The Heart of Blood (2 page)

Lucinda let out a loud shriek, turning away just as she spotted Juan coming out of the bathroom. “Wha . . . Who is that under the blanket? Whose blood is that?”

Octa was not home, and Lucinda suddenly felt panic creeping up her spine. She heard noises from the bathroom—running water. She looked at the red-stained sheet and blanket that covered the lifeless form lying underneath it.

The bathroom door creaked open. Within seconds, Juan stumbled out, seriously drunk.

He looked at Lucinda and gave her an irritated look. Lucinda noticed he had been crying. His eyes were puffy and his eyelashes were still wet.

“It’s wine! You guys never spilled some wine?” he uttered in a smashed voice.

Lucinda scanned the bed and started to calm down. It was wine.

“I was having a go at the 12-year old whiskey I bought from the store downtown. I usually handle my drinks better.”

“That’s . . . Okay . . . I was just startled . . . I thought I’d bring you a drink and your door was open . . . And . . .” Lucinda was still gathering her wits.

“I’ll help you clean up once I am sober, in the morning, maybe. I’m sorry, if it’s ok, I’d like to be by myself for a while,” Juan was speaking in a small, drunken, and tired voice.

Lucinda looked at the drenched blanket once again thinking of how the stain would set badly by morning, and it would become impossible to remove it, but she chose to pick her battles wisely.

“Don’t worry. I’ll clean it up in the morning. If you want dry sheets, there are some in the closet,” she said as she turned around to leave Juan sitting on the wine-soaked bed staring into space and shut the door behind her.

Later that night, Lucinda rolled in her bed as she tried to get some sleep, but she couldn’t. Her mind kept drifting to the sad state she had left Juan in earlier that evening. Octa lay beside her, sound asleep. His chest rose slightly and fell again with every soft breath he took. Lucinda noticed the clock on Octa’s beside table striking 3:00 a.m. She decided to get a glass of wine to help her sleep.

She got out of bed and picked up the book she was reading. Sliding into her robe, she crept out of their bedroom as quietly as possible. Downstairs, the kitchen light was left lit as always, and water was dripping drop by drop from the faucet. She got a bottle of wine from the cabinet, a glass and went into the living room.

As she poured herself a generous serving of her favorite red wine, she heard strange noises coming from the kitchen. Taking a sip from her glass, she set it down on the coaster she had placed on the table and headed back to the kitchen to see if she had left something running.

The kitchen was empty, and nothing was left running and there weren’t any weird sounds coming from anywhere. Puzzled, Lucinda started back toward the living room when she heard the strange sounds again. Somebody flipping pages . . . no, someone was crying.

She turned to face Juan’s room in the opposite direction and walked slowly toward it. She knocked lightly on the door, and it slid open. As she stepped inside, she saw Juan sitting in the same place she had left him earlier, sobbing uncontrollably and covering his face with his hands.

Lucinda hurried inside and sat next to him. He turned to look at her and the devastated look in his eyes gave away the fact that something terrible had happened.

“Juan? What’s wrong? Why do you look so worried? Is everything ok?” she didn’t know how to hide the panic in her voice.

“You don’t know what it means to be worried,” he said blankly.

“What do you mean? Has something happened?” she inquired.

“Have you ever had the most important thing you have taken from you, even temporarily? When you know, you can save everything if you had enough power, but you don’t have that power anymore . . . you have to watch your whole life taken away from you in a flash . . . like it never was . . .” Juan spoke slowly and painfully with tears rolling down his cheeks every once in a while.

“Fortunately, for you guys, I’ll be out of this place in five days, and you won’t have to bear with me. Where’s my brother?”

“Sleeping,” Lucinda replied awkwardly. She was offended by the way he bitterly spoke every word, but she knew he was drunk and in some trouble he refused to confess. And of course she would understand this, because of what happened to Christina.

“I wish I could sleep. When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep, Lucinda?” Juan was excessively drunk, and it was apparent by the way he was talking.

