By the time Pepito reaches her house he's already decided. Decided to confront her with the evidence and let the facts speak for themselves. He pulls the bike up onto the kerb and tips the helmet from his head. A breeze picks up and snakes its way down from Tibidabo, rattling a can from the edge of the gutter and spinning into the road. Pepito turns his head and lifts his chin with his face to the breeze and fills his lungs with the sudden gust of air. Then he runs a hand over his oily brow and smears the sweat on the tips of his fingers. He steps out from the bike, scanning the night with a sweep of his head and steps towards the house with his feet holding back from each anxious step and his heart pumping hard in his chest. He pushes onwards. Stumbling forwards, breathing subdued until he finally reaches her doorway. He lifts his hand to the darkened wood and is poised to knock when his body rebels. He drops his hand with a prick to his conscience and turns on his heel. Turns on his heel and stops. Stops dead in his tracks, with his foot hitched to go one way and the other holding back but his mind is made up. His mind has decided and there can be no going back. He turns back to the door and swallows the lump that is clogged in his throat. Steps up to the challenge with his hand clenched up tight in a fist and taps lightly on the gleaming, polished wood.
She takes her time, humming something low and sugary but he can hear the slap of her feet moving seductively across the floor. She calls out and he answers, his hand rising instinctively to his holster. She opens the door. She pulls him in and his hand falls idly by his side, limp and useless as she pulls him closer, so close he can smell the whiskey on her breath. He should open his mouth to protest but she covers his lips with her own and they stand for some moments with their spines melting and their bodies braced for a fall. She pulls him downwards, stretching her body beneath him, back arched and hips splayed, her hands expertly relieving him of his clothes. While Pepito, abandoning reason and caught in the moment, claws at her robe with clumsy fingers and plunges himself into those delicious folds of fabric without a second thought.
He just couldn't help himself. Some things are in the blood. Some things are so etched beneath the skin, like a tattoo, a blood red tattoo, that they will always remain a part of you. No matter how hard you scrub. It's always there, like ink beneath the skin. Or poison in the blood.
At least, that's what Raphael told himself, the moment that he was caught. Caught in the act, so to speak. In fraganti. And it happened so fast. It happened when he was least expecting it. Caught up in a crowd, caught up in a moment, with his hand half wedged in some stranger's bag and he barely got to touch it. Barely had time to grasp the wallet and feel its weight in his sweaty palm before he was grabbed from behind by a burly policeman, who promptly slapped the cuffs on. No warning, no words, no justice. He was marched towards the station. Literally, pushed in front with two plain clothed police behind him, his feet barely touched the pavement. And he tried to protest, he really did but of course, they weren't even listening. In short, they didn't want to believe him. To them he was simply raving. Raving mad or raving stoned, it didn't make any difference. They'd heard it all before and would probably do so again. All sorts of crap spilling from his mouth about gangsters and girls and a building. But he knew he had to tell them. He had to get their attention, it was all part of the plan. Part of the plan that Pepito worked out and he depended on Raphael. He depended on him telling, it was what the boy did best. Except, he was supposed to use the phone. He was supposed to keep his nose clean. That was what Pepito had said. Go back home, keep his head down and stay well away from trouble because he had to make that call. Why then did he find himself mingling amongst the crowds? He never meant it to be this way but then again, he never did. Some things just seem to dangle temptingly in front of him, like a crooked card game or an easy mark. Some things are in the blood.
And then they threw him in that stinking cell and he really started to panic. The reality sank home as the door slammed shut and he pressed his face to the iron bars. Pressed his cheeks against the cold, hard metal and pleaded for them to listen.
"You've got it all wrong ... see ..." He shouted out like a madman, shouted out loud to their receding backs and hoped that they would hear him. "You don't understand .. see ..." He shouted until his voice was hoarse and the tears ran down his face. "It's something big ... real big ... biggest scam I've ever seen ..."
And still they didn't listen.
