Herrera remained vigilant at her shy companion’s side. Anthony’s plate was still full of canapes, he had barely tried any during their exchange of banal phrases. She apologized and left to find her colleague, who was returning from his incursion. He whispered in her ear:
“Something odd is going on here, this doesn’t make any sense”, and he added, addressing those who were listening outside, “commissioner? I think this is a waste of time and, besides, we don’t even know what we’re looking for”.
At that very moment, a drone appeared hovering above the pool. The sound and the blue lights announced its presence at the mansion’s zenith. Juno and Esther pointed at it and everyone started clapping with excitement. The music stopped.
A waiter handed Juno a microphone.
“Hello everyone! Thank you for being here with us on the truly magical night of our engagement party…”
All the guests clapped.
Álvaro looked puzzled at Cristina.
“We’ve come to a fucking engagement party?”
Juno continued:
“Esther and I thank you all for your support and have prepared a little surprise in return”, he said, pointing at the drone. “Here it is… Synchro’s exclusive first shipment. Enjoy!”
People started clapping even harder, as if the Rolling Stones had just turned up on stage.
“Synchro? What the hell is Synchro?” asked Guzmán.
“It’s a new technology that changes people’s emotions”, said TJ into the earpiece. “I read about it in a few trend pages. They say it’s the shit”.
“I think this is shit; we aren’t going to stay at a spoilt brat’s wedding. Permission to leave”.
“Denied. We are waiting for something”, ordered commissioner García.
Juno kissed Esther and shook hands with his future father in law. Ramona pressed the screen of her phone and left it on the grass. A circle formed around as if it was a religious ceremony. The drone descended and landed on the blonde woman’s smartphone. It made contact with the phone and at that same instant deposited a black box on the ground. The guests continued clapping hard. Ramona walked back to the spot and took the box; then, she started offering black balls to the people around her.
“What do we do?” asked Álvaro without comprehending what was going on.
“The drone is leaving!” added Cristina, taking out the gun she had hidden in the inside of her thighs.
Ramona could have been a priest. They were all approaching her in search of a black ball that would change their emotions for a while, exactly like a drug.
The drone flew upwards and Cristina, in the middle of a dense fog pointed at the flying object. She shot three times; there were confused shouts and the machine with the helixes fell into the pool.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Guzmán tried holding Cristina.
With the loud sound of the shots came a moment of confusion. Ramona stopped giving away the balls; Cristina advanced around the edge of the pool towards the blonde woman. Ramona drew out her own gun and fired at the armed policewoman who was walking menacingly towards her. The bullet got Cristina in the abdomen and the impact threw her back into the water. Guzmán saw his colleague fall in the pool next to the drone that was starting to sink, and jumped in. The water was already turning red.
The police cars hurried at top speed in the mansion’s direction. They set off the sirens and the stroboscopic lights threw beams of red and blue into the night.
“Ambulance! Agent shot! 9-85!” Guzmán swam to where Cristina was floating. “9-85! Cristina has fallen!”
Ramona aimed at him from the edge of the pool.
“Police, Police!” he shouted from the water when he saw the woman’s gun pointing at him.
Cristina Herrera was floating with her eyes wide open; she felt the impact of the bullet bellow her chest and knew that she was dying. She looked down; Lucas was there, waiting for her in the depths of that mass of water. The child stretched his hand out to reach her. Cristina breathed slowly and placidly; a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. She saw the fog clearing up and the clouds opened to a starred sky. She also felt Guzmán at her side and heard him shout, not at her, but at the blonde model that had shot her, she could not catch the words. She just floated, lulled by the water. She was leaving to the world of the dead and would never return. Lucas pulled her foot from below.
Lucas, her son, was waiting for her. Laura, her friend, would receive her. She was on her way.
Then she felt that they were pulling her upwards but she was still floating. Lucas waited for her in the depths of the pool. They were moving her slowly and she started counting the last seconds of her life: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
“Hello, death” she whispered.
“Cristina!... Cristina!” Álvaro Guzmán was shouting in despair, holding his colleague’s head to keep it out of the water. “Wait, hold on, the ambulance is on its way… hold on a little longer, Cristina”.
The policeman was trying to pull her to the edge of the pool and take her out, but he felt some sort of resistance, as if something or someone was holding her from the depths and pulled her down.
Ramona kept pointing at him from the edge of the pool. An assault police brigade entered the garden and aimed their firearms at the blonde woman. Slowly, she left her weapon on the ground and dropped to her knees, hands behind her neck.
The guests were still looking around in shock and confusion at everything that was going on. Juno watched the situation and walked to where attorney Aster stood, surrounded by lawyers.
Guzmán held onto the pool’s ledge, exhausted; an assault policeman held Cristina by the shoulders and pulled her out of the water, then, he laid her on the grass and placing an index finger on his colleague’s neck, checked her pulse on the aorta. She was still alive.
A medical team hurried into the garden with a stretcher. In less than a minute, Cristina Herrera would be inside the ambulance, speeding desperately to its destination; two paramedics attended her bullet injury to stabilize her vital signs. Her life was slipping away through a bullet’s hole.
Sat at the edge of the pool, Álvaro kept his eyes on the water where the blood was slowly dissolving; the drone rested at the bottom, dark, like a satiated shark. He was breathing quickly, his lungs struggling for oxygen; a consequence of his smoking habit.
Guzmán relived the moment in which he had left Cristina to follow the owner of the ostentatious house. His mind went back to the instant in which he entered the mansion, when he left his colleague alone. He returned to the past.
Guzmán had walked into a room facing the garden where a large group of people gathered in a circle around Don Nassar, then, he went down a corridor from where he could hear animation and laughter. It was empty. He almost bumped into two waiters carrying lobster canapes. He walked on, looking at both sides; further down, he opened a door. It was the bathroom; two middle aged men dressed in tuxedos were handling a few grams of cocaine on a marble
