Visiting hours

   The large male nurse walked as if it was the most normal place in the world. Esther followed closely, looking sometimes at the windows to sea the weather outside but also to the side, where she could see some other windows but these gave views into the room of several of the residents of the psychiatric hospital. Some of them were apparently silent but when she passed other rooms, it was easy to hear strange sounds like bumping or slapping or strange mouth noises.

 The weather outside had turned worse in the last few minutes. The sky had been dark all day but the first drops of rain had finally begun to drop. Esther thought it was maybe the best weather for such a day, for such a visit. The reached another gate, where she had to show some ID and a guard checked her for anything that couldn’t be allowed inside. She didn’t really know what those objects were, but she didn’t mind at all.

 Her purse had stayed behind, at the first gate. Also her car keys, her house keys, her cellphone and a knitting kit she carried everywhere because it made her feel a lot calmer. The only thing she was able to carry inside was a plastic bag with some chocolate bars inside as well as banana muffins and a bottle of iced tea. They had wanted to open the bottles to check it was really iced tea, but an officer had stated she trusted Esther. Apparently she understood what a mother would feel in such a circumstance.

 When they were done checking her bag again, they walked through another corridor but this one was short and ended up in a large room that was filled with people. The place was very warm and she noticed it was because of the amount of people there. Immediately, she could tell all of them were patients of the hospital. Some of them were blankly staring at nothing in particular. Others were playing by themselves or watching the TV, where a man was explaining to the audience how butterflies mated.

 The male nurse told Esther to wait inside a small room besides the recreation area. It was a small space with a table and two chairs. She sat down in one of the chairs and realized the table had two metallic hooks of some kind, small, possibly to tied down the patients in order for them no to attack or anything. She thought that was awful and decided not to think about it because the image in her mind was horrible.

 The room also had a small window and she decided to stand up, leaving the bag on the table, in order to look out the window and not think about the horrible things that maybe happened in that room, or for the matter, in that hospital. She already felt guilty and imagining situations she didn’t know about, was really not necessary.

 Her son entered the room, followed by the male nurse. She turned around when she heard his voice saying “Mama”. Esther walked to him and huge him as strong as she could and he did the same. They hadn’t seen each other in two weeks, since he had been interned in the hospital by order of a court that had decided that Kevin, Esther’s son, had to undergo psychiatric evaluation and, if necessary, rehabilitation in a psychiatric facility. And that was exactly what had happened.

 They let go of each other and sat down in the two chairs. The male nurse stayed there, by the door, leaning against the wall and pretending he wasn’t hearing anything but it was obvious he was. He had no option. Nevertheless, he had done exactly that for so many years already, that he had learned when he had to be listening and when he could just wander into his brain and imagine what he was going to have for dinner at home or what kind of car he wanted to have.

 Esther told Kevin his hands were very cold and asked him if he was eating properly. The boy, around seventeen years old, told her the food there was pretty okay and that she shouldn’t worry about it. She didn’t really listened to him. She just turned her bag upside down and showed her son all the treats she had brought him. Esther smiled to Kevin and he smiled back but it was obvious he was sad or at least not as happy as she was pretending to be.

 They decided to eat the big banana muffins first and the nurse’s stomach growled because of the delicious smell. Esther offered him a bite but he just raised his hand and moved his face, so she didn’t insisted. She asked Kevin if everything was okay with him, if he felt good there, if there was anything he wanted to tell her about it all. He took his time to answer, preferring to eat his banana muffin, which had been his favorite since he was very little.

 Kevin said to her mother that everyone in the hospital was very nice and that the only bad thing so far was that his room was a bit cold but he slept well with some two blankets and a thick quilt of top of them. She said she could bring more if he wanted it but he just said no and went on to finish his muffin. She ate too but she was more worried about her son. She didn’t know what to ask or how to ask.

 But she had to. She had no choice but ask things. Esther’s next question was about the medication they were giving him. Kevin told her he took a couple of pills everyday to control his anxiety issues and that he took others for physical problems like his blood pressure and such, because it was always very elevated. She nodded when he said that, as she tried to build in her head what that meant for him. Was he getting worse or better?

 Kevin took the chocolate bar next and smiled. It was a weird smile, as he didn’t even know how to do it. And it lasted only a few seconds. He felt the deep scent of the chocolate and took a bite. It was also filled with oranges, which he loved. He thanked his mother and kept eating it, until he reached half of the bar. His mother told him he could have some for later but then he looked at her and, out of the blue, laughed at her. His eyes appeared to transform and his laugh was so exaggerated, she felt bad to say what she had said.

