by G S Fortis
“She’s done answering your questions today,” Leona says.
Carmen speaks up. “I don’t know any old woman. And I cannot believe my daughter would ever associate herself with that disgusting religion.” Now that Carmen has indicated her willingness to speak with me, Leona steps aside.
“Why did you send Hugo to follow me?” I ask.
“He’s following you?” Carmen asks as Leona retakes her seat next to her employer.
“He was at the library this morning, looking for me. Why is he following me?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know he was.”
“What does Hugo do for you?”
“He worked for my husband for many years. He manages the stores—”
“Then why did you send him to contact me?” I ask. I know she’s hiding something. “Why him specifically?”
Carmen looks from me to Leona.
“Carmen?” I prod. I don’t want to give her time to formulate a response with Leona.
“I trust him,” Carmen says.
“How can you trust someone you didn’t know was following me?”
Carmen buries her face in her hands. She’s on the ropes.
I keep hitting. “What was his relationship with Elizabeth?”
“Please stop.”
Leona finally interjects, “That’s enough.” Her tone is stern and commanding, and this time, it gives me pause. “Hugo is a trusted member of this family. These questions are insulting to Mrs. Viramontes.”
I don’t care if Carmen is insulted. I need answers. “What is your relationship with Hugo?”
“I do not have a relationship with Hugo,” Carmen snaps. “He is someone my husband trusted, so he is someone I trust. When Elizabeth first disappeared, I asked Hugo to find her. I could not trust anyone else. Especially the police.”
“Are you involved in anything else illegal I should know about?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Oh yes, she absolutely is. “Hugo doesn’t manage the stores, does he?”
“He worked for my husband!” Carmen shouts. She’s defensive now. Emotional.
There’s a lot Carmen’s not telling me, and she won’t tell me, especially with Leona protecting her. Maybe Leona is more than a maid. Maybe Carmen is more than an immigrant. Maybe their electronics empire is more than that.
My eyes dance around the room, and I take into consideration this enormous house in an affluent neighborhood. Why does someone have a thug running personal errands, like tailing private investigators? How did Elizabeth Viramontes get mixed up in a Mexican cult known for its drug affiliation? Why would someone kidnap her? Who is Carmen Viramontes?
It’s an obvious and inevitable conclusion, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it earlier. Or maybe I did and just didn’t want to admit it. I say, “It’s not the stores he manages, is it?”
“He does,” she pleads.
“It’s another part of your business.”
“No.”
“Tell me!”
Leona finally shouts, “I sent him after you!”
I freeze. Carmen looks up, shocked. Paige leans forward beside me.
“Why?” I ask, unable to hide my frustration.
“I was worried about your investigation. Finding Elizabeth is…” She trails off, her voice cracking. “We must find Elizabeth. I told Hugo I wanted any updates. I didn’t care how. Even if he had to follow you.”
Part of me wants to walk away, but I’m in too deep now. Carmen and Leona are going to continue to hide information from me, so I can no longer rely on them for my search. Carmen is no longer my client—Elizabeth is. And when I find Elizabeth, I’ll find Santa Muerte.
“If you want me to find her,” I say to them, “if you want her safe, then I don’t want Hugo following me anymore. His presence puts her in jeopardy. Put a leash on him if you want me to find your daughter.”
Leona stiffens. “You do not have to worry about Hugo anymore.”
As if on cue, the front door opens. The sound of hard boot soles clacking on wood floors echoes through the house. Hugo enters the room. Everyone stops talking.
He’s clearly surprised to see me. No one is surprised to see him. I raise my hand and offer a little wave.
“Will you excuse us?” Carmen asks.
With Paige in tow, I take my time as I stroll past Hugo and head outside. We climb down the steps of the porch to stand in the driveway, allowing a respectful distance for Carmen to handle Hugo and Leona.
Paige keeps her focus on the house as she whispers, “So, um, Carmen… she’s a drug dealer, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s comforting.”