He must have slept. Not for long but he must have slept. Dazed and chafed, he sits up in bed and rubs his eyes with lazy fists. He looks around. He pats the bed. He rises and stumbles on weary legs out of her bedroom and through the house, naked, pushing doors and peering inside until eventually, he finds her. She's standing by the pool with her back towards him staring out over the city below. The sun has just begun its descent at the eastern edge of a perfect sky. He walks towards her, reaches out to touch her hair and stops. Draws his hand back as though he's been stung and lets it fall tracing the length of her spine with a waft of air from his fingers. She turns to face him, standing for a moment with her face suspended in thought. He smiles and she moves towards him, circling her arms around his bulging waist and buries her face in his neck. She kisses there. And there. And there. Small, stifled little pecks, reaching out over his shoulders and down over the slope of belly. He laughs. He's nervous. Strangely now, he's nervous. He looks down over the flabby folds of his gut and pulls away from her tempting grip. Tempting to keep it up. Tempting to keep his mouth shut but he knows he can't. He knows he has to ask. And maybe that's why he blurts it out. She stumbles backwards like she's been slapped in the face and stares at him, mouth hanging open and hand on her heart. She shakes her head. She denies it. She goes over her story again, like she's learned if from a script and repeats her innocence with her eyes gaping wide and her hand clutching her throat. In fear, in shock. Or both.
How could he think it. How could he say it.
The words fill her mouth with an ugly taste and she turns her back in denial. And now, he moves towards her, he reaches out to calm her, pull her against him, feel her hammering heart as it beats against his chest.
"I'm sorry," he says again, and again but she pushes him from her and turns away.
"It was Francisco wasn't it?" She steps forwards, skirting the edge of the pool. "He put you up to this didn't he?" Pepito shakes his head, reaching out towards her but she moves too quickly for him. "He told you something .... didn't he?"
"No, Mariquita ... no." He stumbles towards her. "I had to ask, that's all ..."
"You had to ask if I'd killed her? You had to ask that?" She shakes her head in disbelief.
"I'm sorry." He says again for good measure. "But yes, I had to ask."
She sits down by the edge of the pool, skimming her robe up behind her and lowers her legs into the water.
"So tell me them ... Detective Pons," she flicks her eyes towards him, "what made you ask?"
He hunkers down beside her.
"Chlorine," he says, "they found traces of it in her lungs." He flicks his head towards the glassy surface of the water. "It was just something I had to clear up, that's all."
She stares at him for a moment before stretching backwards, her hands splayed out on either side and her head thrown back and starts to laugh with a ruckus spasm from the pit of her gut.
"Chlorine?" She eventually says but she doesn't wait to finish the thought as she shrugs the robe from her shoulders and slips into the water. Pepito stands up and circles the pool following her body as it breaks through the surface.
"I have a theory, " he says as she cuts through the water towards him.
"A theory, how interesting ..." She's playing with him again, but he's caught up in the moment and too far gone to see it. All he can see is is her tempting flesh as she flips on her back and strokes the water over her glistening breasts. She twists her head to check that he's watching. But we know that he is. With hungry eyes he watches her lift her leg and run her hand down the length of her thigh before she flips back over with the grace of a seal and swims to the edge of the pool. Reaching out to grasp her hand, he pulls her out towards him. They stand for a moment their bodies locked in a damp embrace as he tries to recall his purpose.
"Let's hear this theory of yours then, Detective ..." She purrs in his ear but as his lips close over hers, she braces her back and knows she'll have to wait.
Standing, across the street from the shop, feet crossed at the ankle and arms tucked beneath her chest, she watched him leave. Watched him push his head through his helmet and straddle the seat of his bike. Watched him kick off from the kerb with a hurried twist on the throttle and disappear amongst the cars racing for the lights. Standing, a little longer, she surveys the front of the shop. She takes her time, examining the entrance with its worn down step, the mottled brown door with the sign in the middle and the display window littered with stickers and giant cardboard cutouts of cigarettes. Then she turned her back. With her feet placed flat on the intricate spirals carved in the pavement, slapping the ground as she walked. She must have walked for an hour, at least. Wandered around with only her thoughts to guide her, perspiring in the afternoon heat. Thoughts that were cluttered, crammed up together, fighting for space in her head. And she tried to arrange them into appropriate places but as one thought was settled another would spring up instead. Eventually, she came to halt. Stopped dead in her tracks as she ran out of pavement at the edge of a building. Stopped short of the entrance, one or two metres as her eyes climbed up to the top.
He was glad to see her, of course. Babbled his surprise like an excitable schoolboy as she stood at the door to his flat. He ushered her in with a hand on her arm and guided her towards the living room. Eased her down in his best armchair and pulled up a seat for himself.
