“Open your fucking eyes, Miriam,” Eddie said. “Let’s go.”
I planted my feet firmly on that fake grass and folded my arms. “I’m not walking into the woods. You just said that Escorpion was here. Why the hell would I—?”
Eddie aimed the gun at me. “We can’t get there from here. We need to move. So, move.”
28
Can’t get where from here?
Eddie wouldn’t say where we were going—and he kept the gun pointed in my direction. So I moved.
With the TEC-9 aimed at our backs, Eddie forced Wallace and me to march into the jungle. The sun was lost up there in that weird copper sky. Twigs and dry grass crackled beneath my sneakers as we traveled on a smaller trail to the left of the main path we’d walked just two days ago (or was that yesterday?). And that monster that had tracked us on our first afternoon on Mictlan Island had found us again. It was big … and strong … big, strong, and invisible, and I smelled it. It smelled like sweating horses, dog shit, and sulfur.
I glanced at the men behind me. “I think we should go back to the house.” My voice sounded as weak and as scared as I felt.
Wallace said nothing—his face was blank with shock.
Eddie’s T-shirt and baseball cap were darkened with sweat. His eyes darted here and there, landing and staying in no one place for too long. “They’re out here,” he said. “I saw ’em. I heard ’em. You did, too. I got ’em good back at home. Fifty years to life. They vowed to come after me. They’re trying to take revenge. Venganza, that’s what they texted me. Got my partner Ryan first, though. Kidnapped him. Tortured him in some ghetto apartment. Beat him with bats, with rolling pins, wire hangers, understand? Ryan dies, okay, and then?
“Then they drain his blood in the tub, until there ain’t nothing left. They toss him out of the window. He falls six, seven stories down into the alley. We find him an hour later, with a note stapled to his chest. Tu eres el próximo. ‘You’re next.’ They’re taking their time, though. Taking people around me first, one by one, taking Charlotte, just like I told the judge, cuz I don’t know where she is, but they took her, and now they’re leaving me for last.”
Eddie watched me, then snapped his head to the right, hearing things I didn’t hear, then stared up at the sun and the light filtering through the leaves. “Charlotte thinks she’s quick, but I’m always three steps—” He cocked his head to listen, peered at the surrounding trees, then sniffed. “You smell that?” he whispered.
I stared at him for a moment before sniffing, too. I smelled growing things. Dying things. The sea. Him. That monster. One and the same?
Wallace didn’t sniff, pant, or swipe at the bead of sweat trailing down the bridge of his nose.
“Go,” Eddie instructed, pushing the back of Wallace’s head with the weapon. “Keep walking.”
The breeze was gone and the air was still even as weird warm mist rolled around our ankles.
“What do you know about dumbass Evelyn?” Eddie asked.
Wallace said, “I don’t know anything about Evelyn.”
“That bitch knows something,” Eddie said. “She’s never around. And she knew Desi was dead before anybody else did. She’s your so-called nurse, ain’t she? Bullshit cover story if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Never met the woman until coming here,” Wallace claimed. “I didn’t hire her. I didn’t invite her. Phillip did. She’s his client.”
“You won’t admit it,” Eddie said to Wallace, “but I know you’re working with that hag. You and her, scheming with those Mexican scum. I bagged plenty of fuckers like you back home. Molesting and pimping little boys. Disgusting. You think Escorpion likes that shit? Hell, no. He’s a real man. But you know what? I’ll do him a solid. I’ll take care of you. You’ll die here before I do. Her, too. Yeah, you, Miriam. Venganza, motherfuckers.”
No one spoke as we marched deeper into the forest.
Think! Think! Where was the other satellite phone Eddie had tried to use, the one that was now missing? What was the emergency phone number in those emails inviting me here? I couldn’t remember anything now. Each time my mind came close to landing on an answer—it’s in Evelyn’s … area code …—the answer spooked and flitted away like a startled sparrow.
