Spiders in the Grove

by J. A. Redmerski

  “Leave them there,” I say. “At the airport. In a parking lot somewhere. At a restaurant—it doesn’t matter; you did the hard part and got them out of there; leave them somewhere and they’ll find their way home. Now stop crying, and get to the fuckin’ airport.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Jackie—please.”

  “OK.”

  I look across the room at Mr. Lockhart sitting smugly on the sofa.

  “Sounds like things didn’t go as planned,” he says with a smirk.

  I light up a cigarette in his sterile-clean, non-smoking house. “Looks like I didn’t need you, after all,” I tell him, ignoring his jab. “I have a gunman outside”—I point at the window—“if you as much as move from that spot for the next six hours—either of you—he’ll kill you both. Do we have an understanding?”

  The real Frances Lockhart sits next to her father on the sofa, her trembling shoulder touching his, her hands pressed together between her knees; tears track down her face, streaking black mascara.

  “Yeah, we understand,” Mr. Lockhart says with gritted teeth; he pulls his daughter closer.

  I confiscated their phones, and all manner of communication inside the house when I arrived three days ago. I kept them here, just in case Jackie wasn’t convincing enough and the sellers might’ve called Mr. Lockhart to verify that Jackie, as Frances, was his daughter. I had planned to stay until Jackie boarded her plane safely, but with the unexpected news of Javier Ruiz—Javier Fucking Ruiz!—and Izabel being neck-deep in shit, I can’t stay behind and wait for Jackie. I have to go to Mexico myself—now. The gunman waiting outside doesn’t exist, but I’m confident the Lockhart’s won’t budge. I hope. At least until Jackie is forty-thousand-feet in the air where the Ruiz family can’t get to her if her cover is blown.

  “I don’t know who the fuck you are,” Mr. Lockhart shouts as I walk out the front door, “but if you ever—”

  I don’t hear the rest, the door slamming to shut him up, and all that. I’ll probably come back after this is all over with and kill him on principle.

  I sprint three blocks down the street, cut through four backyards, before making it to my car parked at the softball field.

  “All right, Izzy,” I say aloud, shutting the door hard and thrusting the key into the ignition, “you’ll probably hate me after this, but—who am I fucking kidding? You already do!” I laugh at myself, put the car into gear and speed away, heading for the airport.

  Izabel

  “Cesara, get out of here—now!” Joaquin’s voice rips through the space. “I don’t care what she’s done to you; she broke your fucking heart, so what—your fault for getting too close. You know how this works!”

  “She’s a traitor, Joaquin! And you”—she points a finger at him; her face twisted with rage—“you’ve known all this time? Tell me it’s not true. Tell me she’s a fucking liar!”

  “It’s true,” Joaquin snaps. “But now, thanks to her”—he glances at me sitting on a chair with my hands tied behind my back—“everybody knows.” He walks over to her, gestures his hand at the room. “Do you hear that, Cesara? Listen to it.”

  Cesara puts her ear to the room, and after a moment she looks confused.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she says.

  Joaquin shakes his head. “It’s the calm before the storm,” he says and inhales deeply, walking away from her. “Everything will change now—he’ll probably kill all of us for the spectacle tonight. We probably lost several big buyers over this.”

  “We?” Cesara’s eyebrows crumple. “This whole thing was your idea! You were the one who wanted to bring that girl out on stage; you were the one who thought this whole telenovela stunt with El Segador was a good idea—I had nothing to do with it!”

  Joaquin’s arm shoots out like an arrow, his hand collapsing around her throat. “You knew about it,” he threatens, pushing the words through his teeth. “You were enjoying it”—he squeezes, and Cesara’s hands tighten futilely around his wrist. “But worst of all,” he continues, “worse than anything I did, you were the one who fell for her, Cesara. You were trained for years not only to be hard, merciless, unforgiving toward those girls, but you were supposed to be able to tell when something about any of them wasn’t right. You, seeing her every single day, sleeping in the same bed with her, putting your head between her pretty little thighs, should’ve seen it, but you were too blinded—you should’ve known!” He releases her throat, shoving her backward.

