My husband and his mother emptied our hotel room and left me in Velmara with no passport, no phone and no flight home — they forgot I knew one number by heart.
My husband and his mother emptied our hotel room and left me in Velmara with no passport, no phone and no flight home — they forgot I knew one number by heart.
“Figure it out on your own.”
That was all he left on the pillow when I woke up in the villa above Aldemar.
His side of the bed was cold.
My phone was gone. My passport. My driving licence. Every card I had.
Even the flat waterproof pouch I keep sewn into the lining of my case — the one nobody in that family knew about — was gone.
I went down to reception barefoot.
The girl on the desk looked at me with the particular, careful face of somebody who has already worked out what has happened.
“Mr Navarro checked out at four fifty this morning, madam. He left with his mother and the little girl. A private car to Porto Sella airport.”
The little girl.
My daughter is four. Her name is Mila.
They had not simply gone without me.
They had taken everything I needed to follow.
When I got back up to the suite the housekeeper was standing in the doorway holding a second note, which she had found under the nightstand.
I knew Pilar’s handwriting straight away. Italic. Very neat. She does the Christmas cards in it.
