she locked all doors before she left. She grabs the keys from her purse and unlocks the front door. She pushes the front door wide open but remains standing outside. She takes a look inside and sees all the kitchen cabinets wide open. She takes a step inside her home and looks around the living room. The pillows on the couch are thrown on the floor, they knocked down all her plants and the TV is smashed to the floor. She quickly walks back outside and pulls her phone out of her purse and calls Angéla. The line keeps ringing and she gets directed to her voicemail. She ends the call and immediately tries Monica. She picks up in a heartbeat. “Cármen, what’s up?”, she asks her. “Did you or Angéla enter my house while I was at the hospital by any chance?”, she asks. “No, why would we? What happened? Is something wrong?”, Monica asks Cármen. “I think someone broke into my house, all the cabinets in the kitchen are opened, it’s a mess, they even knocked around my plants“, she replies with fear in her voice. “Cármen, you should call the police, if someone really broke in into your home, you need to report it”, Monica replies instantly. “Yeah you’re right. I’ll call you back when they get here. Please tell Angéla what happened, okay?”, she asks Monica.

Thirty minutes later, the police arrived at her house. Two officers, one male and one female, inspect her house. While she waits outside her home, Carmén tries to spot everything they do and write down from the open front door. A couple minutes later, the officers walk out the door and look at Carmén with an emotionless face. “Miss Aguilar, we have checked the full property. There’s no sign of forced entry, are you sure you locked all doors and windows before leaving the property?”, the male officer asks her. “Yes, 100% positive. I always lock all the doors”, Cármen quickly replies. The female officer writes something down in her notepad and walks back to the police vehicle. “Ok, so all doors. And what about the windows?”, the male officer asks while nodding his head to the female officer. “Yes, sure, all the windows were locked, as well. What are you saying? You know who did this?”, Cármen answers with fear in her eyes. “No, miss Aguilar. I’m sorry to say this, but we will rule this as a possible inside job. Again, there’s no sign of forced entry, no sign that someone was out to rob you. If you see or hear anything else, let us know and we will investigate any further”, the officer replies. He hands out a business card of the local police station and walks back to the vehicle where his colleague is waiting for him. Cármen can’t believe her ears, did he really just say she did this to herself? She turns around and watches the two officers drive away. She quickly pulls out the phone from her purse and calls Monica. There’s no answer, so she decides to text her the update from the officers while walking inside her house. There’s a very uncomfortable feeling inside, like the intruder is still inside, hiding somewhere, waiting for her to find them. She quickly turns around and walks back outside. She closes the front door and walks back to the garage. She opens the garage door and unlocks the doors of her car. She silently sits inside her car, thinking what she should do now.

From the passenger seat, where she dropped her purse, she can hear her cell phone buzzing. She quickly reaches out to her purse and grabs her phone out of the purse. “Monica, thank god, thank you for calling back. Did you read my text?”, she shouts at her phone while putting it on speaker. “Yes, this is terrible. You have any idea who could have done this to you?”, Monica asks her. “No clue, but I don’t feel safe here. I just went inside, but there’s this very uncomfortable feeling like they’re still inside. Is there any way I can stay at yours, just for tonight? Tomorrow morning I’ll return and clean up the mess they left here”, Cármen is out of breath and her body is filled with adrenaline. She doesn’t realize how much she’s shouting at Monica on the other side of the line. “Of course, Carmelita, don’t worry, we are here for you, always are. Come on over, but please, drive carefully”, Monica replies with a calm and soothing voice before she ends the call. Cármen quickly starts the car and drives towards the house of Angéla and Monica, which is just a 10-minute drive away from her home. When she arrives, Monica welcomed her with open arms. They sit down on the couch and talk some about their days, but especially what Cármen experienced. Not long after, Cármen leaves her to go to bed, she’s very tired and ready for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, when Cármen woke up from her sleep, she checks her phone. She’s worried she has missed calls from the hospital. She worries about Gabbie and hopes she’s alright. Her phone lights up brightly when she touches the screen, it hurts her eyes. She quickly reduces its brightness and scrolls through the notifications she received between last night and now, but no missed calls from the hospital appear on her screen. She decides to get out of bed, to get dressed and then she’ll give them a call herself. She walks down the stairs, it’s quiet in the living room, the empty wine glasses from yesterday are still on the table. Angéla and Monica must still be asleep, it’s only 7AM after all. She walks down to the backdoor and unlocks it. She opens it and embraces the cold air hitting her body. She pulls out her phone from the pockets in her sweatpants and dials the phone number from the hospital. She gets connected to the nurses reception on the seventh floor, the floor where Gabbie’s room is. The nurse tells her there aren’t any updates as Gabbie is still asleep. Cármen takes this news with a sad frown and heads back inside. She places her phone on the kitchen counter and walks up to the living room. She takes the empty glasses and places them in the dishwasher. She takes a seat on the couch and a big sigh releases her mouth. She places her head on the backrest and closes her eyes for a brief moment.