"This is nice .." he said with a flash of a grin and she had to agree because it certainly was, nice to be saved from the heat. Nice to stop walking. Nice to stop thinking. Nice to be loved by this man. This good, kind, quiet man who would never leave her, not for a moment, not even if she begged him to go. Leaning forwards, she grasped his hand and curled it into her own.
"Let's not wait," she said, squeezing his fingers, "let's not wait any longer, let's get married now."
"Now? You mean right now?" He pushed himself back in his chair, pulling his hand from her grip and stroked the long peppered hair on his mustache. "Well ... it's sudden, I'll say that ..."
"I know, I know," she said, easing herself to the edge of the chair, convincing herself it was right. "I know it's sudden but why should we wait?"
"Well, there's the family and the arrangements with the ..."
But she lifted her hand to silence him and the words died in his throat. "
"Gibraltar," she said with a tilt of her brow, "we can get married tomorrow in Gibraltar."
"What? Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Rising from his chair, he stepped over to the window. His mind ticking over, cogs whirring, neurons sparking, eyes clouded up with thought.
"Gibraltar you say?" He turned towards her.
"Yes," she said as she moved from the armchair. "Gibraltar," she whispered as she nuzzled towards him and buried her face in his neck.
It wasn't how she imagined it. Wasn't lit with fireworks or timed with explosives but at least is was something. A slow, unwinding of mechanical precision that culminated in a burst of release, like a balloon that is filled with a steady breath, then popped on the point of a knife. Turning over onto her right side she watched the hairs on his mustache flutter in the wake of his breath. In. Out. In. Out. His chest rising and falling with a ragged rhythm as he stared at some point on the ceiling. Turning his head towards her, sweat glistening in the lines of his face, he smiled. That's all, a simple flex of the lips. That's all that it really takes. Then he lifted his hand and reached out to touch the side of her face. She sidled in towards him with her hip bumping against his thigh, and as her flesh touched his a sudden fear that she could still lose him swept through her body. She shivered. Threw her arm over his chest and pulled him closer, pulled him tight. Shifting her head on the pillow, she gazed up at the ceiling. Picked out a spot where the sun slipped through a crack in the blinds she focused on the shaft of light and let her mind slip back. Back to the shop, back to Pepito, slipping even further through the layers of time until she came to rest, with her eyelids drooping from the weight of sleep, on her wedding day.
A bright, crisp day in Spring; a wind rustles through the trees and whips her veil from her head with a gust of breath. She can see her face, laughing. The high, clear lines of her cheeks, her mouth pitched open as her husband bolts from her side to catch it. But it flutters upwards, held aloft by the gathering breeze as he leaps in the air to catch it. Stretching upwards on the points of his toes, arms reaching above his head, he swipes at the veil with no success as the wind grows stronger and blows it further from his grasp. Further and further, she can see the veil billowing in the distance and her husband, with his long, straight back straining up to the sky, following closely behind it.
She must have slept. For a few minutes, at least but long enough to have remembered her dream and tasted the bitter ending. Unwinding the sheets from her tangled limbs, she slipped out of bed. Crept up to the chair in the corner of the room and hurriedly put her clothes on. And when she was dressed she tiptoed back to the bed to check that he was breathing. Bending over his prostrate frame she placed his ear over his mouth. He stirred in his sleep and muttered her name. Muttered his name with his papery lips still chapped and raw from their kisses. Leaning in closer, she brushed his cheek with the tips of her lips and pulled the sheet up. Tucked him in, straightened the pillow by the side of his head and retrieved his clothes from the floor. She left them neatly folded over the back of a chair. Left his trousers and shirt, all perfectly creased, with his socks tucked into his shoes.
Later that night, long after Pepito has left with a hand on his gun and smile on his lips, Mariquita stands by the edge of the pool. She lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out in curdling waves over the city sprawled at her feet. She cocks her head and looks at the moon before walking slowly back to the table. She sits down, grinding the cigarette in the ashtray as she pulls the phone towards her. She dials his number, pressing the buttons methodically with the scarlet tip of a nail. Pepito had told her everything, everything she had been waiting to hear. He'd spared no details and told no lies, except somehow, he'd missed out the obvious. And the obvious had been there all along. Sprawled beneath him with her hair in her face, easing his doubts with the thrust of her hips - it had all been part of her plan. And she'd played him from the beginning. How easy it had been. How desperate he was to believe her. How close he had come to the water's edge and stood with his back to the truth.
