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“Extremely difficult.” He chuckled and then sobered. “All jokes aside, I wish you would trust me. I’m not trying to pry into your private life, but if we’re dealing with a mentally deranged man, he may hurt you and your patients. Was he a boyfriend?”
She inhaled and slowly exhaled. “Yes, my first and only boyfriend since I was fourteen. His mother was my grandmother’s neighbor. When I lost myabuelaat eighteen he came to live with me in her small house. I was in college on a one-year scholarship. I wanted to be a nurse. He wanted to become rich, quickly. When hurricane Wilma hit, he insisted we leave in a hurry. Unfortunately, I was very sick at the time.” Her eyes filled with tears at the painful memories. “I asked him to take me to a doctor. He refused, claiming he couldn’t do it during a hurricane. Maybe he was right, but I felt I needed a doctor and left him. I walked out into the storm.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried to suppress her sobs. “The police took me to the closest clinic where the doctors treated me.”
She covered her face with her hands, struggling to calm down. Rafael brought her a glass of water.
“What’s his name?”
“Julio Gomez.”
“Did you go back to your house?”
“No. The insurance gave me a good sum to repair it. I didn’t. I sold the house as is, bought a car, moved to the cheap apartment, and saved the rest. Not much.”
“What about him?”
“He came back two years later after I’d graduated and had started working. He stayed for a month, then left with my savings. That’s when I decided not to keep anything of value in the apartment. He kept coming back now and then for a few months. When I refused to sleep with him, he got rough. I was terrified, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I threatened to kill him if he ever showed up again.”
“Bluffing can be dangerous.”
“I wasn’t bluffing. I had no one to rely on but myself. I took flying lessons to conquer my fear. Now, I have my gun and my knife to keep him away.”
Rafael’s eyes bulged, and he bounced out of his chair. “Your what?”
“When I pointed a gun at his naked balls, he grabbed his clothes and ran away, and never came back. Unfortunately, he considered me his property. He must have put that tracker on my phone the last time he visited.”
“Oh God, where are your gun and knife?”
“In the safe. For years, I kept them under my pillow at night, and during the day in my bra and my shorts when walking around the building.”
Rafael’s jaw sagged.