Carmen’s angry voice blasts from the house. The sudden sharp yelling startles Paige and me. Hugo’s voice counters but is immediately cut off. Leona shouts in English, and soon all three are speaking over one another.
Then silence. Paige and I exchange a look that says, Should we run?
The door opens, and Leona emerges. She’s composed as she walks down the steps toward us, her head slightly bowed. She stands before me for a moment before speaking. “Mrs. Viramontes apologizes. Neither Hugo nor I will interfere with your investigation again.”
Chapter 13
____◊____
“ELIZABETH!” I SHOUT, WAKING UP.
I’m on the couch, where I landed a few hours ago. Or maybe it was longer than that. The last thing I remember is coming home with Paige, telling her I was going to close my eyes for a quick afternoon nap, and… now it’s night outside. The only light comes from the kitchen—which does little to brighten the loft—and from a computer screen in Paige’s corner of the dining table.
Her disembodied face looks up from behind the laptop. “Bad dream?”
“Dark magic. Missing girls. Bennet’s death. Demons. The usual.” The words come out through a raspy and halting voice. I rub my head, realizing that I slept in a funny position and haven’t had enough water.
“I fixed you dinner,” Paige says, nodding toward our coffee table. A cold glass of water sits there, condensation dripping down to the coaster. Next to it is a plate with a ham-and-cheese baguette sandwich and two aspirin.
I reach for the aspirin and water first. As I start chowing down on the sandwich, Paige turns on the kitchen light. It’s dim enough not to shock my eyes with its brightness.
“I was thinking…” I say as she walks back to her computer.
Paige rolls her eyes. “Uh-oh.”
“Shut up,” I say defensively. “I was thinking… can you go on Facebook and track down all the locations Elizabeth had checked in? Then cross-reference it with all the places Sebastian checked in?”
“You were thinking this… when?”
“While I was sleeping,” I say, my mouth full of bread.
“I thought you were having nightmares.”
“It was a very busy nap. Can you do it?”
Paige’s fingers are already clacking along her keyboard. That’s all the answer I need. I take another bite of the sandwich and place a phone call.
“Fiona Flanagan’s phone! How can I help you?”
I immediately recognize the Oklahoma twang. “Hi, Eva Jean. It’s Darcy.”
“Well, hiya, Darcy! How’re you doing?”
Not wanting to get sucked into small talk, I get straight to business. “Is Fiona there?”
“I’m afraid not,” she says, drawing out the last word. “She’s in a meeting with her publisher to go over her upcoming book.”
Publisher? “Where are you guys?”
“Why, we’re in New York. Can you believe it? Fiona gets a call from her agent yesterday saying they’ve got cover art, and instead of—”
“Eva Jean?”
“Yes?”
“Just let her know I called.” I hang up just as Paige plops down beside me with her laptop. “That was fast.”
Paige mirrors her screen
to our TV. “What’s the deal with Fiona?”
“She’s in New York. We’re on our own for a while.”
Paige pulls up an online map of Los Angeles. “I looked at all the check-ins for both, plus any posts in Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere else I could track down their digital footprints. Elizabeth, obviously, had more. This is what I found.”
On the map appears a collage of bubbles in three different colors—red, blue, and purple. In some bubbles are the photos they posted at the location. There it is, the history of all their photos, mapped out across the city.
“Blue bubbles,” Paige says, “are Elizabeth. Red bubbles are Sebastian.”
“Why isn’t blue the guy and red the girl?”
She sighs. “I’m making maps, not planning a baby shower. Can I continue?”
“Fine.”
The maps show a higher concentration of the red and blue bubbles across the Los Angeles area. Elizabeth’s bubbles are concentrated in the Pasadena, USC, and downtown areas. Sebastian is all over the map. I guess he’s a drug dealer on the go. The fewest bubbles are purple.
