by Rick Mofina
Turning to leave, Lucy saw in the still-open desk drawer, the blue canvas money bag holding the week’s uncounted cash tips to be distributed. It was unlocked, open and bulging with bills.
As Isabel snapped through the files, she said: “By the way, Gavin, we’re looking for a server, so if you know anyone.”
Lucy seized as much cash as she could, zipped the bag, closed the drawer and left.
* * *
A half hour later, Lucy was on a subway train staring at her reflection in the window as the cars rumbled and swayed uptown from Lower Manhattan.
Fired from yet another job, Diego’s words cut through her.
I’m dying.
At her first stop waiting on the platform for her connecting train, she gazed into the stinking, black abyss of the tunnel as if it were her past, her present and her future.
I’m thirty-three and for as long as I can remember I’ve been spiraling down, down, down and it is all because I was betrayed.
Boarding her connecting train, she found herself again in the window, her car rocking, the shrill metallic scraping of the steel wheels rising like a scream as something cold passed through her.
She yawned. The craving was coming.
Hang on.
She surfaced at her stop in the South Bronx.
In the five-block walk to where she lived, Lucy counted ten rats scuttling in the open, ravaging the trash on the broken sidewalks, darting among discarded appliances in vacant lots. Her apartment was in a decaying low-rent complex.
She walked up the stairs to her seventh-floor unit because the elevator was a death trap. Paint blistered on the graffiti-laced walls, plaster had fallen away in patches and the smell of urine permeated the corners. It was common to see rats and stray cats in the halls. The noise was constant, throbbing music, shouting, the hiss and rush of water through pipes that leaked. Roaches, stains, cracks and mold everywhere.
Lucy’s keys jingled as she unlocked the door to her unit, where she lived with her man, Hugo, an unemployed drywall contractor, or mover—she didn’t know. She just knew that Hugo got her drugs when she needed them.
Stepping inside, Lucy heard music. Hugo wasn’t supposed to be home.
A topless woman was upright on the sofa, bouncing up and down and as Lucy moved around she saw that the woman was straddling Hugo, who was naked and shocked when Lucy cried out.
“What the—” Hugo shifted, tossing the woman to the floor as he tried to reach Lucy.
But she’d fled to the bathroom, locked the door, slammed her back to it and slid to the floor.
She could hear Hugo and the woman yelling, a door thudding, then the music died.
Above Lucy, a toilet flushed and foul water dripped from the ceiling into the tub along a path marked with an aged yellow stain. Then Hugo was at the door.
“Get out here. I want to talk to you.”
Lucy could feel her craving growing, her stomach cramping, muscles twitching.
She opened her bag. She had no medicine—that’s what she called it. She looked at the money from her final check she’d cashed at the bank before boarding the train. She looked at the tip cash she’d stolen. She hadn’t counted it but it was a lot.
Lucy moved fast, opened the vanity door under the sink grabbed the box of sanitary pads, reached to the bottom, where she hid the cash she’d been saving for months.
Escape money—save-my-life money.
“Don’t make me come in there, babe. You know I don’t want that.”
She carefully stuffed nearly all of the cash she had into the bottom of the box, set the pads on top, closed the box and the vanity.
She stood, took a breath and opened the door to an explosion of stars as Hugo’s fist jackhammered her skull, sending her to the floor.
“You told me you were working today!” he said. “You lied. When you lie I have to punish you. Why’re you home?”
Her head pulsating, the room spinning, she tasted blood as she moved her jaw to speak.
“I was fired. I got my last paycheck, cashed it. I’m sick, Hugo. I need—”
“Shut up!”
She felt him tugging at her bag, glimpsed him rifling through it, taking her wallet and all the cash she’d left in it, gripping it in his fist, bending down and shoving it at her face.
“This it?”
“That’s all they gave me, I swear.”
All the air erupted from her stomach when Hugo’s foot plowed into it.
He stomped away, rampaged through the house. Closets and dressers slammed; zippers zipped.
Then Hugo was gone.
Out of her life.
Lucy didn’t know how long she stayed on the floor before she dragged herself to the mussed bed.
* * *
Over the next few days Lucy battled her debilitating craving, writhing, curling into a fetal posture. Gooseflesh pricked her skin and she suffered tremors, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Thoughts and images of imminent danger tormented her. She couldn’t sleep or eat.
Certain she would die, she begged heaven for mercy.
God help me.
Eventually, as her withdrawal subsided, flashes of lucidity only confirmed that she had descended into hell and would die there if she didn’t crawl out.
In the weeks and months that passed, she fought to survive. She sought treatment in a free rehab center and managed to qualify for a room in a shelter.
Lucy knew her life was a cursed one, with a line of abusive men like Hugo. The lies and misfortune that had been forced upon her reached back to her childhood. She haunted New York City despising those she saw entering shops, restaurants, wearing expensive clothes, riding in expensive cars; those living in comfort, living pain-free lives, for they were no better than her.
