Armando is a 35 year old man who lost his parents in a car accident. Because of the pain of this terrible event, he decides to go to Madrid to study for a Masters where he meets Elena. He falls in love with her and marries her at the end of his course. Armando has to return to Mexico to solve legal problems with his father’s company, finalise the inheritance, and sell his parents’ house. Elena does not like the idea of going to Mexico City because of all the negative things she has heard: attacks, rapes, murders etc. She was born in a little village in Spain and is a worrier. Nevertheless, she decides to go to Mexico with Armando.

The story begins when the couple have been living in Mexico City for almost three months where they are renting an apartment. Armando resolves the various issues and searches for a job because their savings are rapidly decreasing and Elena still does not have working papers. Things start to get complicated: two months pass in which they are unable to pay their rent; the legal problems and inheritance are not getting resolved; they are unable to sell the house and Armando is unable to find a job.

Until one day when things appear to get better: Armando finally gets a job and now they can pay off their overdue debts. One Sunday morning, Armando receives a phone call and he is so happy with the news he received that he tells Elena, who is in the bath, that he has to leave but will be back shortly.

However, Armando never returns. Elena waits for him all day. After the long and desperate wait, she falls asleep on the sofa. The following morning Elena is woken up by the owner of the apartment, who is already angry for the late payment of the rent. Elena tells her that she will pay right now and runs to the bank. But she finds that she is unable to withdraw money from the cash machine; remembers that a few days ago Armando had said to her that he was going to change their bank but she still had not signed for the new account and therefore did not have access to money. When she sees she cannot pay the rent because she doesn’t have any money, she returns to the apartment where the landlady tells her that she will have to leave, and that if she doesn’t she will call the police. This scares Elena a lot, so she packs her things and leaves.

Elena doesn’t know anyone in Mexico City except the friends of Armando and so she decides to go to one of their houses. Carlos, one of Armando’s friends, takes Elena into his house and he, with his wife Sandra, help Elena search for Armando. They look in hospitals and call the police, but there is no news about Armando anywhere. In the morning, some voices in the kitchen wake Elena up. She sneaks towards the kitchen and finds Sandra and another lady talking. Elena listened to the conversation and stayed hidden when she heard they were talking about Armando and hears something extremely unpleasant. Elena goes back to the bedroom, not knowing what to do. She’s very confused and hurt by what she’s just heard, and starts to pack up her things and leaves through the back door.

She drives along the roads of the city, going nowhere in specific, confused, still no knowing if it’s Armando who is being unfaithful or if something really bad has happened that has caused his disappearance. She doesn’t want to return to Carlos’s house but she has very little money. In the end she decides to stay in a hostel and sell the car to buy a plane ticket so she can return to Spain.

During the course of the story, Elena discovers different things that make her more suspicious of Armando. When she finally decides to sell the car, the situation she finds herself in, is extremely dodgy. The place and the time of day are high-risk and Elena gets assaulted, beaten up, and having all the money that was given to her for the car, taken from her.

After having always lived a good, civilised, calm and respectable life, Elena finds herself in a situation in which she never thought she would be in. Her life has become her worst nightmare. Everything that had ever given her fear was now presenting itself.

However, when all appears to be lost, a telephone call completely changes her life and she finally discovers the surprising truth surrounding the disappearance of her husband, Armando. From this moment, Elena takes a completely different attitude towards her life and makes her dreams as an author come true. She as not done so before because she was too scared.