The Story Continues After Part 2

“His name was Gerald. He ran an auto repair shop and had just gotten married. They brought him in before dawn, just like you. The widow demanded he be cremated right away. She came with a man who said he was her brother.”

“Octavio…”

PART 3

Walter nodded, but his expression told me the name was only the beginning.

“Back then he introduced himself as Oscar,” Walter said.

“Different name. Same scar beside his ear.

I remembered because he kept touching it when he was nervous.”

I gripped the edge of a metal cabinet.

The room swayed.

Walter caught my elbow and steered me toward a chair.

“Before we do anything else, you need medical attention,” he said.

“I don’t know what was in that glass.

I don’t even know how you ended up down here instead of in an emergency room.”

I remembered fragments: a hotel bathroom, the distant sound of an ambulance, somebody saying my pulse was too weak.

Then nothing.

“Call the police,” I said.

“I already made a call to a friend on the hospital security team.

He told me to keep you hidden until a physician sees you and an officer takes your statement.”

“Why keep me hidden?”