On the street she survived by stealing wallets from inattentive tourists, using credit cards only once to buy things she could sell fast for cash as she continued building her bankroll.
Then the truth hit her.
It happened on a clear blue Saturday morning. Lucy had come to one of the flea markets in Lower Manhattan on Broadway. She’d been searching for tourists to prey upon when the morning sun found a tray of rings, glinting at the right moment, as if signaling her.
Lucy caught her breath.
Gleaming before her was a huge assortment of inexpensive skull rings. Soon she found a death’s head, a sugar skull and one displaying rage. They were so beautiful and Lucy recognized the moment for what it was: a message to act.
She bought three rings.
Later, alone in her room, she admired them for they pulled her back through the years, the agony of flailing in the swirling current that was the river of her life. How she’d changed her name, become a new person. She’d married an older, widowed man from Pittsburgh after meeting him online. She’d moved to Pennsylvania, got documented. The marriage didn’t last and Lucy drifted from one large city to the next. And all the while she cleaved to the unshakable belief that she was not to blame for everything that had gone wrong in the past.
None of it was my fault.
My mother failed me.
And when my blood sisters betrayed me, they set me adrift on an ocean of never-ending pain. We swore a blood pact and they betrayed me. The anniversary is coming. Twenty years. For twenty years, I’ve burned. I don’t deserve this life. Enough is enough.
Lucy then looked through her few belongings, digging out her tattered journal from her time in prisons, or what she called institutes of higher criminal development. Remembering all she’d learned, all she’d done, others she’d encountered behind bars in Canada, she recalled one girl especially.
Gina.
Gina was an American who’d been visiting her sister in Calgary when she got involved in a cross-country crime spree with older men that ended in Brandon, Manitoba. Gina had too
much attitude. Inside, she’d broken a rule and offended a gang leader. One day two gang members had Gina cornered in the laundry room. Lucy, who by this time was a respected force to be reckoned with, intervened, saving Gina from a severe beating, or worse.
Gina never forgot.
For Lucy, this was money in the bank because Gina was from New Jersey and was connected to people who knew people. Gina had promised Lucy her eternal gratitude and help whenever needed.
Gina showed Lucy ways to reach her once they were back in the real world, but because Gina had enemies she needed to be careful about revealing where she was. Gina wrote instructions in code—like the lines of a poem.
Now, after deciphering it, Lucy went to the shelter’s free computers and searched online.
It didn’t take long before Lucy made a few calls to Newark, then Brooklyn and Queens, saying exactly what Gina had told her to say if she was ever looking for her.
Within a few hours, one of Lucy’s disposable burner cell phones rang with the call she’d been waiting for.
“It’s been a long time, Gina.”
“A long time. So you’re calling yourself Lucy now?”
“Yeah. So Gina, I need that favor now.”
“What can I do for you, Lucy?”
“I need your help finding people who don’t want to be found. Can you help me with that?”
“No, I can’t.”
A few tense seconds passed between them.
“But I know people who can.”
Forty-Nine
New York City, New York
Three weeks ago
French cabaret music blended with children’s laughter from the rotating carousel in Bryant Park, where Lucy Lavenza waited to meet the man who would help her change her life.
It had been a few days since she’d called in her favor from Gina, providing her with the little information she had. In that time Gina called her with updates, telling her: “Be patient, I’m working on it.”
Then yesterday, Gina instructed her to go to Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, at 2:00 p.m., sit alone directly across the lawn from the carousel with today’s New York Times laid out on the table.
“A friend, his name is Devin, will meet you. He’ll have what you need.”
It was now 2:21.
Competing breezes carried the floral scent of flowers, food carts and tour buses.
A baby’s giggle drew her attention to the couple settling in several tables away. Laughing and squirming in its stroller, the baby couldn’t be more than a year old. The mother looked to be about Lucy’s age, a fresh-scrubbed beauty with a glow. The husband had a tanned chiseled jawline, deep-set eyes and a good body. The family exuded a blessed life and made her question if she would ever have a life remotely close to theirs.
“Hey, Lucy?”
A lanky man in his twenties stood at her table. His stubble creased into dark lines when he gave her a little smile. He wore sunglasses, a New York Jets T-shirt, ripped, faded jeans and was sockless in his sneakers. He looked like a bike messenger.
“And you are?”
“I’m Devin. Gina’s friends asked me to help you and, well...” He lifted his arms a little, as if to say here I am. She noticed the strap of a worn soft leather bag across his chest. “May I sit?”
“Sit.”
Devin lifted the strap over his head, set his bag atop the paper. He sat, rested his arms on the leather bag and leaned forward. No one was near enough to overhear; and there was the park and street noise; still, he kept his voice low.
“What you’ve requested is illegal,” he said.
“So? Gina owes me.”