  Cesara coughs violently, a hand probing where his had almost crushed her windpipe; her face is red; her eyes red-rimmed and watering.

  She looks at me, so hard, so cold, and if Joaquin were to leave me alone with her even for a second, I know she’d kill me.

  Joaquin’s laughter rips through the air. “No one could ever love you, Cesara,” he says, a mocking smile in his voice.

  Cesara glares at him, her left eye twitching, and then she turns swiftly and storms out of the room.

  Joaquin begins to pace, but he stops when Cesara’s tall, angry form re-enters the room. I gasp, and my heart sinks to the floor when I see Sabine crushed against Cesara’s chest, a gun to her head.

  “Don’t do it,” I warn her. “Don’t you fucking do it.”

  “What are you going to do, Sarai”—the emphasis on my real name laced with vengeance—“tell Javier and have me killed?”

  Sabine’s eyes fill with tears as she looks across at me; her body is shaking.

  “Don’t do it!”

  “Tell him!” Cesara challenges, and then pulls the trigger; the strident gunshot in the enclosed room deafening me momentarily; blood sprays her face.

  Sabine’s body hits the floor, and then Cesara storms out, this time for good.

  With sadness in my heart, I lower my head. Hope is bullshit, Sabine. It always was. It always is.

  After a moment: “What’s it like, Joaquin, living in your brother’s shadow, even when most people thought he was dead?”—(he snarls)—“I’ve known about you for a long time; in fact, I was going to kill you with the rest of your family when I came back to Mexico the first time. Lucky for you, you were nowhere to be found. Just like Javier. Had to know I’d come back again, sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, well, doesn’t look like it worked out well for you,” he stabs back at me.

  He paces the floor.

  “Why didn’t you kill him?” he asks. “Did he get away that night? Is the story I heard even true? Javier never would tell me the truth.”

  “I’m not going to tell you, either.” I smirk.

  “But I want to know!” He storms across the room at me; the heat of his breath I can feel on my face. “Did you let my brother live, or did he get away? Tell me!” He shakes me, his hands gripping my shoulders.

  I smile, unintimidated.

  “Why didn’t you kill him yourself if you hate him so much?” I ask. “You had the perfect opportunity, everybody thinking he’s dead already. Why didn’t you just kill him?” I look around the room. “The whole Ruiz Empire would’ve gone directly to you, being his only living brother. You could’ve owned everything, instead of just pretending you did.”

  “I would never kill my brother,” he lies. “I may be envious of him, but I’d never betray him.”

  I smile, knowing, taunting him because we both know the truth: Joaquin is, simply, a coward—that’s why he never tried to kill Javier himself.

  “This isn’t even about me,” he snaps, slashing his hand through the air in front of him. “This is all about you, La Princesa”—the bitterness in his voice is thick—“and I have you; and you’re a stupid, conceited bitch if you think my brother isn’t going to rip you apart when he sees you.” He crouches in front of me. He’s smiling now; he suddenly sees this situation differently: Javier will reward him! He’ll commend him for being the one who captured me after all this time! Joaquin won’t be punished, or executed; he’ll become something more to his older brother—Javier will see Joaquin as his
equal! Those are the scenarios I see running through his mind right now as he looks at me. I just hope he isn’t right about any of them.

  “So then, where is he?” I ask, wanting to get on with it.

  “Why did you come here?” His dark eyes glare at me. “To kill him? To kill me? You’re going to die tonight anyway; might as well get it off your chest.”

  “I’ll tell you for the conversation,” I say. “I only came here to find a man. A powerful man. A man worse than you or Javier could ever imagine being.”

  Joaquin looks mildly interested; he crosses his arms.

  “And did you find him? Was it worth it, seeing as you are where you are now?”

  “I believe I did find him,” I say. “Where is Naeva and Leo?”

  Joaquin smiles. “Thought you wanted the conversation? Dodging around the details doesn’t get you far.”

