Chapter 2.

He who plays with fire gets burned…

It was early in the morning when Captain Foster was watching the news of the day and the weather forecast for the week, when the news came out that the Casanova family and the Bardot family were in mourning after having lost in a violent confrontation Victor Casanova and Esther Casanova, brothers and sisters-in-law of August Casanova who is the husband of Nathalie Bardot, and who were not in the country at the time of the events, but who deeply felt the loss of the couple, and much more of their son, Thiago Casanova, who had died kidnapped and tortured by a totally unknown perpetrator.

And in the confrontation against the perpetrators of the couple's death, the life of the famous and respected child psychiatrist Nathan Tress was claimed.

The authorities are working hard to find the perpetrators of such an atrocious crime as soon as possible. May their souls rest in Paradise…

At the news, the captain finished his coffee and sighed and said: Is this a sign and ¿are they telling me indirectly that the Bardots are behind all this, ¿Why is it that just when I am thinking of exposing Patrick Tempus this comes to me and I can remember that his lawyer in the trial happens to be Mrs. Nathalie Bardot, who is married to August Casanova, brother of the victim…?  

Hmm, coincidences do not exist and if I heard this news at this time it is because I am on the right path. 

Oh father it seems that luck is not on your side this time, the cards are dealt, but they are all in my favor, I am going to discover you and if you fall by your side other bigger fish will fall too!!!... What an exciting morning… and to think that I did not want to get up… Ironies of life…

After spending a morning checking some documents and trying to tie up some loose ends and those that could lead to Patrick Tempus' guilt, he came to the conclusion that the best thing for him at this moment was to go out for a walk for a while, because if he continued investigating and gathering evidence he would end up going crazy.

So, while he went out for a walk he thanked God for the sun that could warm his body and his thoughts; and he constantly asked that his wife's memory not go unpunished and that the guilty ones could be punished, then without wanting to do so he noticed that he was walking towards Patrick Tempus' properties as if something inside him could say that there was a very well kept secret there, but when he stopped and saw the property from afar, he noticed how empty and desolate that property looked, as if there were no children or a woman there, in fact not even a man seemed to be inside, which amazed him because he remembered that Patrick had children and a visually impaired girlfriend, but ¿how was it possible that in such a large property and with so many internal and external gardens not even a radio could be heard making it seem more like an abandoned and cursed property?

Then, suddenly he heard the noises of a car and noticed that it was a man as big as Patrick, but a little more serious and with an almost palpable mystery, his car had a license plate cover which indicated that he was a very respected person or perhaps very dangerous…

 When that man got out of the car he noticed his strong build, as big as that of any rugby player; the man seemed to be familiar with the property... immediately, the captain noticed that That man seemed like a gentleman because he went to the passenger door and opened it for a young woman to get out, but Foster detailed the woman well and could almost swear that the woman was the female version of Patrick, but that couldn't be true because Patrick's sister had disappeared when she was 5 years old and she had been declared dead for more than 20 years due to lack of evidence, but ¿who was that couple that was almost in front of him? ¿What mystery could be hidden between heaven and earth that the man couldn't discover? 

Then the main door opened and there was Patrick, fraternally receiving the gentleman and very familiar with the woman, as if he knew who they were, then noticing that attitude he saw that four small and very beautiful lice fluttered between the legs of the three adults, it could be seen that their girls were happy for the visit, then the captain began to believe that the house had a sound insulator and that's why it seemed almost from beyond the grave, since being close only the wind could be heard...

Keeping that in mind, the captain only promised himself to remember the couple's faces in detail, because something inside him told him that many of his unknowns could be revealed through them, taking into account that Patrick Tempus was not a man you knew because he invited you to his house, that already said a lot about the degree of trust he probably maintained with the couple, because even his children looked happy to receive them, and for children who practically live in anonymity, that is very unusual behavior.

But leaving aside the fact of the couple, their children looked older, they were very well formed for their age, was Patrick really a good father for those children or was it just a facade and the children did not belong to him.

Those crazy ideas fluttered in Captain Foster's mind as he looked hungrily at the entrance of Patrick's house like a lion stalking its prey.

After returning home, he quickly wrote down the physical description of that woman and also that of the man who had visited Patrick.

He wrote about the closeness of Patrick's children with these people, perhaps that couple knew much more than they let on and only perhaps Patrick Tempus would pay for his sins…

Rewinding over and over the tapes that he had previously found from the hands of that disgusting old man who had humiliated him more than a year ago, just remembering it made him feel nauseous, but it was all for a greater good: his wife deserved a Christian burial just as those women who had lost their lives or who were still kidnapped somewhere deserved it… 

Even in that state he wondered if all this was just created by his imagination and he was suffering from senile paranoia and that was why he was misjudging a doctor trying to tarnish his reputation; or if on the contrary, he was being a silent vigilante.

That invaded his mind as he swore he could see his wife walking around the house and when he approached her to hug her, it was just an illusion, she wasn't there so he promised himself not to run into the arms of a ghost again unless he wanted to be possessed.

He couldn't lose his mind right now, paranoia couldn't beat his madness, he just had to get out of the way and then he would find the light at the end of the tunnel, but every time he thought about the light at the end of the tunnel he could only see Patrick Tempus, it was as if his subconscious was affirming something he already knew, but he didn't want to get his hopes up for the moment.

So when night fell, the cold seeped through his skin and he swore he saw all the lovers he’d ever had in his life gathered around him with their tits out, almost as if they were eager to have sex at that moment, but in his daydreaming he noticed that they were all saying the same thing: those women were mentioning a particular name, that of a woman and it was then that he realized that he had to make a visit to the mental hospital and this time it wasn’t to treat his paranoia, but on the contrary it was to seek answers from someone who seemed to have what he wanted, being able to understand what name he should look for: Olive Rodriguez… 

He quickly woke up and those ghosts from his past seemed to leave the room immediately…