LITMIR.BIZ

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several times, but every time she ended hanging up, she was convinced that after what he spent the day before he had something else to think about. Moreover, knowing him she knew very well that at the latest she would see him the next day, so she forced herself not to disturb him. She also considered the idea of personally making another inspection, but she knew that it would only be a waste of time because Benelli was a pain in the ass, but he was also damn good. If there had been something interesting, he would not have missed it during the second inspection he was carrying out at that moment. She hoped with all her heart that the coroner was wrong and that from the toxicological examination it turned out that the two had been killed by a new synthetic drug, as unknown as deadly, because the situation that was occurring was too tangled and she feared that she would never manage to deal with it. A dull grumble from her stomach informed her that it was lunch time, but after having participated in the double autopsy eating was the last thing she wanted, at ninety-nine percent, she would vomit the meal. Experience taught her that if she kept the gas generated by the gastric juices for a while, they eventually would fill her stomach, giving her a temporary and illusory sense of satiety, so she opted to resist. She stopped the treadmill and worked out to stretch his muscles. The police station was practically deserted and so she decided that after a shower and a couple of phone calls she would take a nap. Collecting all the sheets, however, her eyes stopped again on the photo of the two luminescent bodies and an idea came in her mind. She pushed the intercom button. "Cindy?"

      "Yes, Sheriff ..."

      "Do me a favor, find me the chemist Larry and suggest him to show up here at fifteen o'clock with all the equipment. If he makes stories, tell him that it is a matter of life and death."

      "All right, Sheriff. Is there anything more?"

      "Yup. I won't be available for anyone until fourteen and fifty-nine, understood?"

      "All clear."

Episode II

      The plastic model

      James suddenly opened his eyes, as if waking up from anesthesia, and his thoughts immediately turned to his son. The pounding at the temples had become a real torture and he had the feeling that all that pressure would literally blow his skull at any moment. He looked at the clock and determined that, by the time he had passed out, a maximum of six or seven minutes could have passed; without thinking about anything he picked up the hoe and ran inside home. He entered cautiously, trying to catch any movement, but inside there was absolute silence. He relaxed thinking that perhaps he had imagined everything and looked into the room convinced that at once he would find his boy there, intent on finishing fitting his new model, and instead, he sank into terror. The model was broken up into a thousand pieces, many of which were completely broken as if someone had hit and trampled them several times, the seats were moved and many objects were scattered on the ground, and James hypothesized that there had been a struggle.

      "Harry? Harry?" He called softly a couple of times without getting an answer, and immediately heard some confused noises coming upstairs. In a moment his mind elaborated a terrifying theory: two days before someone had kidnapped his son, he had managed to escape but he had not spoken about it because he was too shocked, and now that bastard, whoever he was, had even the guts to enter in his house to try to kidnap him away again. After all, Harry told him earlier that he feared it would happen again. James threw away the hoe and went back into the kitchen, took his semiautomatic Colt, he kept hidden in the pantry, and threw himself up the stairs. As he reached the top floor he realized that noises were coming from Harry's bedroom, but now they had dimmed and no longer gave the impression that a scuffle was going on.

      "That's not ... it is not so ..." a whining voice was repeating it obsessively, that at first James could not recognize as belonging to his son. Then he forgot to be careful and ran into the room. The bedroom door was ajar, he peeked out, and the blood in his veins became thick and cold because it seemed that a hurricane had just passed in there, without stopping, he breathed deeply and broke in with his arm extended forward, he turned of three hundred and sixty degrees and discovered that Harry was alone. Still upside down, he put the gun down on a high shelf of the library and took a couple of deep breaths attempting to calm down himself, his son was standing in front of the giant picture of the Giza Plain and repeating always the same sentence.

      "Professor," said James, approaching him, but he ignored him as he did before in the garden.

      "Professor ..." he repeated in a louder voice without being able to earn the attention of his son, who seemed to be on a different planet again. Then he reached out his hand to his son's shoulder to shake him out of that sort of trance, but as he was about to touch him the boy turned and looked at him in a way he had never looked before.

      "Harry, you're scaring me ..." he murmured, taking a step back.

      "It's not like that!" He shouted angrily, then he got ahead giving his father a push that made him fall backward, and went to sit at his desk, where he started to look at the photos on some open books.

      James got up and took courage, grabbed the back of the swivel chair and turned it towards him.

      "Dad," Harry shouted in dismay.

      "If this is a joke, you scared the hell out of me!" James rebuked him. A moment later, a stabbing pain forced him to kneel on the floor, holding his temples. The boy looked at him as if he had not understood the meaning of his father's words, and then he frowned at the area where his father was in pain. James sat on the ground with his shoulders resting on the edge of the bed, closing his eyelids, because he could no longer even keep his eyes open.

      "Here it is," said Harry, kneeling in front of him.

      "... what ... what ..." James started to answer, but he couldn't finish the sentence because the pain was so intense that it even prevented him from speaking.

      "Your migraine," Harry replied seriously. He grabbed his father's wrists and gently stretched his arms at his sides, then brought his palms an inch away from his father's temples and began to whisper something.

      "Harry, what are you doing?" James tried to oppose, opening his eyes, but Harry ran his hand over his father's eyelids to close them again and began to murmur his litany again. After a few moments, James felt his head get very hot and the pain increased in intensity until it reached its climax, but only for a moment, immediately afterward he had the sensation that his son was literally pulling it out of his head. He relaxed and over two minutes he felt as good as he had never experienced before. After the treatment, Harry traced incomprehensible signs in the air with his hands, then returned to sit in his chair and made a happy expression for having managed to heal him.

      "How ... how did you do it?" James asked him when he finally found the courage. Harry answered him by spreading his arms and he shook his head, resigned himself to not understanding anything anymore.

      "Who was here with you?" He questioned then, pointing to the open window.

      "... no one, who should have been here?"

      "Are you sure?"

      "Yes ... I think so ... I don't ... I don't know, I don't remember."

      "Did you destroy the plastic?"

      Harry nodded, then put his hands behind his back and started looking at his shoes, waiting for the well-deserved reproach.

      "But why ..." his father simply asked him.

      "They tricked you, that model is fake. The Room of the Sun and that of Knowledge in the Sphinx are missing, and then the Chamber of the Zed is missing in the pyramid of Cheops »Harry explained to him leaving him for the umpteenth time with his mouth open. James appealed to all his inner strengths to be able to not lose patience, in a few hours his son had made him take a series of terrible fears as well as having destroyed a pair of two-hundred-dollar glasses and a three-hundred-dollar model without count the fishing rod still to be recovered. He waited a few moments; when he was sure he would be able to support the rest of the conversation without exploding, he asked him the question.

      "But how can you say that?"

      "I ... I know it and that's it!" Harry answered with a hint of presumption

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