Sleep—I needed sleep. That’s why I couldn’t think. That’s why I couldn’t remember. And my pills. Evelyn had taken my Valium, I had brought Valium to the island, right? When had I discovered them in her drawer? An hour ago? This morning? Yesterday?
Wallace—he’d slept throughout our time here. On the yacht. Last night in his room. I’d seen him napping yesterday in the chaise lounge on the lawn. Right? In a patio chair near the swimming pool? After breakfast? Why had he been so relaxed up until now? Was he really Felix Escorpion’s number two? What was happening? Why was this happening?
We marched and marched, on trails and off trails, crisscrossing paths that we’d just left, passing Artemis’s front porch three times. Marching and shuffling in circles. But I didn’t speak or point out that we’d passed that same moss-covered trunk with its beautiful yellow fern three times already.
Finally, after an hour of this aimlessness, Eddie veered to a path we hadn’t taken, a path just a stone’s throw from my bedroom window. That’s when we came upon a weird-shaped banyan, with twisty branches that reached high into the canopy and twisty branches low enough to climb. Patches of red-black poppies grew in between the banyans. On the trail a few yards ahead sat a large, broken branch. Above it, up in one of those not-high, not-low branches, a pair of dirty black slippers swayed in the air. Connected to those slippers were a pair of unshaven, pale and plump legs.… a broom skirt … a ratty sweater … Evelyn’s neck … and the rope that had broken it.
“Oh.” I gasped and clamped my hands over my mouth. “Oh, no.”
This hanging had been the crack we’d heard. And for several seconds, we stared at the still body without saying a word.
Finally, Eddie said, “Where the hell did she find rope?”
I gaped at the ex-cop. “Who cares? Did she hang herself? Or did someone do it to her?”
Wallace sighed, shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Did someone kill her or—?” Something in me cracked just like that broken branch had cracked, and my knees gave and I collapsed on the dirt trail. Pressure was building between my ears, near my heart, and around my gut. I wanted to vomit and explode and suffocate at the same time. Through tears, I stared up at the dead woman’s shoes, at her tongue clamped between her teeth, and then at the red-black poppies that could make the pain end. And then I was shrieking, shrieking even before I realized that those cries were mine. “No! No! No!” over and over again.
No to death. No to whatever it was that was now hunting us, haunting me.
Wallace knelt to comfort me, but I pushed him away and shouted, “We need to leave or we’ll be—”
“Shut up,” Eddie yelled, pointing that TEC-9 at me again. “Keep quiet or I’ll … I’ll … just … I’m thinking.”
I swallowed my sobs, then looked back up at Evelyn hanging from the tree branch. “No,” I whispered as I forced myself to stand. “I’m calling somebody. Right now. I’m calling … If that means finding a signal in the middle of the goddamned ocean, I’m getting off this island. I’m—” And then I ran back to the house, not caring if Eddie shot me in the head, not caring if the monster in the forest gobbled me up, not caring if the Escorpion Cartel found me and skinned me alive, drained my blood, then fed my jerkied body to their dogs. I didn’t care about Wallace surviving or Eddie finally losing what was left of his senses. And as I ran, Artemis, white, pristine, and elegant, peeked through the sycamores, but never got any closer.
Bitch.
Didn’t matter. I wouldn’t stop running, even though my crying kept me blind, even though that straining and squeezing was now killing me cell by cell.
Because I was dead already.
TO: Morgan, Billy
Call 911! I�
��m trapped
Today, 4:41 PM
TO: Morgan, Billy
No 911 here. Mictlan island. House called Artemis 4 people dead
Today, 4:49 PM
TO: Morgan, Billy
Are you getting my messages???
Today, 5:04 PM
TO: Miriam
UNDELIVERABLE
Today, 5:06 PM
TORPEDO,
AWAY!
FROM: Mimi Macy
TO: Morgandancer
SENT: 8:03 p.m., Sunday, July 10
SUBJECT: Help!!
