She takes a deep breath.
“Don’t let her see me. Don’t let her see me. Don’t let her see me.”
She leans slightly to examine an object she isn’t actually seeing, her fingers trembling on the wooden surface.
The footsteps draw closer slowly, and as Rebeca tries to stay calm, her elbow lightly bumps the shelf.
And a figure stumbles.
Rebeca reacts quickly, but the movement catches the attention of the few people in the store.
“Rebeca?”
Martina’s voice sounds right behind her, low, surprised, with that hoarse undertone that always made her skin crawl.
Rebeca closes her eyes for a second before turning around, as if delaying the moment could change reality.
Martina is just a couple of steps away. The warm light of the store illuminates her face differently than it did the day before, softening the angles but accentuating the intensity of her gaze. Her hair is slightly tousled by the wind, and she wears a cardigan that falls open over a simple T-shirt, revealing polkadots she knows all too well. For a moment, neither of them speaks. Until Rebeca swallows, feeling the heat rise up her neck.
Martina looks as if she’s about to say something. Her lips part slightly, and her eyes drift down Rebeca’s body for a moment before returning to her face.
“Wow… I’m starting to think fate is laughing at us.”
“The neighborhood isn’t that big,” Rebeca replies without thinking.
Suddenly, her phone rings again. Rebeca looks down at the screen and reads the name Ariadna Lobo.
She answers immediately, grateful for the interruption.
“I was expecting your call,” she says, and quickly turns away, turning her back on Martina as she tries to catch her breath.
On the other end of the line, she hears the energetic voice of Ariadna, the editor she’s about to start working with at the local publishing house.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” she says in a professional tone.
“Not at all,” Rebeca replies, walking toward the store’s door while listening to her editor explain some details about the first draft of the translation she’ll be sending her soon. She feels Martina’s gaze fixed on the back of her neck, hot and insistent. Every step she takes seems to amplify that sensation, and when she steps out onto the street—after grabbing her bags from the locker—the cold air hits her face, carrying with it the faint scent of the sea.
“We can meet tomorrow at the office to discuss the manuscript,” Ariadna continues.
“Perfect. I’ll be there,” Rebeca replies, her voice trembling slightly at the end.
She starts walking without looking back. Her heart is pounding, as if she’d run several blocks, and she doesn’t dare turn around. Only then does Rebeca realize that ignoring Martina is going to be much harder than she’d imagined. Because her body, treacherous, has already begun to remember everything her mind is struggling to forget again.
Chapter 4
Martina Valcárcel stares at her computer screen with a concentration that, in reality, isn’t quite complete. The newsroom occupies a renovated old warehouse near Puertochico: high ceilings, iron beams, industrial windows that let in the light of the Cantabrian sky. At that hour of the morning, the newsroom exudes a sense of calm, and one could say it’s her favorite time of day.
Martina is sitting at a long table covered with photography equipment, print proofs, and several sheets of paper with pencil notes. Across from her, Cora Vidal holds a cup of coffee in one hand while examining a series of photographs spread out on the table as if they were tarot cards she is still learning to interpret.
It’s been three days since Rebeca moved into the apartment across the hall.
Three days during which Martina has tried to fill her mind with work. Preparing the documentary report, selecting images, reviewing framing and contrast, responding to emails from the newsroom… A sense of normalcy that has helped her keep going.
But that normalcy has a crack in it.
Because every little sound coming from the apartment next door has seeped into her consciousness with an uncomfortable clarity. Rebeca is there, just a few feet away, andthat realization keeps coming back, persistent, hot, like a hand resting on the back of her neck until it makes her skin crawl.
And as if that presence weren’t enough, Julia has decided that fate needs a little nudge.