She rises, smiling secretly to herself, the phone cupped tight to her ear.
"It's me," that's all she needs to say. "I thought you would have left by now." She stops and tilts her chin upwards. "Everything's fine ..." and her gaze slips down to the water, falling on the liquid moon rippling gently on the surface. "Just thought you'd like to know ..." She waits for a moment, her fingers playing with a lock of hair that falls across her face. "Our problem has been taken care of ..."
She takes her time, humming something low and sugary but he can hear the slap of her feet moving seductively across the floor. She calls out and he answers, his hand rising instinctively to his holster. She opens the door. She pulls him in and his hand falls idly by his side, limp and useless as she pulls him closer, so close he can smell the whiskey on her breath. He should open his mouth to protest but she covers his lips with her own and they stand for some moments with their spines melting and their bodies braced for a fall. She pulls him downwards, stretching her body beneath him, back arched and hips splayed, her hands expertly relieving him of his clothes. While Pepito, abandoning reason and caught in the moment, claws at her robe with clumsy fingers and plunges himself into those delicious folds of fabric without a second thought.
He just couldn't help himself. Some things are in the blood. Some things are so etched beneath the skin, like a tattoo, a blood red tattoo, that they will always remain a part of you. No matter how hard you scrub. It's always there, like ink beneath the skin. Or poison in the blood.
At least, that's what Raphael told himself, the moment that he was caught. Caught in the act, so to speak. In fraganti. And it happened so fast. It happened when he was least expecting it. Caught up in a crowd, caught up in a moment, with his hand half wedged in some stranger's bag and he barely got to touch it. Barely had time to grasp the wallet and feel its weight in his sweaty palm before he was grabbed from behind by a burly policeman, who promptly slapped the cuffs on. No warning, no words, no justice. He was marched towards the station. Literally, pushed in front with two plain clothed police behind him, his feet barely touched the pavement. And he tried to protest, he really did but of course, they weren't even listening. In short, they didn't want to believe him. To them he was simply raving. Raving mad or raving stoned, it didn't make any difference. They'd heard it all before and would probably do so again. All sorts of crap spilling from his mouth about gangsters and girls and a building. But he knew he had to tell them. He had to get their attention, it was all part of the plan. Part of the plan that Pepito worked out and he depended on Raphael. He depended on him telling, it was what the boy did best. Except, he was supposed to use the phone. He was supposed to keep his nose clean. That was what Pepito had said. Go back home, keep his head down and stay well away from trouble because he had to make that call. Why then did he find himself mingling amongst the crowds? He never meant it to be this way but then again, he never did. Some things just seem to dangle temptingly in front of him, like a crooked card game or an easy mark. Some things are in the blood.
And then they threw him in that stinking cell and he really started to panic. The reality sank home as the door slammed shut and he pressed his face to the iron bars. Pressed his cheeks against the cold, hard metal and pleaded for them to listen.
"You've got it all wrong ... see ..." He shouted out like a madman, shouted out loud to their receding backs and hoped that they would hear him. "You don't understand .. see ..." He shouted until his voice was hoarse and the tears ran down his face. "It's something big ... real big ... biggest scam I've ever seen ..."
And still they didn't listen.
He must have slept. Not for long but he must have slept. Dazed and chafed, he sits up in bed and rubs his eyes with lazy fists. He looks around. He pats the bed. He rises and stumbles on weary legs out of her bedroom and through the house, naked, pushing doors and peering inside until eventually, he finds her. She's standing by the pool with her back towards him staring out over the city below. The sun has just begun its descent at the eastern edge of a perfect sky. He walks towards her, reaches out to touch her hair and stops. Draws his hand back as though he's been stung and lets it fall tracing the length of her spine with a waft of air from his fingers. She turns to face him, standing for a moment with her face suspended in thought. He smiles and she moves towards him, circling her arms around his bulging waist and buries her face in his neck. She kisses there. And there. And there. Small, stifled little pecks, reaching out over his shoulders and down over the slope of belly. He laughs. He's nervous. Strangely now, he's nervous. He looks down over the flabby folds of his gut and pulls away from her tempting grip. Tempting to keep it up. Tempting to keep his mouth shut but he knows he can't. He knows he has to ask. And maybe that's why he blurts it out. She stumbles backwards like she's been slapped in the face and stares at him, mouth hanging open and hand on her heart. She shakes her head. She denies it. She goes over her story again, like she's learned if from a script and repeats her innocence with her eyes gaping wide and her hand clutching her throat. In fear, in shock. Or both.