Dear Mo:
It’s been three hours now and I haven’t heard from you!! I’m not sure if that’s because you are ignoring me or because you haven’t received any of my messages. I’ve tried texting you but I know for sure that none of my texts have gone through. We were told that there’s no wifi here but I’m still trying. So this email is like a message in a bottle tossed into the sea!! I hope that you get it. I hope that you read it in time and I hope that you do something to save me before it’s too late!!
I’m not crying wolf!!
I’m not exaggerating!!
I’M IN REAL DANGER!!!!
Back on Friday, I came here to this incredible house with six other people. Last night, our chef died. He was poisoned. And then today, three more people died. Actually, I think they were KILLED by this sick, scary nurse who had murdered her patients before coming to Mexico. I think she poisoned the chef, and I think she strangled the woman from West Virginia and then, I think she boiled this black guy in the bathtub. We never got to find out for sure because she hung herself from a tree in the jungle. Or worse—someone hung her from that tree. I’m not sure, but we found a few clues that she did all of this, but that doesn’t matter right now. Because right now, I’m on this island with a crazy cop and a drug dealer or something. And we found a field of poppies here. You know what that means??? Opium, heroin. Who’s guarding it?? Someone has to be, and now that I know it exists, and they know that I know, they’ll try to kill me!!
Just writing all of this sounds absolutely crazy. Like something out of a movie. Believe me: I know I make shit up sometimes, but right now, I’m not. This is all TRUE!!!
I haven’t left my bedroom for almost three hours!! Not sure what I should do now. Except pray and wait—and I’m not sure what I’d be waiting for. Another boat with people was supposed to be here at eleven this morning for Phil O.’s memorial service, but it never came. We don’t know if it even left the port or if it sunk in the storm. All I’ve done since then, since my last texts to you, is run, cry and stare out my window, out at the trees, waiting to die, regretting so much.
I was wrong to take revenge on Brooke. As the grown-up, I should’ve looked for better ways to deal with that situation. All that time, I kept saying that I was doing all of it for you—and in some ways, I was doing it for you. Because I’d do anything for you, Mo. But I know now that some (okay, all) of it was done out of spite, and done to satisfy my own needs.
I didn’t want Brooke to get the best of me.
I didn’t want her to win.
I didn’t want her to avoid the pain.
I liked seeing her mocked and her reputation trashed.
I liked buying those scarves, and making that noose.
I liked sending it to her and suggesting that she use it.
But I didn’t mean for her to actually use it, to actually slip the damned thing around her head, go into her bedroom closet and hang herself.
I didn’t want her to commit suicide.
I didn’t want her to die.
I wanted her to lose. That’s all. To lose for once in her life.
I’m so sorry. That she died. That I pushed her toward her end. Most of all, I’m sorry that I hurt you. And that’s the truth.
It took me coming here to this godforsaken island with these horrible people to realize how awful I’ve been and how truly awful Brooke’s death was.
I hope I get the chance to make it up to you.
I hope for so many things.
Somehow, I know I’ll see you again, Morgan.
Your love will bring me home. It always has. You are the best of me. You’re the only person who will believe me, who knows I’m telling the truth. I need you now, Morgan. I need you to save me, or else you may never see me again.
Please, please send help as soon as you get this.
I love you so much,
Mom
29
The furious pounding on my bedroom door woke me.
It was Eddie again. “Open up now, you whore!”
A little after midnight, shocked that the noose and the card had remained there on the hallway carpet, I had tossed them out the window and into the bushes beneath the ledge. I had also slid the giant armoire and the chaise lounge in front of my bedroom door as a sound and violence barrier. The fancy furniture had muffled Eddie’s voice and his fists, and had allowed me to sleep for a few hours without too much worry. But he was back, pounding and hollering again.
Still in bed, I stretched and my hand slipped beneath the pillow. My fingertips touched cold rocks or … What…? I shot upright and tossed the pillow to the ground. There they sat.
Not cold rocks. They were the missing game pieces from the Bosch table in the foyer. The lusty wench. The cake eater. The dollar sign. And now, the hag.
Who…? When…?