“Uh . . . I don’t know. . .” she said.

“It’s a blessing! Being able to sleep every night in peace . . . most of us don’t enjoy that luxury.” He was talking to himself more than her. She felt concerned about him.

Lucinda wanted to know what was bothering him so much. His losses were enormous, she agreed, but he was plummeting into a pit of depression. She considered it for a while as Juan went on talking and decided to speak to Octa about it in the morning. It seemed like Juan needed his help.

She waited till he passed out and covered him up with a dry sheet. As she turned to leave his room, something on the dressing table caught her eye.

She walked toward the table to what appeared to be a shiny photo frame; she reached for it and picked it up to take a closer look.

It was a picture of Juan with an attractive young woman. They were both sitting in a park, and a little boy was playing with a ball in the background. The boy was looking at the camera and smiling brightly.

Lucinda turned the frame over; the backside of the photograph had something written on it that she could not make out in the dim light. She moved next to the window to see more clearly since there was a street light out there. The note said:

“In case you’ve forgotten your loving husband and your beautiful boy, here’s a reminder! Come back soon, mommy! We miss you!” The note was written on the 18th of January, 2000, according to the British postal stamp.

3:00 AM – Juan sat on the wine-soaked bed taking big gulps of his whiskey. The stench of warm wine filled the room as vapors of alcohol escaped the fabric of the bed sheets. He stared into space thinking about how his plan had completely turned around on him.

His brother, Octa, had given him the cold shoulder, which had turned matters even worse. The theft couldn’t be carried out without assistance and what kind of assistance would you find in a foreign town within seven days? Juan knew the answer, the unreliable kind.

He thought about his son, Aaron, wrapped up in chains, hungry and bleeding in a cold room somewhere and shuddered. I have to save him. . . His mind could no longer withstand the pressure and he broke into tears.

He snorted and shook as tears streamed down his face. The thought of his son being tormented burned a fire within him that he could not control. He wept and wept till he started to get a little numb and slowed down, but couldn’t stop the tears from falling now and then.

Just then there was a soft knock on the door, and it slid open slowly. Lucinda stepped inside and looked at him, alarmed. She came up to him and sat close; her concerned eyes looked innocent and worried.

She started asking questions that Juan could hardly make out, and her innocence had no effect on Juan. He thought about how he was aroused the other day by looking at the attractive woman and how he felt completely repulsed by her at the moment.

The bitch whispers shit into my brother’s ear and he obeys like a fucking dog with his tail between his legs . . . he doesn’t understand, yet
.

Juan stared into space as Lucinda kept inquiring about things that seemed like useless bullshit to him at the moment. He said a few things that he couldn’t recall later, something about not being able to sleep; he couldn’t be sure.

All he remembered clearly was feeling disgusted by her, and she was the reason he was unable to save his son from those motherfucking rats that took him. He recalled thinking about the call from his son’s school.

Aaron had been seen crossing the street an hour before he went missing; a van had sped up and abducted him. For days, Juan ran back and forth from the police station to his son’s school, searching every nook and corner of the city for any sign of his missing son. He knew their lives were in danger, but he could have never imagined his son would have to pay for his sins. The boy was only six years old.

Things got worse when Juan received a call from the kidnappers, and they had warned him about the severe consequences he would have to face if he didn’t pay his dues. They had seized Juan’s gambling den a few weeks ago, and Juan had thought the worst of his troubles were over; at least he and his son were safe.

He knew the people he was dealing with would stop at nothing to get the money he owed them, but the den didn’t compensate for the loan. They had demanded an enormous ransom for his son’s early and safe return, and all the money Juan ever owned had already been taken away.

A week later he received an email that contained a video of masked men beating up Aaron, who was bound to a chair, his mouth bleeding with every slap. Juan’s heart had stopped at the sight of his little boy being beaten up by huge men; he barely looked conscious after the last blow. The video was meant to be a reminder of how Juan was running out of time. Gambling had been his whole life for as far back as he could remember. He could have never been able to predict, could never have dreamed, even in nightmare, how one day, he would gamble with his own son’s life.