How could he think it. How could he say it.
The words fill her mouth with an ugly taste and she turns her back in denial. And now, he moves towards her, he reaches out to calm her, pull her against him, feel her hammering heart as it beats against his chest.
"I'm sorry," he says again, and again but she pushes him from her and turns away.
"It was Francisco wasn't it?" She steps forwards, skirting the edge of the pool. "He put you up to this didn't he?" Pepito shakes his head, reaching out towards her but she moves too quickly for him. "He told you something .... didn't he?"
"No, Mariquita ... no." He stumbles towards her. "I had to ask, that's all ..."
"You had to ask if I'd killed her? You had to ask that?" She shakes her head in disbelief.
"I'm sorry." He says again for good measure. "But yes, I had to ask."
She sits down by the edge of the pool, skimming her robe up behind her and lowers her legs into the water.
"So tell me them ... Detective Pons," she flicks her eyes towards him, "what made you ask?"
He hunkers down beside her.
"Chlorine," he says, "they found traces of it in her lungs." He flicks his head towards the glassy surface of the water. "It was just something I had to clear up, that's all."
She stares at him for a moment before stretching backwards, her hands splayed out on either side and her head thrown back and starts to laugh with a ruckus spasm from the pit of her gut.
"Chlorine?" She eventually says but she doesn't wait to finish the thought as she shrugs the robe from her shoulders and slips into the water. Pepito stands up and circles the pool following her body as it breaks through the surface.
"I have a theory, " he says as she cuts through the water towards him.
"A theory, how interesting ..." She's playing with him again, but he's caught up in the moment and too far gone to see it. All he can see is is her tempting flesh as she flips on her back and strokes the water over her glistening breasts. She twists her head to check that he's watching. But we know that he is. With hungry eyes he watches her lift her leg and run her hand down the length of her thigh before she flips back over with the grace of a seal and swims to the edge of the pool. Reaching out to grasp her hand, he pulls her out towards him. They stand for a moment their bodies locked in a damp embrace as he tries to recall his purpose.
"Let's hear this theory of yours then, Detective ..." She purrs in his ear but as his lips close over hers, she braces her back and knows she'll have to wait.
Standing, across the street from the shop, feet crossed at the ankle and arms tucked beneath her chest, she watched him leave. Watched him push his head through his helmet and straddle the seat of his bike. Watched him kick off from the kerb with a hurried twist on the throttle and disappear amongst the cars racing for the lights. Standing, a little longer, she surveys the front of the shop. She takes her time, examining the entrance with its worn down step, the mottled brown door with the sign in the middle and the display window littered with stickers and giant cardboard cutouts of cigarettes. Then she turned her back. With her feet placed flat on the intricate spirals carved in the pavement, slapping the ground as she walked. She must have walked for an hour, at least. Wandered around with only her thoughts to guide her, perspiring in the afternoon heat. Thoughts that were cluttered, crammed up together, fighting for space in her head. And she tried to arrange them into appropriate places but as one thought was settled another would spring up instead. Eventually, she came to halt. Stopped dead in her tracks as she ran out of pavement at the edge of a building. Stopped short of the entrance, one or two metres as her eyes climbed up to the top.
He was glad to see her, of course. Babbled his surprise like an excitable schoolboy as she stood at the door to his flat. He ushered her in with a hand on her arm and guided her towards the living room. Eased her down in his best armchair and pulled up a seat for himself.
"This is nice .." he said with a flash of a grin and she had to agree because it certainly was, nice to be saved from the heat. Nice to stop walking. Nice to stop thinking. Nice to be loved by this man. This good, kind, quiet man who would never leave her, not for a moment, not even if she begged him to go. Leaning forwards, she grasped his hand and curled it into her own.
"Let's not wait," she said, squeezing his fingers, "let's not wait any longer, let's get married now."
"Now? You mean right now?" He pushed himself back in his chair, pulling his hand from her grip and stroked the long peppered hair on his mustache. "Well ... it's sudden, I'll say that ..."