 The male nurse looked at Kevin first and then stated that the patients couldn’t keep anything from the outside in their rooms, no even food. Kevin pointed at the nurse and nodded, indicating he was telling the truth. He told his mother that she should have known that, if she had come earlier to visit him. Esther felt hurt by that but explained to him that they wouldn’t let her in because his treatment had not being properly initiated so they didn’t want her to spoil it.

 Kevin just nodded and it was obvious he didn’t care one bit about what his mother was saying. He didn’t believe her and told her that the first week had been horrible, with all the people there crazier than anyone else in the world and the doctors pinching and poking and asking and everything going on and on every single day. He felt tired every night and in the morning it would begin again and the cycle would repeat, of course, with the horrible therapy that he went through.

 Esther was horrified because he had transformed before her very eyes. He asked her if she knew what the therapy was all about. Before she could deny that she knew, he explained to her that they put him on a chair, with restraints, and made him answers questions and look at pictures and videos and tried to understand what hade being going on at the time he had killed the children in playground. They wanted to know why he had killed three of them.

 The nurse got nearer but didn’t intervene. This time, he was listening carefully. Esther was on the edge of tears, trying to ask for forgiveness about him being there and also asking her son not to say anything else about he did.

 And then he punched the table and told her that was him that’s who he really was and that she had to accept that she had a son who was a murderer and that had enjoyed it. He was hysteric, not laughing or crying, just yelling to make his point be seen. Kevin told his mother that even now, he thought back about it all and even then he enjoyed it. He had taken pleasure out of it and he had no remorse.

 He stood up fast and the nurse was going to grab him but he had no need to do that, as Kevin went through the door by himself, and on to his room. The nurse told Esther to go back to the gate and tell the guard there that her visit was over. But when the nurse went away, she couldn’t stand up. She looked at the food there on the table and then repeated her son’s words in her brain and she just couldn’t understand, she couldn’t.

 What had ever happened to her baby boy?

Torn

   I just kept running, until I woke up and realized there was nothing to run away from. I was sweating a bit and breathing heavily, as if I had really been running on the street. I just sat down on my bed and tried to calm down. There was nothing more that I could do than calm down and try to sleep again. After all, I had woken up at five in the morning and it was a Saturday. I decided to go to the kitchen, have some orange juice and then go back to my bed and lay there until sleep appeared again. To be honest, I was a bit scared of dreaming all of that again but I knew that was very unlikely. When I got sleepy again, I just covered myself entirely with the sheets and the bedspread. I didn’t dream a thing and woke up some four hours after, not really rested but at least calmed.

 That day, I decided to visit my family’s grave in the cemetery. I don’t know why, but I needed to do that. Somehow, I thought those awful dreams had come again only because my family was resentful of me not tending to them properly, not even thinking about them or putting some flowers on their graves. SO that was exactly what I did. I bought the most beautiful little bouquets and put them on their graves. I didn’t pray, I never did, but instead tried to apologize to them because I had been such a bad son. I knew coming to a cemetery didn’t really change anything, but I knew that I had left my family to one side, as if they had never existed. I cried a bit while asking for forgiveness and it was then that she appeared.

 It sounds insane but she was the woman of my dreams. And by that I mean she’s the one that appears there every time. I didn’t remember if she had a name in my dreams but once I saw her straight into the eyes, I realized she knew exactly whom I was and was there to talk to me. However, we just looked at each other as if talking or moving was the stupidest thing we could ever do. But finally, it was me who asked her what she was doing there, why she had come. The woman seemed confused at first, but then realized something and a smile appeared on her lips. She just said “I’ll be waiting in the car” and turned around. Ten minutes later, after saying goodbye to my parents, I was walking towards a car I knew to be hers, even if I hadn’t see it before.

 I opened the passenger door and sat down. I closed the door and she started the engine. She told me my car would be at my home in no time, but I didn’t care because I was beginning to fell like in my dream. Not as scared but I knew something was coming and I had to be calm in order to get to the bottom of everything. The woman drove the car out of the city and after an hour we had traveled several kilometers. We finally arrived to a small, quiet town, where se parked the car in the main square and told me to follow her, once again. We walked two blocks and then we entered a house.

