Everything had happened so fast, but now she was in slow motion, watching on helplessly as her father tried to calm down her mother. Their words faded out as a high-pitched ringing buzzed in her ears like a persistent mosquito. It was as if she had left her body and was just an onlooker, disassociated from what was happening. Despite her father’s protesting, her mother called the police, and he had to take over the call as her mother could barely speak. Her chest heaved, and it looked as if her heart may explode as every bit of color drained from her face.
He gave the cops the limited detail that he had: roughly where she was, that she had got into a taxi, and that the taxi driver drove her somewhere secluded and demanded that a vast sum of money be sent to a Mexican bank account via a wire transfer. It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. Josie took a deep breath and tried to talk herself out of the blind panic that consumed her.
She opened her laptop and muttered obscenities when it took forever to load. The blank page and turning blue circle taunted her from the screen. “Come on.”Surely the World Wide Web could help her. The Internet had all the answers, didn’t it?
The only Internet searches she could find, all related to scams. Not this situation. None of the testimonies referred to people who had actually spoken with their loved one before the kidnappers demanded money. This was real. This was happening.
Her father raised his voice. “But they said they would kill her if I went to the police, if I didn’t pay. I can’t just sit here and do nothing like some schmuck,” he yelled down the phone.
Josie trawled through her sister’s social media accounts, hoping for some hint that this was all some joke, but all she came across was the typical vacation snaps: cocktails by the pool, groups of travelers snapped in midair, their limbs splayed out in some ridiculous position as they jumped, white sand beaches, waterfalls. She scrolled down to see earlier pictures. Her sister petted a Llama with vast sandy mountains stretching out in the desert landscape in the background. There was nothing that would help—nothing in the last few hours.
Chapter Two
The road seemed to go on forever, and even though he was walking downhill, he was still panting like a dog in a hot car. No doubt he was berry-red by now and glistening with sweat as his clammy hands swiped along his phone screen to zoom into his destination. It wasn’t far now; mere meters away. Another car drove past, blasting him with the heat from the exhaust. Apart from a steady stream of cars, there was little else going on, and no one else walked down the street he was on. He had stumbled upon the quietest part of Tijuana, which he was grateful for. A terracotta-colored house came into view from the adjoining street. Finally, according to the map on his phone, it was just coming up on the right.
Veterinaria—the big-bold letters appeared in blue on the banner above the shop.
Michael stopped and wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. A combination of the unrelenting heat and nerves had sent his sweat glands into overdrive. He had never been more anxious in his life, and that was saying something. The building formed part of a mini strip mall. It was peaceful, and he could see the mountains in the distance from his elevated position. He couldn’t help but laugh when he noticed that positioned above the veterinarian surgery, up a tall flight of metal stairs, was a psychiatrist’s office. It was a little late for that now.
Sunlight bounced off of the white buildings, so he put his sunglasses back on after wiping sweat and sun-lotion off the lenses with the fabric of his t-shirt, and leaned against a metal post while he practiced what he was going to say. He pulled away the t-shirt that clung to his back to get some airflow to his skin as he psyched himself up to go inside. As he crossed the small parking lot, the shade of palm trees momentarily provided him with shelter from the persistent sun, and he took a deep breath. Stood in front of the glass door, he willed himself to go inside. There was no point dragging this out. In and out. Get it over with.
He was met with two rows of shelves as he entered, and the woman at the end of the store stood behind the till, giving him a nod of acknowledgment. He was glad she didn’t speak to him, and he wondered if he was even capable of getting words out at that moment. In his pocket was a picture of what he was looking for. The drug he wanted went under a handful of different brand names and he managed to find photographs of the various colored packaging online in case he struggled to find it as all the labels were in Spanish, for products he had never had a use for: dog worming tablets, flea treatment, antibiotics and such. His eyes scanned the shelves, briefly hovering over each box. It didn’t seem to be on this side of the shop, so he moved over to the next aisle. The scent of disinfectant and other cleaning products stung his nostrils as he browsed, and he started to feel queasy.
What if he couldn’t find it? He didn’t know if he could bring himself to ask. He could always visit another vet. The print-out had started to fall apart in the creases where his sweat had soaked into the paper. As he turned to the next shelf, a red and white box stood out to him. It even had Pento