  “What else do you want to know?”

  “What’s this man’s name? The one you’re looking for?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Maybe if you were the rightful owner of the Ruiz Empire, I could indulge you a little more. But you’re not. And as long as Javier is alive, you never will be.”

  His face falls under a shroud of resentment; his hands ball into fists at his sides, and he turns, heading for the exit.

  “I can help you,” I say, and Joaquin stops in the doorway, his back to me. “The fact that I’m still alive right now; the fact you didn’t kill me on that stage when you had the chance; the fact that Naeva and Leo are still alive simply because I threatened you with them, it’s all proof that you know, even after all this time, I still have some sway over your brother. Now, I know that Javier is not an emotional man; he’s not one to talk about feelings, or open up to others, but I can tell that the very mention of my name in Javier’s presence gives the secrets inside his dark heart away. I can help you, Joaquin, but you have to help me.”

  After a moment, Joaquin turns to face me again.

  He smiles, close-lipped, and shakes his head, expelling a brief spurt of air through his nostrils.

  “The reason I should control my family’s empire,” he says, “is because I’m immune to the lies and tricks and manipulation of women—unlike my brother.”

  He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

  Half of me thought there was a chance Joaquin would help—he’s greedy enough to betray his brother, there is no doubt—but the other half of me knows that Joaquin is more coward than greedy, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d even hint to helping.

  Now I sit here, bound to this chair in a silent room where my thoughts and worries are so loud inside my head I can’t hear the voice I usually go to for comfort. Will Cesara get into the room and kill me now that I’m alone? What is happening to Naeva? To Leo? Can I get myself out of this alive? Was it a mistake coming here? What will Javier do to me when he sees me again? Javier…Javier…Javier. He is and always has been the demon on my back, the ghost lurking in every shadow of my life, the thread holding all of my lies together. I remember that night so vividly—I’ve never been able to forget it, no matter how hard I’ve tried. The truth is always there to haunt you. It demands to be heard. The truth…the truth…the truth…

  Texas – When it all began…

  Trembling, I opened the closet door and made my way through Samantha’s bedroom, down the hall and into the living room where Javier was waiting for me, gun in-hand.

  “Ah, and there she is!” Javier raised both hands out beside him; he looked genuinely excited to see me. I thought he was crazy.

  “I missed you, Sarai.” He cocked his head to one side. “If you were unhappy why didn’t you just say so? I’d have done anything you wanted, you know that.”

  I didn’t care about what he had to say, all I cared about was making sure Samantha was all right. Trying to keep my eyes on Javier, I scanned the room in search of her. Finally, I saw her bare feet sticking out from behind the recliner.

  “Samantha, are you OK?”

  She didn’t respond so I knew she was hurt pretty bad.

  I looked back at Javier. “Let’s just go—please, she has no part in this.”

  He smiled at me, thoughtful but amused.

  He was wearing black from top to bottom: long-sleeved black shirt, black belt, black pants, black shoes, black heart. He raised his gun at me and motioned for me to go over to him.

  “Let me see you,” he said.

  I walked closer, my bare feet moving over magazines scattered about the floor. The grandfather clock standing tall in the corner ticked ominously behind me.

  “Javier, she’s going to die if we don’t call for an ambulance,” I urged as I got closer. “Let me call nine-one-one. Then we can leave.”

  I saw Samantha’s knees then, but the rest of her was obscured by the chair and the darkness.

  Javier reached out his hand.

  “Did you fuck him?” he asked and pulled me close. “Or are you still mine?” He leaned in and inhaled my scent like an animal; coiled a loose strand of hair that had fallen from my ponytail, around his fingers.

  “No,” I said breathily. “I’ll always be yours.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done to me,” he said, and I felt his breath on my neck. “You shouldn’t have left me.”

  I reached up and curled my fingers around the back of his neck. I leaned into him, the side of my face navigating the open buttons of his shirt until I felt his chest on my cheek. “I know, and I’m sorry.” I kissed his hot skin. “I am so sorry for leaving you,” I added in Spanish.