 The house was not abandoned or anything. There was a family watching TV there but they seemed to ignore us, or something stranger… We crossed the house to the other side, where we got to a different street. There, the woman waited for a moment and hen opened another door I hadn’t even seen. I followed her and realized it was the same place where I had been tortured in my dreams.  I turned around to escape but the door was locked. She had sat down on a very old chair and seemed to be in deep thinking about who knows what. It didn’t seem that the torture would continue but, still, I was very nervous and had no intention of staying there more than was necessary. I wondered who she was and why I was following her like a mad man but felt the answers would not come easily.

 She finally seemed to remember where she was and walked towards me. She got closer, as if she want to kiss me but in reality she just checked my neck. Then, I felt a very horrible pain in the neck, where she had touched, falling to the ground as if was much more pain than I could resist standing up. Somehow, it felt like I had blood all over my hands and neck but when the pain passed, I realized there was nothing there, I was clean. I could see that she was now by a table, checking something that was apparently small in size. I had a thought of killing her and ending all of this in a single moment but then I realized I had nothing to do it with. Not a knife or even a good piece of wood.

 The woman turned around and indicated me to come to her side. I complied, but I really didn’t trust her and I did it even less now that she had taken something from me. That something was the thing she had been checking on the table, a small object shaped like a cylinder. Actually, it was bigger than what I felt in my dreams and the moment she had taken it out. And why wasn’t there any blood if that thing had been inside of me? I realized then that I had been left alone, that the woman was nowhere to be seen. I ran to the door and realized it was still locked, putting a very string barrier between me and everything outside. I wanted to run away, to just stop reliving that stupid dream but I couldn’t, somehow it was all real.

 I checked the object on my hand and felt something strange, as if I knew what it was used for. My gut told me it was some kind of implant to follow me, to make sure I did whatever the person that had put that on me wanted me to do. But why would I be of anyone’s interest? I was a failed artist that survived working the most menial job in a bank where, every single day, I just wanted to kill myself or at least kill several other people. Why would anyone be interested in following me or doing anything to my life or my body? Weren’t there others that were at least much more interesting in any aspect?

 The woman came back but this time she didn’t lock the door. She told me she had been checking on the object with people she knew and realized it was an old implant that was no longer functioning on the moment of extraction. She also said that, while it had probably some effect on my behavior for the last few years, it had stopped whatever it was it was meant to do several years ago. But that was even stranger because why would someone put an implant on a young person that had nothing to gain or loose form life? Why where they monitoring me? And who were they?  But she didn’t have those answers, she said she only tracked to device and found me and just needed to know which ones were still active and which ones weren’t.

 Apparently, although she didn’t say it in full words, she was doing all of this out of guilt. She had worked with the creators of the devices and now felt it was her moral obligation to remove them all; before they had any serious consequences on the people they had been implanted in. It was pretty alarming, but during all that time she was talking, explaining her reasons and trying for me to understand who she was and what she had been doing, I just wanted to kill her. It was a feeling I had never felt before, like an urge but it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. I wanted to feel her neck broken in my hands and the taste of her blood. And then, I noticed she had seen it in me.

 Too late. I launched myself at her and tried to strangle her with my own two hands. I pressed hard, feeling her fighting against my superior strength and superior mind. Her life was running out and I smiled because that’s what I wanted. I not just her but everyone else too. I realized my goal was to kill every single person in the world and that, if I wanted to do it, I could do it. I smile even more and when she stopped breathing, I laughed and felt like I was in the happiest place in the world. I left her lifeless body on the floor and the smiled all around me, realizing my poor and might and thinking of how much more I could do for my needs and for me. The world was absolutely mine.

 I got out of the house and walked up the street, now in the dark as the night had fallen during my stay in that awful place. I kept smiling for some more until I got a bullet straight between my eyes and fell to the ground. I died instantly but the fun part was that I hadn’t died. Somewhere far away, I woke up again and realized something worse had been done to me. Not only that device had turned me into a murder, it wasn’t a piece of metal to know where I was but whom I was. The one that died was just a clone that had gone insane and the real me… Well, I still don’t know where I am. But I’m scared of what might come.

