The call came late at night. Ricardo dressed in a hurry, picked up his keys and drove like a maniac to the hospital. He experienced so many unfinished thoughts at once, his mind could as well have been blank.
He found Josh and Nicolau pacing in the waiting room with Monica, Nicolau’s pregnant wife, slumped in a corner chair, silent tears tracking down her red and swollen eyes. Nelson was nowhere in sight, but he wouldn’t be far.
“What happened?” Ricardo asked, looking from one grim face to the next, trying to find his answer before anyone gave it.
“He overdosed again,” Nicolau said, his voice bleak.
Ricardo swallowed the lump in his throat. “Is he—is he—” Dead? But he didn’t say that word. To say it meant it was real.
Dead“We don’t know yet,” Josh murmured.
“He was alive when they wh
