Cármen looks at Angéla with a judging ‘Told you so’-face, and without speaking actual words to her, Angéla receives her message loud and clear, but refuses to believe it. “Don’t look at me like that, you don’t know if any of this is true. How long have you known Gabbie? Like, what, two days?”, she shouts at Cármen. “And besides, whenever my brother visits relatives, he always buys a cheap SIM card to use the local network”, she quickly adds before Cármen could even open her mouth to reply. “I’m not saying anything, Angéla. I’m just worried as you don’t know where he currently is. I’m willing to believe you, but until we are certain about his whereabouts, it’s all unclear to me, that’s all”, Cármen replies and spins her chair around so she can look at the garden. Everything inside feels tense, but the outside looks peaceful as always. She should drop the conversation and try to call the hospital again, to see how Gabbie is doing. But even before she could spin her chair back around, Angéla slams on the kitchen counter with her fist. “Listen, Cármen, I love you, but you need to get your thoughts straight. I’m going to take a walk to process this all and I will try to call my brother again. I’ll be back soon”, she tells both Cármen and Monica while walking away. She aggressively grabs her jacket from the coat rack, opens the front door and closes it with a slam. “I’m sorry, Monica. I don’t know what to think or believe anymore”, Cármen turns to Monica with tears in her eyes. “I understand, Carmelita. I’ll make you some tea and then we will head over to your home. I will help you clean up the mess, a clean house is key to a clear head”, Monica replies with a gentle smile on her face. She always loved when Monica called her that, it made her feel young again.

Monica placed a hot cup of tea in front of Cármen. “Enjoy”, she tells her with a wink. Cármen holds the cup with both hands, nice and warm, while suddenly her phone vibrates. She receives a text message from a number which is not in her contacts list. She grabs her phone and unlocks it and opens the message. “What?!”, she yells and she accidentally drops her phone on the counter. Monica rushes over in fear, “What’s wrong?”, she asks. Cármen picks up her phone and pushes it into Monica’s hands. She scrolls with her eyes over the screen and gives Cármen a blank stare. “Who is this? Did you just get this? What does this mean?”, she asks her. “I don’t know who this is, the number is not in my contacts. How did they get my number and what do they want?”, Cármen replies. They look each other in the eyes, not sure what to say. “I mean… This message… It must be… It’s a prank, right?”, Monica asks Cármen with total fear in her eyes. “I hope so… Can you try calling Angéla for me?”, Cármen asks her. Monica rushes over to the living room and grabs her phone from the side table. She unlocks it and calls her girlfriend immediately. She holds her phone up to her left ear for a couple of seconds, turns around to Cármen and slowly walks over to her. “No answer… Maybe… Maybe she’s too focussed on her walk?” Monica looks Cármen in the eyes with fear.

Monica tries calling her girlfriend a couple of times more, but without success. In the meantime, Cármen walks around the kitchen nervously. She takes her phone from the countertop and tries calling the number who texted her before, in hope to get answers. But she gets connected to their voicemail immediately. She puts back her phone. “We need to get to my house, they came looking for something, there has to be any clue who it is and why they were at my house”, she tells Monica. Monica nods and walks to the front door and grabs the car keys from the side table. She opens the door and looks back at Cármen who’s too preoccupied with everything that’s been happening. She walks up to her and gives her a big hug. “Everything’s going to be fine. Let me write a post-it for Angéla, when she comes back”, she tells her with a comforting smile. She opens the drawer and grabs a post-it and starts writing. When she finished writing the note, she places it on the fridge. “Let’s go, let’s find out who they are and why they were in your home, Carmelita”, she tells her while walking back to the open front door. Cármen grabs her phone and follows Monica out the front door. They walk up to the car, a beaten up old red Toyota Corolla from the late 90s. Monica wiggles the key in the passenger door and walks up to the other side. They take a seat and Monica starts the engine. Before hitting the gas, she looks at Cármen and gives her a wink while stroking her cheek. “Thank you, Monica. Don’t know what I would’ve done without you”, Cármen tells Monica while staring out the window. “All fine, I’m here for you, you know that. Now, let’s find out the mystery about this person! We will be the investigators of our own case! Two girls on a mission!”, she yells excitedly and hits the gas.