Negligence

   As soon as the water touched her skin, the stains of dirt and blood began to fall to the shower floor and they would disappear down the drain. She was trembling a bit still, shocked by what had happened earlier. She tried to clean herself with soap, distracting her from what she had in mind, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about it. She made the flow of water to run faster, for more water to fall on her. Her unconscious wanted to drown her, feeling that would be the only way they could keep on living. But of course, she didn’t drown in her shower. She just stayed there for several minutes, as if she needed to clean more from her body that only the dirt and the blood. When she finally closed the water, she stayed there against the wall, incapable of crying, incapable of feeling anything.

 The rest of that day she spent it home. She had no need or wanted to parade herself around town, not after what had happened. The images of what had happened invaded her mind every few seconds, and she wondered if she would ever feel safe and sane again. She lay in her bed hours and hours, without eating or drinking anything. Her phone rang several times as well as her cellphone, but she just didn’t answer. She knew it was office related and she hated to be disturbed by anything related to it on weekends, even in better days for her. Or maybe it was her parents that had the tradition of calling her every Sunday afternoon because they knew it was the slowest and most boring day for her in the week.

 When the phone rang again, she was tempted to grab it but finally decided against it. Talking may have resulted in awkward reactions, maybe then she would be able to cry or scream and it just wouldn’t be appropriate, as too many things would have to be explained. Instead, she decided to head to the kitchen and have some water. She felt dry and a bit dizzy but knew that she couldn’t hold any food. She went to the bathroom and tried to vomit but that was a failure. She just returned to bed and lay there for the rest of the day, in silence, without a single person to help her understand what was going to happen to her. Because the truth was that she was scared for her life, as she felt the every single thing had changed.

 She hated to admit it, but she did feel different. Later that day, she went to the bathroom and spent several minutes looking at her reflection in the mirror. She moved, looking at her every feature. And as much as she thought that the change had been physical too, she had no way to prove that. She looked exactly the same, maybe a little but paler but no other difference besides that. The poor woman passed her hands over her face several times, as if trying to wake up fro ma bad dream, but she didn’t wake up. Instead, she decided to go back asleep, something that scared her immensely as she had no wish of having nightmares.

 The following day, she woke up an hour early, with big bags under her eyes. She showered, put on her work clothes and then had a big breakfast with toast, scrambled eggs, a sausage and some orange juice. She was starving from the day before. It was then that she realized that wanting to be dead didn’t help anyone at all, less of all her. She had to keep on going and just live like any other person. What she had done had been definitive, but s many had done it before her and the world was not going to end because of it. As she had breakfast, she watched the news on her TV but nothing interesting had happened the day before or that morning, at least as far as the televisions news world was concerned. When finished, she just grabbed her coat and left.

 Some forty-five minutes later, she was arriving at her desk, leaving her coat on a hanger on one of the sides of her cubicle. The morning was cold and everyone had decided to put on their coats back on, even going as far as putting on scarves or gloves. The morning went on without a single accident or incident. There was always someone complaining about the low amount of paper in the copy machine or someone else commenting on the weather, but that day everyone seemed to be too cold to even speak as much as they normally did. When she decided to grab a cup of coffee, as she always did, she realized that something was happening on the ground floor. She could see people gathering from the twenty-second floor, where she was standing.

 Then, a couple of police patrols arrived and finally an ambulance. Maybe someone had fainted or had been… Yes, one of the paramedics rushed out of the ambulance as soon as his vehicle had stopped. The police were putting the yellow ribbon around the place to stop the people from coming in. In the coffee room, other people had arrived and were looking exactly at what she was looking at. One of them finally said “Oh my god, it’s a body!” and she realized that was it. There was a person down there, probably dead. Maybe he or she had jumped from one of the many floors of the tower or maybe something else had happened. Any way, their supervisor came and asked them all to go back to their desks.

 At lunch, everyone wanted to know what had happened and the most skilled people with gossip knew everything about it within a couple of minutes of being down there talking to other people that loved to gossip. Apparently, the one who had jumped had been a woman, by the name of Marcela Jones. Marcela worked in the twentieth floor, in a company that had something to do with electronics. The point was, she had just run for the window and fell to her death. So it was a suicide and as our woman heard this, she felt sick to her stomach and had to run to the toiled. For the rest of the workday, she felt very sick.

 She felt better once the day was over and she was on a bus home. But maybe the word wasn’t better, but less likely to do the same thing that Marcela had done. It was crazy but she had seen that woman’s face once that week and it hadn’t been at work. It had been in another place, one that she was trying to forget but that kept coming back to her mind. Worried by these visions, she remained in her room all night, again without eating. She was thinking about what had happened today and what had happened over the weekend. The two had to be related, especially after she had seen the news and realized the state of Marcela’s body. She felt like shit, thinking and thinking without really achieving anything. She felt guilty and sick to her stomach.