“And I owe her. Well, I owe friends of hers. Everybody owes somebody, the circle of life.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yes, but not me alone. To do this, she called on relatives, cops, lawyers, security people, you know how it works.”
“Are you a cop?”
He laughed. “No. I’m—let’s say I’m a reformed computer expert who got caught in nefarious activities. I paid the bill on that. Now I work in IT security—circle of life again.”
“Did you find what I needed?”
“Yes. Once I was given the basic information. You’re probably aware that traditionally in most states and Canadian provinces legal name changes are, by law, accessible, but you’ve got to know how to look.”
“You said, ‘traditionally.’”
“Yes, getting access to some name changes is not easy. Some cases are flagged, like when courts order protection, making it almost impossible to see the names. To access court-sealed data you need the help of someone with clearance to restricted databases to risk breaking the law. Or you need someone who can gain entry through a back door. It’s extremely difficult and risky but once you’re in you can collect a world of information.”
“Did you find the people I’m looking for?”
“I did. Like I said, Gina leaned on a lot of people, called in favors.” Devin undid the straps of his leather bag and withdrew a brown envelope closed with metal clasps and handed it to Lucy.
“All here, all up to date—addresses, property records, status, everything.”
Without opening it, Lucy slid the envelope into her bag, withdrew a smaller one and offered it to him.
Devin waved it off. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“I may need more help at some point.”
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do with the information I gave you but I’m sure it won’t be good.”
“Suit yourself.” She returned her envelope to her bag and stood to leave. “But will you help me if I call Gina to reach out to you again?”
“No, I won’t. We’re done.”
She leaned forward, pulled off his glasses and looked into his face. “You will, Devin.” Lucy lifted the newspaper from the table. Under it was her cell phone, which had recorded their conversation. She seized it, took his picture before anger crept across his face. He grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t try anything, Devin, or I’ll scream for those two cops behind you. You’ll be sleeping in custody tonight.”
Devin turned. Sure enough, two NYPD officers were strolling across the lawn.
Devin released his grip and Lucy left the park, her heart hammering.
Fifty
Cielo Valle, Orange County, California
Present day
No one knows the truth about me, that I—
Alone in her room doing math homework, Kayla’s concentration slipped again to Emma’s hidden journal, or diary, or whatever that book was.
No one knows the truth about me, that I—
That phrase, written by Emma right after she’d married Dad, was locked into Kayla’s memory. And Kayla knew that the handwriting was absolutely not her mother’s, or her dad’s. She recognized it as Emma’s from notes she’d left her on the fridge.
What’s the truth? What secrets did she write in that book and why was she hiding them until her death?
Kayla wished she could have read more, that she had taken photos of as many pages as possible but there hadn’t been any time. It had been another close call. So how can I find out what all this means?
If Kayla came forward and said something, she’d be guilty of invading Emma’s privacy. If she told her father, he might not see things in the same light as her and it could all go horribly wrong.
He’d likely send me back to Doctor Hirsch.
Kayla needed more answers, needed to know what Emma had written. And the only way to do that was to read what was in that book.
The next chance I get I’ll retrieve that book and read every word on every page.
Fifty-One
Cielo Valle, Orange County, California
Present day
Emma was no closer to solving the my
stery behind the threatening notes. Now Ben was preparing to go to Canada and Kayla wouldn’t stop with her questions about her past.
“Is something wrong, Emma?”
She turned to Ben, who was waiting for her answer, Tug’s leash jingling as they walked along one of the paths twisting through the forests of Suntrail Sky Park, a few blocks behind their corner of Cielo Valle.
He’d invited her to go for an after-dinner walk. It seemed like in the last few days he’d been giving her a hard read and brought her here for an underlying reason.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Lately you seem disconnected. Like something’s eating at you, and maybe I’ve been contributing to that.”
Emma didn’t respond.
“It’s no secret that I’ve been consumed with my book, and I apologize for that,” Ben said.
“It’s all right.”
“Here’s the thing. Kayla’s still struggling to accept you.”
“I know.”
“I’ve talked to Doctor Hirsch about it.”
“The therapist who helped Kayla when Brooke died?”
“Yes, and she believes that Kayla feels that accepting you would be a betrayal of her loyalty to her mother and it is likely why she may subconsciously, or even consciously, treat you like an outsider, or an unacceptable replacement.”
“I understand that.”
“She suggested that Kayla needs to work at finding a way to accept you without feeling like she’s being disloyal to her mother. Now, Kayla’s resisting, but I think we need her to go back to Hirsch so she can help her.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“I’m thinking that in a few weeks I’ll have my research under control and we can take that vacation together. That’s when we can talk to Kayla without distraction and convince her to get on the right track with Rachel Hirsch. What do you think?”
“It’s a good idea.”
Ben looked at her and seemed unsatisfied. “Something’s still troubling you. I’m leaving for Canada soon and I need to be sure you’re okay.”