“Cármen, good morning”. Cármen slowly lifts up her head, she’d fallen asleep. “Good morning, Angéla. Sorry, I fell asleep, I guess”, she replies. “No worries, it means you need it. Would you like some breakfast?”, Angéla replied. “Nice, yes, thank you. After breakfast, I’ll head back home to clean up the mess”, Cármen stands up from the couch and walks up to Angéla to give her a hug. While hugging her, she notices her phone buzzing on the counter. She walks up to her phone, a call from an anonymous caller. “Hello?”, she answers. “Where is she?”, a male voice on the other side of the line asks her. “Where is who and who are you?”, Cármen replies while looking at Angéla with a worried face. Angéla stops what she’s doing and mouths ‘Who is it’ at her. “We need the girl you’ve been hiding. Where is she? Tell us and we will leave you alone. And sorry about the mess, but it was needed”, the man on the phone replies. “Who are you?”, Cármen insist they answer her, even though she knows they won’t answer her. Suddenly, the call drops. She puts down her phone and gives a blank stare at Angéla, who doesn’t understand what happened. “Cármen, you’re scaring me. Who was it?”, Angéla asks worried. “I… Don’t know, Angéla… They wanted to know where Gabbie was, they were the ones who broke into my home. Did not give a name and suddenly ended the call…”, Cármen answers. In the meantime, Monica entered the room and sensed that there was something going on. “Good morning, what’s going on?”, she asks the ladies. “Cármen just got a call about Gabbie, someone is looking for her. They were the ones who broke in into her home”, Angéla replies. Monica looks at Cármen who takes a seat at one of the bar stools in the kitchen, she is getting light headed and needs to sit down before her body has a private meeting with their beautiful marbled flooring.

“Carmelita, who was it? Can we call them back?”, Monica asks Cármen. “It was an unknown number, I have no idea who it was. It was a man, that’s all I know”, Cármen replied. “Angéla, I meant to ask you something, back in the restaurant. Remember I went to get you, since Gabbie wanted to ask you something”, she asks Angéla. Angéla moves closer to Cármen and rests her forearms on the kitchen counter. “Yes, what is it she wanted to ask me?”, she asks her. “Well… While at the restaurant, you received a call from your brother – Miguel. Apparently, Gabbie was kidnapped by a hispanic looking gentleman, named Miguel. She was scared about the call you received and is convinced your brother is one of the kidnappers. Do you think there might be a truth about that? I mean, I don’t know your brother, it seems like a story too big to be true…” Cármen replies with a shaky voice, she knows how ridiculous this must sound, but she has to ask her, for Gabbie’s sake. “What? My Miguel? My brother? The 25-year old boy who just replaced his stupid race car bed for a twin bed?”, Angéla replies while laughing. “I don’t believe this, are you serious?!”, she replies and gets annoyed. Cármen looks up at Monica, who looks at her with a worried face. She looks back at Angéla. “I know how ridiculous this must sound, but I’m just asking. Gabbie was so worried, she wanted to run away from the restaurant. I don’t know her past exactly, but she was kidnapped and held in a cabin in the forest, and apparently one of the men’s names was Miguel”, Cármen quickly adds before any of the two ladies could say something else. It remains quiet for minutes. “No, this can’t be true. Miguel is in Puerto Rico, for all I know. He sent me a text a week or two ago telling me he was visiting our relatives. Can you imagine my brother kidnapping people?”, Angéla replies and looks at Monica. Monica doesn’t reply, she smiles uncomfortably. “Have you heard from him, like this week, or after the missed call?”, Cármen asks her. “Listen, no-one is going to accuse my brother. You know what, I’m going to give him a call and ask him if he’s still in Puerto”, Angéla replies with a sigh and pulls her phone from her back pocket. She places her phone to her ear for five seconds. “His… This number is… Not in use?”, Angéla looks worried. She starts wondering if it’s true after all.