When they drive up to Cármen’s house, they notice a woman standing in front of her front door. It’s Juanita. Cármen always disliked her, she’s the nosy neighbor who’s always complaining about her music being too loud on a summer evening, or even when she’s singing in the shower. Cármen rolls with her eyes and lets a sigh slip out of her mouth. “Okay, here we go. What does she want now?”, she mumbles, annoyed. Monica parks the car on the driveway and they get out of her car and walk up to Juanita. “Good morning, Juanita. How are you doing?”, Cármen asks her. “What have you done to your home? It’s a mess! I need to report this, we live in a decent neighborhood”, Juanita replied. “No need to, the police came by yesterday, someone broke…”, just before she could finish her sentence, she spots red paint on her front door. A big circled X. “Who did this?!”, she yells while pulling out her keys to open the front door. “This is what I mean, you always cause trouble around here. Loud music, people walking in and out of that door, God knows what business you do over there. And now this?”, Juanita replied while placing her hands on her hips. “Juanita, thank you, we will take care of this”, Monica replied to her. She clearly got annoyed with her. She moves herself in between Cármen and Juanita and pushes Cármen closer to the front door, hinting her to head inside. They quickly go inside her home and close the front door. When they walk inside, they realize the mess the unknown person made inside. “Okay, let’s do this! But before we start, look for objects missing, or maybe even objects which are not yours”, Monica tells Cármen.

While Monica scans the kitchen for unusual objects, Cármen walks to her living room. She lifts up the TV which was smashed to the floor. She lifts it up, to place it back on the cabinet when she spots a note. “Monica, there’s something here”, she yells to Monica. Monica rushes over and they stare at a small, white piece of paper. Cármen carefully places the TV on the cabinet and bends over to pick up the note. She turns it around and starts reading it. “This is the beginning? What does this mean?”, she asks worriedly. “I have no idea, but this seems like a threat, I think we should get the police involved, what do you think?”, Monica replies. “Let’s just keep on going for now, maybe this is just something to scare us”, Cármen replies while walking up to the couch. She picks up the pillows which were thrown on the floor and places them back. Besides the smashed TV and knocked over plants, it looks like that’s all that they’ve done here. She walks up to the stairs and starts walking upstairs. She turns to the right, towards the walk-in-closet and her bedroom. She notices the door to her bedroom closed, she always leaves the door open to let in fresh air. She gently pushes the door handle down and slams the door open. It smacks against the wall. She slowly walks into her bedroom. It looks like it’s untouched by whoever was in her home, but then she spots a black rose on her pillow. She walks up to her bed and spots another note, carefully placed under the rose. She picks up the note and quickly walks back downstairs. “Monica, another note”, she yells to Monica. “What does it say? Another threat?”, Monica replies instantly. “We need her, that’s all”, Cármen replies confused while walking up to her to show her the note. “Okay, Carmelita, I’m calling the cops, they need to give your home another sweep, you’re not safe here”, Monica replies while pulling out her phone and she calls the police.

Cármen looks around the kitchen while Monica calls the police when she suddenly feels her phone vibrating in her back pocket. It vibrates twice, shortly after each other. She received a text message. She pulls out her phone and unlocks it. She received another text from the unknown number, but this time it’s a photo. She opens it and gasps. She looks at Monica who catches the shocked look on her face and notices something’s wrong. A short minute later, Monica puts down her phone. “They will be here in 10 minutes. What happened?”, she asks her. “I received another text from the unknown number. It’s a photo… Monica, it’s Angéla, I think they have her”, Cármen replies. She walks over to her with shaking hands and shows her the photo received. “Oh my god, Angéla!”, Monica screams. She grabs Cármen’s phone out of her hands and zooms in on the photo. “What have they done to her?!”, she adds. Monica zooms out on the photo and looks at it again. It shows her girlfriend, tied to a chair in what looks like an empty warehouse. Her nose is bleeding, she has red marks all over her neck and her hair is messier than ever before. Monica lays the phone on the kitchen counter, walks up to the living room and sits down on the couch with hands on her face. “I can’t believe this…”, she shouts and starts to cry.