  I shuddered, both from pleasure and disgust, when he slid his hand down the front of my pants and put two fingers inside of me. It didn’t matter that he was insane or that he was a murderer or that he might kill me any second; the touch still made me wet. It was my body betraying me, human nature betraying me, not my mind or my heart. I had conformed years ago to react to him in this way; a twisted survival instinct that they don’t teach in self-defense classes. Javier had to believe he was turning me on or he’d know everything else about me was a lie, too.

  He pulled his fingers out and brought them to his lips, inhaled deeply, his eyes closed as if to savor it. Then he put them into his mouth and suckled.

  I stepped back while he was distracted, to put as much distance between us as I could, although small.

  “I’m not sure I want you anymore,” he said.

  My heart stopped. If he didn’t want me, then I knew he’d kill me, especially after everything I’d done, all the trouble I’d caused.

  “Javier,” I said, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice, “let’s just go. I’m ready to go back.”

  I took another step back and to my right, pressing my hands against the wall behind me. And then I saw her, Samantha. She wasn’t moving. She sat slumped over with her back against the wall; her bloody legs were splayed out into the floor; her arms lay limply beside her, her fingers uncurled. Her eyes; they were open, dead.

  Bile churned in my stomach, my hands stiffened down at my sides. I shook all over from anger and hatred and guilt, and goddammit, fear.

  “You killed her,” I said, my lips trembling.

  “I did,” he admitted. “On the fifth shot.”

  “But you said…” I looked to and from him and Samantha’s body; my heart felt like it was closing in on itself. “You said if I didn’t—”

  Javier raised his gun at me; that last bullet I knew then why he didn’t use it on her.

  I stood frozen, one hand on the wall behind me, the other somehow made its way to my stomach as if it could keep the vomit down by being there. I stumbled on more debris and then pressed my back against the wall to let it hold me up. There was a shelf beside me; my hand fumbled its contents in the darkness.

  I stared across the small space separating Javier and me; stared into his cold, bottomless dark eyes, not the barrel of his gun pointed at me, but his eyes. I heard a click, just a click, and we looked blankly into each other’s f
aces, confused by what just happened. Then a shot rang out and I fell against the wall; my body slid down until I was sitting on the floor just like Samantha. Limp and spent, just like Samantha. The room spun around in my vision like a thick haze of gray.

  And I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me, the kind of darkness that suffocates with guilt and regret and brokenness.

  Javier crouched in front of me; I felt his fingers touching my hair again; I felt the warmth of his hand engulfing my cheek; the tenderness of it, the…forgiveness.

  The gun I had found on the shelf, I’d known it was there all along. The first click, it was the real Sarai, the bullet meant for Javier, and with my whole heart when I pulled that trigger the first time, I wanted him dead. But fate spared him, and the shot failed. And he just looked at me, shocked and…hurt that I’d done it, that I could ever do it. And in that few seconds of quiet and stunned confusion between the first and second attempt, I thought of our child; I thought of how if I ever did kill Javier, that I’d surely never see my child again.

  The second try, and the successful bullet struck the floor—intentionally.

  “Why?” he asked after a moment. “Tell me the truth, Sarai.”

  “Because…” I paused, searching for the words. “…Because I…still love you.”

  It was a lie; the greatest lie I’d ever told. No, not that I still loved him—a part of me did; the part that had not yet healed; the part still brainwashed by my captor—but that I’d claimed to have killed him. But truly, I did not spare his life because of love for him; I just knew they were the only words he would believe, the only way he would trust me again; the only way he wouldn’t use that last bullet on me. Not killing Javier when I had the chance was proof—for Javier at least—that I did still love him, and that I would do anything for him. Even betray Victor.

  “Just take me home,” I said, defeated.

  Javier sat on his bottom in front of me, and he raised my chin with his fingers, and he looked into my eyes the way he always did just before we would present ourselves in front of those powerful people in those rich mansions. And that’s when I knew Javier wasn’t going to take me anywhere—he wanted me to do something for him.