“Purple bubbles,” Paige says, “are where Elizabeth and Sebastian overlap.” She punches a key, and the red and blue bubbles disappear. The purple bubbles are concentrated in Central and South LA. “These are where they overlap. And this”—she punches another key—“is where they check in at the same time.”
Four purple bubbles remain. One is the La Lucha bar we first identified they’d checked in at, one is at USC, one is at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, and…
“Now,” she continues, “remember when Sebastian said that temple was in Whittier in East LA?”
The display zooms in to Whittier Boulevard with a single photo—the last purple bubble. A photo of an altar pops up. It’s blurry, but there are clearly several figures standing in front of the altar, lit only by candles. Their faces are obscured by digital noise.
“I bet you anything that’s your temple.”
She clicks back on the map and provides a street view. It’s a poor neighborhood with dilapidated buildings and vacant industrial lots. The building at the center of the image is a nondescript pale stucco commercial structure on Whittier Boulevard between a liquor mart and a discount clothing store. Two levels. On the bottom floor is a florist shop. Next to it is a grated door that does little to hide the steps leading up.
Paige points upstairs. “That’s your temple.”
Chapter 14
____◊____
PAIGE AND I STAND before a two-story building on Whittier Boulevard. A tattered sign on the first floor indicates that a florist used to occupy the street level. A rolling steel door is pulled down and locked, and faded graffiti marks the metal. There are plenty of storefronts here in Boyle Heights, but along this impoverished stretch, most of them have been closed for some time.
Beside the shop is an iron grate that blocks the entrance to an upstairs business. When I pull, it opens with a creak. The stairway is dark, but jarred candles provide some light. I scan Whittier Boulevard. Aside from the few cars that drive along the street, I don’t see anyone.
“What do you think we’ll actually find up there?” Paige asks.
I shrug. “I guess it would be too much to ask that Santa Muerte is actually up there, just hanging out.”
Hesitantly, I walk up the steps. Paige follows. At the landing is an open door on the left. Carved on the door is a strange and unusual symbol.
“Stop,” I say.
My arm holds Paige back as I inspect the symbol. It’s burned onto the wood, probably with a soldering iron. Though roughly etched, it holds a roughly geometric quality. In the center is an oval dissected by two perpendicular lines that extend out of it. The vertical line has two slashes at the bottom to form an arrowhead and nine slashes at the top to form the fletching—essentially, aiming the arrow downward. In the four quadrants of the oval are different symbols: a four-pointed asterisk, a cross, a heart, and a triangle. The horizontal line has two more lines at each end to form crosses. And to the right of the oval, crossing through the horizontal line, sits a single backward S with spiraling loops at each end.
“What is it?” Paige asks.
I pull out my phone and snap a picture. “A veve.”
“And what is that?”
“I’ve only ever seen this in voodoo. A veve is a religious sigil meant to act as a beacon for spirits. A way of summoning them or inviting their protection.”
“I can guess which spirit this is for,” Paige says.
I touch the wood, feeling the carving beneath my fingers. To my amazement, it’s warm, as though someone had recently touched iron to wood. I know that’s impossible. Then again, I’ve seen a lot of impossible things lately.
I touch the bottom of the symbol—the arrowhead. “I’ve seen this before,” I whisper.
“Where?” Paige asks.
“Hugo has this tattoo on his right shoulder. I remember seeing it the first time I met him, at the library.”
“Well, that would mean he’s involved in Santa Muerte,” Paige says.
“Yes. Yes, it would.” If Hugo were involved, that could explain how Elizabeth was introduced to the cult. It would explain a lot about Hugo.
With a gentle twist of the loose knob, I open the door. Inside, we find a makeshift church with folding chairs in place of pews. Instead of depictions of the Stations of the Cross, faded photos of people are pinned on the wall—family members, friends, and lovers. The offerings are so numerous they nearly coat the entirety of both walls with clutter. Strewn across nearly every inch of the temple floor are dried and crumpled flowers, scattered feathers, and clumps of melted wax. As a result, the concrete below is barely visible. From all this rises a sweet and putrid smell that burns the nasal passages.
