The click of my study door seemed to echo in the room following Alice's departure. I looked at the book I had collected from her and skimmed through her notes. Her baby perfume, too strong in the air, still assaulted my nose, and her voice replayed in my mind. She was a poison. Or a drug.
I walked over to the bookshelf. Three book spaces were empty from where she had taken some books. She had taken two adventure novels, for Carlitos and one of Serena's bedtime books that I kept here. It seemed like she was one of those kinds of girls who were always in her head. I didn't know what to make of it.
She came in with a list of observations so well articulated that it was brilliant. That alone established the grounds for her being a hired spy. But her clumsiness contradicted that theory.
She disobeyed direct orders not to step foot into my east wing study. She left behind her green handkerchief as she had snuck out while I was just a few feet away. Her breath had hitched when I was close enough, and she was always shaken by merely laying her dark, pretty, and searching eyes on me.
She had said something about Serena mistaking her for a substitute mom. Alice must have been very gentle with her to have Serena warm up so easily. And Carlitos? She had analyzed him so brilliantly well that I would have hired her on the spot to be my spy. She had mentioned how he brooded a little too much for his age. How could she appear to know more about a boy than the man who had sired him, especially after being with the boy for less than two weeks?
I looked at her well-articulated work again and realized I couldn't seem to stop looking at it. A handwriting with imposing words that could draw one in. I chuckled lightly into the empty room and looked at the laptop designated to watch her every move when she was unaware of it.
A small knock sounded at my study door. It was a sound of hesitation but a practiced announcement.
"Come in," I said. It was Lucy.
"Good thing I didn't walk into another entanglement. That would have been the second embarrassment in a day," were the words that came out of her first.
"Oh really? What was the first embarrassment?" I asked and walked to the corner where I had set up the laptop that watched Alice. I dropped off her book on my desk.
"Big gun, you of all people, were in a funny position with Alice. If I had not come in at that precise moment, what would you both have done?" she teased with a smirk.
"Nothing, Lucy. What do you think we would have done?"
"Okay, I'm just going to ask this. What's your deal with her? Do you like her? Do you find her attractive? Do you want to give her babies?"
"That's enough, Lucy," I calmly reprimanded.
"You actually made me watch her so closely, and I reported back to you until you eventually elevated her and installed cameras in her new room. That's not all, apparently, because you just had to buy her a new phone and had me bug it," she continued, regardless of my reprimand.
"If you've forgotten, I remember telling you that she was a potential spy."
"Potential spy for who?" Lucy asked.
"A man who'd worked for me some years ago," I said quietly.
"So? Aren't you going to tell me?" she asked.
"No, Lucy," I replied.
"With the way you're handling this, she definitely is more than a spy. If she was one to begin with, there are faster and more effective ways to find that out," she complained. I smiled and stretched my palm towards her.
"The phone," I said simply.
She handed over the bugged phone, and I went through the settings and everything else I needed to.
"Good work. Set up the laptop; let's both look at what you found from her previous phone," I instructed.
"Big gun, I'm only confused here. Forgive me for asking too many questions. I'm sorry I stepped out of line," she said as an apology before she took her seat behind the desk in front of my laptop.
I didn't say anything regarding her questions and apologies. When she lifted the lid of the laptop, the feed in Alice's room revealed her engrossed in one of the books she had taken away from here a while ago.
Lucy looked up at me briefly before she went back to connecting the files and images from Alice's old phone to my laptop.
"Have everything saved to my laptop," I said.
"Yes, Big Gun," she replied.
Her older images and videos consisted of her with some colleagues, friends, and an older woman I suspected was her Tía. There were also photos and videos consistently taken with a lady of Alice's age.
Her recent pictures and videos were of some buildings in my estate and with some workers there too. She had also taken pictures with Carlitos and Serena. In one video, Alice was telling a story about how the statues and framed pictures came to life during the night hours.
Carlitos had objected to that notion in the video as Lucy and I watched on. Alice had laughed and commented on how he would make a good lawyer someday.
We came across a couple of videos of Lucy and herself.
"Aww, she kept it. I look cute here, don't I, Big Gun?" Lucy asked.
"Lucy, focus," I said while I held back a chuckle.
"Enough, her chats next," I instructed.
"Yes, Boss," she said.
We went through her chats with Tía Elena first, the sister of Diego Ramírez.
The memory that accompanied that name strengthened my resolve to find out Alice's main intentions for being a spy in my home. Elena Ramírez would have good reason to send Alice as a spy.
The chats sent between Alice and her Tía were unsuspicious. Just a woman worried about a child placed in her care by life. No follow-up instructions regarding me. No hate directed at me. That didn't deter me from continuing my search.
I went through everything else and saved the chats she had with Leo for last.
"Hold on, Lucy. I want to ask you some questions," I said.
"What? Because you saw my pictures and videos with her, am I a suspect? An accomplice to this potential spy?" she teased with a smile.
"Do you have anything to hide?" I asked, playing her teasing game.
"No, sir. If I'm not a suspect, then I do hope it's not about me and Sebastian's relationship, because I know he's told you something. I don't know why he's still here anyway," she said, sulking a little.
"I've promised you that I won't talk about it until you want to. I want to talk about Juárez, your father," I said, noticing her body go still.
"He's dead, Big Gun."
"Yes, I know that, Lucy. I also know his killer too. I want to know what happened that day. What made you kill him, Lucy?"
"It's been years, Big Gun. Why now?" she asked.
"For you to heal, maybe. But I want to know now," I told her.
"He was a bad man. I've never known him as anything else," she paused and slightly bowed her head.
I stood behind her while she sat at the desk facing my laptop. I remained in the heavy silence, giving her the space to gather the shattered pieces of her composure.
"Well…," she began, "...I never knew my mom, as you already know. She abandoned me with my dad. For as long as I can remember, he had always hit me. He hit me when he lost a game. He hit me when a deal went bad. He generally hit me when he had a rough day."
"Was he hitting you or about to hit you the day Meteo and I showed up?" I asked.
"No. He was telling me about how he owed a lot of people a very high sum of money and how he thought to repay it. He was going to give me over to a whorehouse. He said since I was old enough, I was going to be his little slut. He came too close to me, and I panicked."
"Ever since I accommodated you in my home, you've been loyal and dedicated. Why?" I had always meant to ask her this. I had always kept as close an eye as I could, and so had Doña Esperanza too.
"A rabid dog bites anyone. A wolf only bites what the Alpha points to. The day you saw me, you became a god to me. You kept the cell door open and the handcuffs off. I was lost, and I knew the moment I betrayed you, the world would come back screaming at me," she paused and looked between her hands where they rested on her legs.
"You and Doña Esperanza showed me what kindness and a family truly meant," she confessed.
All that she said only confirmed all my thoughts when Doña Esperanza and I took her in. She wasn't a threat; she was an asset.
The air in the study had shifted. I squeezed Lucy's shoulder as an act of comfort and gazed back at the laptop.
"Enough with the past, Lucy. Open the last folder. Let's see who this Leo really is."