Heart hammering in my chest, I grabbed the figurines, hopped out of the bed, and darted over to the fireplace. I reached in and ran my hands along the cold brick wall until I felt the short shelf there, the shelf where I’d hidden Eddie’s lame pistol. I plucked the weapon from its spot, then hid the figurines there in its place.
“Open the damned door,” Eddie demanded. He paused, then calmly said, “We’ve done this before, sweetheart. It never works. You’re weaker than me, we know this. And you get real loopy when your stomach’s empty, right, babe? Yeah, you get a little punchy, but that’s okay. We can fix something, a sandwich or whatever, and then we can talk this thing through. You’re starving right now, ain’t ya? Me, too.”
Yes, I was starving. My stomach was gnawing at itself—Wallace’s lunchtime lobster roll had been the only real meal I’d eaten since Javier’s huevos rancheros breakfast yesterday. There was plenty of food in the kitchen—but I didn’t want to break bread with Eddie. Oh, hell, no. I wanted this dude to go search for monsters and drug mules in the forest and never come back.
Wallace—I hadn’t heard from the old man since I’d abandoned him beneath Evelyn’s hanging corpse. Had Eddie successfully killed him? Him. Felix Escorpion’s number two? One of Mexico’s most feared? Wallace was many things, but not a drug dealer. He’d kicked people out of their homes, torn down historic buildings to replace them with malls and expensive condos. He and Phillip had purchased Mictlan Island from the Mexican government for just six million dollars. If anything, Felix Escorpion hated Wallace. Wanted venganza on the man who’d crashed his heroin operation.
I glanced at the clock on my cell phone—7:38 A.M.
Cold had taken up residence again in my feet, hands, and chest. I tiptoed over to the thermostat—fifty-five degrees. How was I freezing in the middle of the jungle?
I pushed the “up” arrow key, but the damn thing wouldn’t move past fifty-five.
In my suitcase, I found the warmest outfit I’d packed: a fleecy yellow sweatsuit that Morgan had given me for Christmas. She’d saved to buy it: birthday money, random change, borrowed tens and crumpled twenties, and then she’d had Billy drive her around the city to find it. The sweatsuit was so soft and so bright, just like my Morgan, and now I rubbed it against my cheek and remembered the light in her face as I pulled back the wrapping paper that Christmas morning, the light in her eyes the first time I wore it, how she had elbowed me that morning and said, “You’re fly for an old lady,” and I’d said, “You’re looking at you in thirty years,” and then—
“Open up, bitch!” Eddie bellowed, kicking at m
y door.
I dressed as fast as I could, then shoved my feet back into the pair of mud-spattered sneakers. Last, I slipped the gun into the small of my back.
And Eddie kept shouting.
We need to talk about this.
I’m not gonna hurt you, I swear.
I’m still in love with you.
I promise I won’t hurt you.
Char-baby, c’mon. Charlotte.
Charlotte? I spun farther away from the barricaded door. Had he thought he’d been talking to his ex all this time? Horrified, I gaped at the armoire that was rattling every thirty seconds from his kick or punch. The calm I’d earned from fitful sleep was now crumbling, like packed dirt loosening.
I closed my eyes and prayed, “Lord, if you get me out of this, if you let me make it home…”
You’ll kill Billy and Ashlee just like you said you would?
* * *
Back on Thursday night, I’d sped west on Slauson Avenue after my “thing” with Prudence McAllister. I had parked in front of the house that should’ve still been mine. Morgan had been standing in the French doors as though she’d had a premonition that I was coming.
“It’s late, Miriam.” Ashlee stood on the porch. She peered at her watch, then glowered at me with big doe eyes. “What’s wrong now?”
Solomon Burke’s soulful voice drifted from the living room and out the front door. I’ll give you my everything … Billy’s favorite song was playing on the stereo.
I ran my fingers through my hair but they caught—tangles made by the egg Prudence had thrown at my head as I’d lain on the ground. “I’m not going away until I talk to Billy.”
Ashlee sighed, then said, “Hold on.” She left me standing on the porch. My porch just two years ago.
They All Fall Down Page 21