 But by the following morning, she knew what she had to do and it was maybe the toughest decision she had ever taken. Instead of leaving for her work, she decided to go to the nearest police station. There, she asked for someone to listen to her testimony, as she wanted to confess a crime she had committed. She felt awful, waiting for an agent to come to talk to her. She gone to the police station by her work, as they knew more about Marcela’s death that anyone else. Finally, a detective asked her to follow him to an interrogation room and then he asked if she could state her name and profession for the record.

 Her name was Linda Bloom and she worked as business consultant in the biggest firm in the city. She wanted to confess that on the night of the previous Saturday, she had assassinated a man, whom she blamed for the suicide of Marcela Jones. The detective was surprised but the first thing that he asked was about the relation between her actions and Marcela. Linda explained that Stuart Carter, the man she had killed, had brutally assaulted several women for the last few months in the city. She knew this because she had managed to escape and, after killing him with a hammer, she had seen some pictures in his house, from where she recognized Marcela’s face. The officer asked her for the address of the house where she had killed Carter and left her there.

 Hours later he came back, and she was officially arrested. They had found the body where she had told them that they would find it and also the albums of pictures the man took of the women he had apparently assaulted. They had no proof of this just then, but with time they would find out that the man was a monster and that the only person that ever stood in his way was Linda. She had been able to grab the hammer after she escaped his “studio” and just hit him in the head with it several times. She did it until he stopped moving and then just ran out, covered in blood and filth from the place they were in.

 Linda had to wait for a trial until all the evidence was gathered and, by the time they decided to convict her, at least six months had already passed. Although it was revealed that she was going to be the man’s last victim, she had failed to report the murder sooner and had neglected to tell the police about the pictures she had seen, which could have prevented Marcela’s death. Linda was condemned to five years in prison and that time was enough to make her loose all her will to live. She died behind bars only a year after entering the penitentiary.

Anna's diet

   The smell of chocolate filled the air, liquid chocolate being heated in large tanks. Some of them also had the smell of oranges, others smelled of strawberries. In the factory, they also created various candy and even flavored soft drinks. Temco was one of the largest companies in the country and it only dedicated itself to sugar-based goods. The amount of it that they used in a year, was worth a good contract and that’s why Anna was there, touring the facilities. She wasn’t especially fond of sweets. To be honest, she was one of those people that avoided eating many of the most delicious things. Some called it taking care of herself; others thought it was self-deprivation.

In any case, Anna represented a sugar company that had the capacity to provide several more tons of the precious good in order for Temco to produce more and even new products. Anna was a great saleswoman and the idea of growth always attracted people and companies that wanted to grow more and more. They signed the contract that same afternoon; after a nice lunch where they praised each other often and had no sugar at all. Anna liked to celebrate her contracts with champagne, which was the only time she allowed herself to step out of her strict diet. But maybe this time she shouldn’t have done. Somehow, the following morning when the maid entered the room to clean the bed, she found Anna still in the bathtub but dead.

 It was all over the news and many concluded, even before she got to the morgue, that she had fallen asleep and drowned in her own warm water and bubbles. But when the body was thoroughly examined, they found no traces of water in her lungs. Oddly enough, her hair was dry and she had only ingested the equivalent of one cup of champagne. They did a toxicology exam on the contents of her stomach and found out Anna had been poisoned. The police then took the case, as it had happened on one of the most prestigious hotels and soon Temco was also dragged into the storm by various reporters that had found out about everything before anyone else had.

 Detective Preston was in charge of the investigation and the first thing he did was talk to the CEO of Temco. After all, he had had dinner with Anna the same day she had died and maybe he could say something about her demeanor during that time. But the man did not remember anything strange, nothing that would be notable. He only said that he found strange she didn’t really ate much. She had ordered a salad with tuna and many vegetables but barely touched any of it. Preston visited the restaurant and talked to the young waiter who had served them. He also remembered the almost full plate of salad at the end of the dinner.

