Stranger in my Bed [ Rio ]

Dirty

Who in their right mind could fall asleep after hearing that blood curdling scream?

I swear, I tossed and turned so much that night, I was surprised I had any padding left on the mattress.

As soon as the sun came up, I dragged my tired ass out of bed and stalked over to the bathroom. Letting the cold water rain down my body, I pressed my head against the tile.

I wasn't sure if my head was pounding due to the lack of sleep or everything that had transpired in the past 24 hours. 

It felt like a cruel, never-ending loop, my life. The way I attracted all this chaos.

I missed my flat.

I missed New York.

Hell, I even missed Ashley.

But most of all, I missed Jasmine.

I hadn't spoken to my sister in over 6 months.

I felt like a piece of shit.

She probably thought I was dead in a ditch somewhere. 

Or maybe she moved on and gave up on me.

Hell, who could blame her.

Shutting off the water, I began to dry off my body with one of the soft white cotton towels I had in the bathroom. The maid service always brought them in every morning.

The maid service.

I almost forgot.

I needed to talk to her. Maybe she was just confused.

Sure, I'm confused about a rich American who knocked her up.

Walking into the room barefoot with water dripping down my legs, I quickly pulled a simple white dress out of the closet and slipped it on with a pair of white panties.  

Sliding on my pair of black Converse, I quickly made it out of the room, reaching the stairwell, and took 2 to 3 steps at a time.

I wanted to talk to her before James could.  I was afraid he would make her say things that were untrue just to save face.

Once I hit the bottom, a sign hung on the door stating hotel staff only, I walked through the door just to find the entire staff surrounding the large plasma TV that was mounted on the wall.

The news was on and in big flashing letters, you could see the name of the city and behind it, 2 women murdered. I stopped dead in my tracks.

A gruesome image of two women cut into pieces and dumped in a back alley popped up. They attempted to blur the image out, but you could see what it was. The location where they were found was only a few blocks away from the hotel. 

The staff whispered to each other in Spanish, and a couple of the women were silently praying under their breath. 

Being the horrible person I was, I just knew we had to get ahead of the publicity to save the hotel. Cops would be coming around here asking questions and, just by appearance having the policy on property, would scare the guest from returning.

Without drawing any attention to myself, I slipped out of the room and made my way upstairs to the lobby. Opening the lobby door, I was about to step out, but one of the elderly house keepers was standing in the doorway.

Before I could ask her to move, I saw her eyes were trained on the front door, where 4 policemen stood talking to James. Slowly, she turned to face me with tears in her eyes. 

"Que paso?" Asking her what happened in my broken spanish.

"La policia encontraron a Julia y Maria, sus cuerpos mutilados."