"I know, I know," she said, easing herself to the edge of the chair, convincing herself it was right. "I know it's sudden but why should we wait?"
"Well, there's the family and the arrangements with the ..."
But she lifted her hand to silence him and the words died in his throat. "
"Gibraltar," she said with a tilt of her brow, "we can get married tomorrow in Gibraltar."
"What? Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Rising from his chair, he stepped over to the window. His mind ticking over, cogs whirring, neurons sparking, eyes clouded up with thought.
"Gibraltar you say?" He turned towards her.
"Yes," she said as she moved from the armchair. "Gibraltar," she whispered as she nuzzled towards him and buried her face in his neck.
It wasn't how she imagined it. Wasn't lit with fireworks or timed with explosives but at least is was something. A slow, unwinding of mechanical precision that culminated in a burst of release, like a balloon that is filled with a steady breath, then popped on the point of a knife. Turning over onto her right side she watched the hairs on his mustache flutter in the wake of his breath. In. Out. In. Out. His chest rising and falling with a ragged rhythm as he stared at some point on the ceiling. Turning his head towards her, sweat glistening in the lines of his face, he smiled. That's all, a simple flex of the lips. That's all that it really takes. Then he lifted his hand and reached out to touch the side of her face. She sidled in towards him with her hip bumping against his thigh, and as her flesh touched his a sudden fear that she could still lose him swept through her body. She shivered. Threw her arm over his chest and pulled him closer, pulled him tight. Shifting her head on the pillow, she gazed up at the ceiling. Picked out a spot where the sun slipped through a crack in the blinds she focused on the shaft of light and let her mind slip back. Back to the shop, back to Pepito, slipping even further through the layers of time until she came to rest, with her eyelids drooping from the weight of sleep, on her wedding day.
A bright, crisp day in Spring; a wind rustles through the trees and whips her veil from her head with a gust of breath. She can see her face, laughing. The high, clear lines of her cheeks, her mouth pitched open as her husband bolts from her side to catch it. But it flutters upwards, held aloft by the gathering breeze as he leaps in the air to catch it. Stretching upwards on the points of his toes, arms reaching above his head, he swipes at the veil with no success as the wind grows stronger and blows it further from his grasp. Further and further, she can see the veil billowing in the distance and her husband, with his long, straight back straining up to the sky, following closely behind it.
She must have slept. For a few minutes, at least but long enough to have remembered her dream and tasted the bitter ending. Unwinding the sheets from her tangled limbs, she slipped out of bed. Crept up to the chair in the corner of the room and hurriedly put her clothes on. And when she was dressed she tiptoed back to the bed to check that he was breathing. Bending over his prostrate frame she placed his ear over his mouth. He stirred in his sleep and muttered her name. Muttered his name with his papery lips still chapped and raw from their kisses. Leaning in closer, she brushed his cheek with the tips of her lips and pulled the sheet up. Tucked him in, straightened the pillow by the side of his head and retrieved his clothes from the floor. She left them neatly folded over the back of a chair. Left his trousers and shirt, all perfectly creased, with his socks tucked into his shoes.
Later that night, long after Pepito has left with a hand on his gun and smile on his lips, Mariquita stands by the edge of the pool. She lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out in curdling waves over the city sprawled at her feet. She cocks her head and looks at the moon before walking slowly back to the table. She sits down, grinding the cigarette in the ashtray as she pulls the phone towards her. She dials his number, pressing the buttons methodically with the scarlet tip of a nail. Pepito had told her everything, everything she had been waiting to hear. He'd spared no details and told no lies, except somehow, he'd missed out the obvious. And the obvious had been there all along. Sprawled beneath him with her hair in her face, easing his doubts with the thrust of her hips - it had all been part of her plan. And she'd played him from the beginning. How easy it had been. How desperate he was to believe her. How close he had come to the water's edge and stood with his back to the truth.
She rises, smiling secretly to herself, the phone cupped tight to her ear.
"It's me," that's all she needs to say. "I thought you would have left by now." She stops and tilts her chin upwards. "Everything's fine ..." and her gaze slips down to the water, falling on the liquid moon rippling gently on the surface. "Just thought you'd like to know ..." She waits for a moment, her fingers playing with a lock of hair that falls across her face. "Our problem has been taken care of ..."
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