 Preston decided then to talk to the family. Surprisingly enough, Anna’s mother was not at all shocked or visibly sad by the death or her daughter. The father had died several years ago from a heart attack and the mother seemed to be focused on other things such as exercising, tanning her skin and also dieting. She told Preston that Anna’s diet was one much more strict than the one she was on. She was very adamant about respecting it and they had quarreled several times over it because the mother thought her ways were better. Besides that, she didn’t really provide anything new or insightful. It was obvious she didn’t really know her daughter besides those silly details. Maybe that’s why she looked absolutely oblivious to the whole thing, as if it had nothing to do with her.

 The detective then visited Anna’s house and checked every corner of the apartment. She had no alcohol and no drugs. The medicines she had were harmless and there was barely enough good food to feed an adult human being. The place was tastefully decorated and it was obvious Anna’s job was a very good one. Her clothes and shoes were pretty expensive and they filled a large room she had between the main bedroom and the bathroom. But nothing there could lead anywhere, neither to an accidental death nor to a reason to kill her. She did deal with multi-million contracts but she never handled actual money so why would anyone kill her? Maybe blackmail was the reason.

 Preston’s next stop was Anna’s office and it was the first time he met someone that apparently cared about the death of the woman. Her secretary sobbed and cried a bit as she opened the office were her boss had worked for almost three years now. She told Preston that Anna was not really a people person but that she wasn’t and ogre or anything. She saw herself as Anna’s friend and her only one as they had shared a couple of laughs and nice times, mainly attached to work. Preston realized that Linda, the secretary, was absolutely honest so he decided to ask her if Anna was dating someone. Linda only looked at Preston, which was enough of an answer for him.

 There was nothing interesting in the office. Many papers relating to contracts she had made with several countries around the country and the world. She was clearly very prolific and documented everything in detail. Linda gave him access to Anna’s personal agenda but there was nothing he didn’t know in there. He couldn’t discard the idea that maybe she did have a lover that no one knew about and that it had been him or her that had killed her. Maybe because of the money she had. Preston had seen her two bank accounts and it could be said that her mother was going to have a very nice old age with all that dough. It was amazing for Preston, who struggled every month, how much others made in a single month.

 It was better for the detective to head back home and just check every piece of the puzzle at the same time. He had checked with the hotel and they hadn’t found anything curious in her room besides her clothes and the bottle of champagne she had never finished. Besides, they confirmed that no one had entered Anna’s room besides her and the maid that discovered the body and there were cameras everywhere in the building so the theory of the lover had to be ruled out. Nevertheless, Preston still thought that people always have at least one private thing, something that they hide to others because it’s embarrassing or simply because they don’t want anyone to know everything about them.

 He went through Anna’s school records, as well as her college ones but nothing was found there either. She had been a great student, having failed no courses and always a teacher favorite. Someone might have not like that but it wasn’t enough to poison her. Anyway, Preston checked the hotel once more and everyone who had made any kind of contact with the bottle. But, as it turns out, the poison was in Anna’s stomach but not in the bottle of champagne. She had been poisoned earlier that day and died slowly at night in the bathtub. So Preston headed to Temco and talked to everyone who saw her and realized she had not accepted a single glass of water and they did offer Preston one at lest ten times. Anna was just a strange woman and it was becoming more and more difficult to understand her.

 Finally, Preston designed a theory were someone from a competitor company, also selling sugar, killed Anna to get to the contract first. Maybe this was all about the possibility of making tons of money. But as he looked for the other companies, no other was large enough to cover the amount of sugar that they had signed for in the contract. Temco was very big and at the moment, only Anna’s company was big enough to supply them what they needed. So competition was scarce, close to null. So Preston decided to check everything once more and then he realized he had forgotten about a key aspect of the night of the death: the dinner at a prestigious restaurant. He had interviewed the waiter but nothing more.

 He went there and asked for the tapes of the cameras that covered the area where Anna had dinner. He also asked them for the menu and everything they had to eat that night. He checked every ingredient in his computer, at home, until he realized about something: Anna’s salad had a very curious ingredient, a mushroom that grew wild in the vicinity and that people had started consuming only in the recent years. He looked it up and discovered that the mushroom was potentially dangerous if consumed with alcohol. And Anna had it with wine and then drank champagne in her hotel room. The forensic team agreed that, with her very poor diet, Anna’s stomach wasn’t able to process the mushrooms as most people could. They were only toxic if the gastric juiced were just weak enough, which was her case.

 So Anna had, in a strange way, killer herself. Preston was relieved to solve the case but just sad for someone who had taken such steps to be healthier and had ended up killing herself.