Juan had decided to ask his brother for help, but before he could even talk to him about it, he was given a deadline to leave.
Some loving brother
, he had thought to himself. His brother’s money was the last thing that could save Aaron, and Octa had proved to be of no good use.

Juan thought about all the immoral and inhuman things he had done in his life, how he had always escaped his dreadful fate numerous times. This time, everything was different. “If only Octa knew about the things I’ve been through these past few years.”

He remembered Lucinda picking something up from his dressing table and taking it over to the window to look at. Juan did no pass out by this time, he was only faking it. He even remembered her looking at him with sadly surprised eyes as he dozed off. In the morning, he put the photo frame with his family’s picture back in his luggage to avoid any mishap. He couldn’t risk Octa finding out about his marriage; this was not the time.

He somehow knew when he left this place, he would not be the same man that came here. He may have to do terrible things that would haunt him for the rest of his life to save his son.

The next day, Lucinda didn’t wake up until late afternoon. Octa had already left and Juan was still asleep. As Lucinda wearily started the day’s chores, her mind wandered back to the previous night, how Juan had been crying and the photo frame. She couldn’t figure out why her husband had never told her Juan had a family. She thought about the little, brown-haired boy smiling innocently at the camera . . . but where is he?

She decided to ask Octa everything about Juan as soon as he got home. She wanted to help Juan. She thought about the repulsion she had felt against her husband’s gambling brother when he arrived, but a soft spot had started to form within her heart for him since last night. She was still in the middle of her thoughts when Juan’s door slid open, and he stepped out, looking like he was just hit by a truck.

“Coffee?” Lucinda asked him sportily with a soft smile.

“I’m going to need a whole bucket,” he muttered back without even giving her a glance.

“Is it okay if I get the stained bed sheets from your room? I want to get done with the washing early today,” she asked, trying to hide how eager she was to get the red blotches of wine on the light-colored blanket out.

“The wha . . . oh yeah . . . yes, you can. I’ll help you clean them, I’m sorry about last night.” Juan was speaking sheepishly now, but his voice was still coarse and thick from all the drinking.

Lucinda smiled.
Finally, signs of human life somewhere in there
, she thought to herself. “I’ll clean them. It’s ok, you should rest.”

Juan stared at her. Lucinda had been trying hard to be hospitable after she had effectively sent Juan’s plan plummeting from the sky.
What a manipulative bitch
, he bitterly thought as he smiled back at her.

Lucinda went into the guest room to get the sheets. As she entered the room, she stole a glance at the dressing table. The photo frame was not there anymore, and she looked around, puzzled, but it was nowhere.
Did I put it somewhere else? No . . . where is it? Juan was passed out; he couldn’t have seen.
Questions started shuffling through her mind as she picked up the stained bed sheets and turned to leave the room. She was utterly confused.
Why would he try to hide his family from us?

As she put the sheets in the washing machine, she realized she needed to talk to Octa urgently. If only he could explain all this. She had a growing feeling that something atrocious was about to happen, and she was scared.

Juan finished his coffee and went back into his room. The coffee had helped, but he was still extremely hung over. He checked his suitcase to see if the photo frame was still well hidden. It was in its place, and Juan grinned at how predictable and stupid this woman was.
Amy would’ve caught me in a blink
, he thought as he got back up and walked out the door.

In the basement, Lucinda stood near the dryer now holding the washed sheets in her hand. The stain had set in and she was thinking about where she had put the club soda the last time a stain emergency happened when Juan came down the steps.

“I hope I didn’t scare you much last night,” he said as he walked toward the dryer.

Lucinda barely knew how to react “Oh . . . No. . . you seemed disturbed. I hope you’re feeling better now,” she said, eyeing him intently.

He had sharp features, and he was much better looking than Octa. There was a boyishly attractive air about him that even she couldn’t deny. She put the sheets back in the wash and started the machine. Juan was suddenly closer to her body.