I bend down and pick up a gray feather, mentally comparing it to the plumage of the owl I saw in the library. Those feathers were almost metallic in color—silver.
“Owl feathers?” Paige asks.
I drop the feather and shrug, not sure. We continue on. At the altar, in place of any depiction of Jesus, stands a six-foot Virgin Mary draped in fabric robes of blue and red and adorned in more flowers. Flaming candles and floral wreaths surround her. In place of a halo over her head is the shining blade of the scythe she holds. In her other arm, she cradles a globe. Instead of a peaceful woman’s face, a skeletal visage gazes down at the floor as if lost in thought.
A heavy-set man rises from a chair and approaches us. He wears work pants and a black polo shirt with a white clerical collar. His bushy brow furrows as he gets near, looking us up and down.
“¿Que quieres?” he asks.
Paige and I exchange a look. I shrug as if to say, Let’s play along. “We’ve come to pray,” I tell him.
The padre sneers at us then spits. His phlegm lands with a splat on the floor. “Come in,” he commands.
Paige follows and turns to me. I close my eyes and prepare for the pain then take a step inside. A rush of adrenaline flows through me. My eyes pop open as warm blood courses through my veins—a sensation I haven’t felt in a long time. I am light-headed. Dizzy.
“Are you okay?” Paige asks.
I nod. It was the opposite of what I was expecting. There’s no pain and no adverse reaction to the holy ground, which can only mean one thing—this place is evil.
“¡Apúrense!”
Paige and I hurry forward to the altar. The padre shoves a basket in front of us. It takes a moment for me to register why.
“How much?”
“Cinco. Five.”
My wallet comes out of my coat pocket, and I put a clean five-dollar bill in the collection plate. He grabs the bill and shoves it into his pocket.
“Each.”
I put another five in the basket. He puts it in his pocket too. “What you want?” he demands.
Paige looks at me then at him. “To pray?”
He sighs impatiently. �
��Si, si. Pray. For what?”
Clearly, when people come to him—or to Santa Muerte—it’s to ask for something. We hadn’t planned on this, so I improvise. “I’m trying to get my boyf—”
“I need to find my mother.”
I turn to Paige. Her eyes stay on Padre.
“Your mother. She lost?”
“My birth mother,” Paige clarifies.
He nods then turns to me. “You?”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
He gets a good look at my eyes and peers close. “What about those?” he asks, pointing his fingers at them.
“Next time.”
He shakes his head in disgust then turns to Paige. “Do you have a photo? A picture?”
Paige reaches into her pocket and pulls out the slim leather wallet case that holds her phone. She digs into one of its pockets and pulls out a photo. It’s the same one I’ve seen many times, a faded picture of young four-year-old Paige with a beautiful blond woman. They’re at the beach. Smiling. Holding each other as close as can be.
He takes the photo and disappears behind the altar. For a second, I can see her gesture as if to reach out and stop him.
I tap on Paige’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to—”
“Yes.”
End of conversation.
Padre returns with a bucket overflowing with various items. He yanks on Paige’s arm and positions her right before the altar then directs me to sit on a folding chair.
He pulls a repurposed dish-soap bottle and pours liquid in a circle around Paige. She looks at me, worried. I fake the most reassuring expression I have to offer and shoot her a thumbs-up.
He lights a match and drops it on the dish soap. Blue flames spread along the liquid, surrounding Paige. A yellow spray bottle comes out, and he starts squirting Paige with what I hope is a nonflammable oil.
He does all of this nonchalantly, without saying a word. He shuffles in a circle around Paige, stepping on the fire with no regard. He lifts Paige’s arms to form a T and instructs her to hold that position.
The flames around her are slowly extinguished. It finally occurs to me that this may actually summon Santa Muerte. What if she shows up? I’m not ready for her yet. Not now.