535 Rue de Montmorency

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

“I don’t think anything yet,” Santiago said reassuringly, and for once, Catalina smiled in response to this without the smallest trace of irony or sick, ridiculing pleasure in the fact that he didn't think anything. They were adults now, were they not? The entirety of her childhood was tinted with a morbid seriousness, but this far outweighed those days. This was saturated, dripping in cold, poisonous reality that her brother might not be coming back. The seriousness, colorless and odorless oozed like carbonmonoxide around them, the morbidty grasping hold of their airways like a chokehold.

To make matters worse, Santiago reached for the letter. “What is that? Give it to me.”

Catalina wrenched it back, making it small, shoving it away in her black velevet sleeve. "No," she said, suddenly the petulant child she was when Santiago met her. "No. It's mine. I don't pry into your personal matters, do I?" The letter was a confession of love. Pure, innocent love. Catalina had been loved before, but those loves dwelled in different realms: lust, protection, obligation, family. But in the letter was the fluff from fairytales. On the outside, Catalina was leather barbed wire, gunpowder and liquor. But inside somewhere was that pre-gang girl who hoped what every little girl hoped, and said sweet things, and prayed to God, and pretended. Sebastian was all of that. Had he met her earlier, she would have been inclined to grow up with him and not the outskirts Las Gardunas. But he met her when all those inside things had died, never to be revived. Until her marriage, her leathal, dreadful marriage that was embellished with boredom and seedy agreement; not love, but business. Suddenly she realized, as she lay on her back, bored in her marriage bed, that Sebastian, despite every hell she put him through, every bullet she and Lorenzo threatened to put in his head, every ill she wished him, he carried on, unbudging. It was all expressed in the letter, revealing Catalina for what Sebastian saw her as, a mirage that projected what could be but wasn't. She couldn't let Santiago see that, couldn't let him read the words that made her weep alone in her room. She couldn't let him find the mascara and water marks that punctuated the penned words. She couldn't let him find the piece of her that Sebastian thought exsisted. "Just leave it alone, Diego."

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

Catalina jerked backwards.

"No," she said. "No. It's mine. I don't pry into your personal matters, do I? Just leave it alone, Diego.”

“No,” Santiago said standing.

He put his wine glass down with a dull “thunk” and crossed over to Catalina. When they both stood, he was taller, but now that she was seated, Santiago loomed over Catalina. Towered over her. He looked down at her seriously, but not frowning.

“Catalina, I don’t want to pry,” he said. “But if that letter has even a hint that Sebastian Ramirez has anything to do with Lorenzo disappearing, then you keeping it from me might ruin the investigation. You hired me to find him. I don’t give a damn about anything else. And you shouldn’t either.”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

She looked up into Santiago’s face. It was serious, stoic, seemingly unaffected. And yet, Catalina winced as if he struck her.

But his voice, though stern, was sympathetic, almost nurturing, as if he was consoling, yet instructing a young child. “Catalina, I don’t want to pry, but if that letter has even a hint that Sebastian Ramirez has anything to do with Lorenzo disappearing, then you keeping it from me might ruin the investigation. You hired me to find him. I don’t give a damn about anything else. And you shouldn’t either.”

Catalina sat for a moment, weighing two parts of her heart. There was the part her heart the belonged to Lorenzo, it was large and heavy, but hollowed from his disappearance. And there was the part that Sebastian had managed to steal, his consolation price. It was small, but hardly insignificant despite all Catalina claimed.

Slowly, almost shakily, she offered Santiago the wrinkled parchment. “Here.” Her voice was hoarse. “Just…” Catalina swallowed hard. “Be careful with it… Please.”

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

Hours after Catalina left, Santiago sat alone with Sebastian Ramirez’s love letter. Santiago hadn’t known anyone still did that. Love letters. It sounded so 18th century. In a world filled with text messages and emails, a love letter stood out as odd. Almost eerie.

The closest thing Santiago had ever received to a love letter had been a text from Rachel two years ago that said, “Rehearsals running late. Love you, baby!” with a heart attached to it.

This love letter was a different breed of communication. A different species. The only similarity between the two that Santiago could see were that each comprised of words, meant for one special someone’s eyes only. This was not some short, “love you, baby!” sent out in haste before some director or instructor took up phones. It wasn’t too long, either. Santiago read it again.

Catalina, my love,

I am writing you this before you leave Malaga again. Realize when you leave, Malaga holds nothing for me but memories of you. I don’t want to live here without you. Without you, I don’t want to live.

But distance isn’t what keeps us apart. But you don’t need to worry about that anymore. I will take care of it. I have a plan to keep us together no matter what anyone says, does, or tries to do. Trust me, Catalina. This will work.

I love you.

Until we are together again,

Sebastian

Santiago was glad he’d never gotten a love letter. Each time he reread Sebastian’s to Catalina, a funny feeling nestled in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to vomit; thought he did, anyways, but no retching came. Not even a dry heave. He just felt queasy. This was melodrama at its finest. Words of a man over the moon or a madman. What kind of man gave up on life over a woman?

He’d been that sort of man, once, twice. That Santiago was unrecognizable; this Sebastian unsympathetic.

Understandable, though. That was something.

Santiago read the letter line by line.

Catalina, my love…

An opening. A statement of possession. Not Dear Catalina. But “my”. Sebastian’s. Ownership.

I am writing you this before you leave Malaga again. Realize when you leave, Malaga holds nothing for me but memories of you. I don’t want to live here without you. Without you, I don’t want to live…

She’d been in and out of Malaga. The letter had no date; no postmark. Nothing. Had Sebastian pushed this into her palm at the airport before she came to Paris? A train station? Maybe he’d slipped it into her mailbox, or onto her table the night she left. Or maybe she’d gone somewhere else. And then the dramatic statement. I don’t want to live. Said twice. As if the words needed reiteration.

But distance isn’t what keeps us apart.

What did, then? Catalina’s distaste for Sebastian? Clearly not. She’d hung on to his love letter for a while now. Long enough that it was discolored and stained. Something else. Someone else…?



But you don’t need to worry about that anymore. I will take care of it. I have a plan to keep us together no matter what anyone says, does, or tries to do. Trust me, Catalina. This will work.

There was something unsettling about this letter. Unnerving enough for Santiago to be thankful the closest thing he’d ever gotten to a love letter was a text with a less than three sign. He reread the letter and polished off the rest of the sangria alone. He had a hunch about this Sebastian Ramirez guy. It wasn’t pretty. But Lorenzo had always put a high price on his baby sister’s virginity, her honor, and her heart. He’d given her hand in marriage to someone only because that man would prove financially and strategically useful to Las Gardunas. What if…

Christ. This was sick.

What if Sebastian offed Lorenzo because he thought Lorenzo’s guard dogging was the only thing coming between him and Catalina?

Crazy. Absolutely-f*cking-crazy. Who did that?

Crime of passion? No. Too methodical, this letter. It wasn’t like Sebastian Ramirez got into some heated, drunken fistfight with Lorenzo. No. He said he “will take care of it”. Sounded pretty d*mned premeditated. Suspect, motive… means?

The hell with how. Santiago would find Sebastian Ramirez in the morning. Tonight, he was calling an old friend. He didn’t like—didn’t want—to ask for favors. Especially not from the Paris police. But upstairs, tucked in the back of his dresser drawer, was a business card for one Officer Joseph Dubois. If Santiago’s hunch was real detective work, then he could show Sebastian street justice or let the long arm of the law do it for him.

And Santiago supposed he was almost drunk enough to make that phone call…