Toward the Light

by Bonnar Spring

  “Come here,” he said quietly.

  Luz turned slightly, the sheet she’d been folding draped over her arms. Evan’s gaze didn’t waver. She stood in a spotlight, in his spotlight. Trapped.

  One soft footfall at a time, she narrowed the distance between them. He patted the couch. “Sit down. Please.”

  Luz eased onto the cushions, sitting straight. She bunched the rumpled sheet around her chest and hugged tight. How much Evan resembled his uncle, the man she’d been so accustomed to confiding in. He scrunched his eyes. Like Richard this morning at the café, he was lining up his thoughts before saying something serious.

  “I meant what I said. If you’re determined to go through with this killing, I will help you.”

  “Why?” Caution battled hope, caution still winning.

  “Why doesn’t matter. I’ll help, but there’s one condition.” Evan held up his index finger, just like Richard. “It’s not a suicide mission. We figure out where to place the bomb so it’s certain to kill them. You’ll have to get in to hide it,” Evan conceded, “but I used to work summers for a paving company that did lots of excavating and demolition. I know how to set a remote detonator.”

  Ohhh. Goose bumps sparked along her arms. Ohhh.

  “When I saw you yesterday, I hoped you would agree. I still do.” Bobby Benavides’ face appeared on an imaginary bull’s-eye, and a surge of energy jolted her body. Luz had not destroyed the duplicate key. Although the idea of returning to Bobby’s apartment made her stomach hurt, it would be simple to get in.

  “Wow,” she said slowly.

  “Is that a yes?”

  Trust. It was growing, but slowly. Like cedar, not bamboo. “It’s let’s-explore-the-possibilities,” said Luz, still not looking directly at Evan. “But first—what do you think Richard wants to do in here?”

  “I think it might be a camera or listening device. To keep tabs on you.”

  Luz nodded. “The mistake I made about Dominga really pisses me off. I was so busy trying not to talk about all the secrets I knew were secret. It was a stupid slip-up.”

  “Luz, what if—?” Evan stood and began to pace. “We’re both assuming Richard’s newly worried because you kept things from him this morning. But he set up this apartment—what if he’s monitored you all along and wants to retrieve equipment to find out what’s been happening here?”

  Luz covered her face with the sheet. Evan in her arms, in her bed. Toño. Ay, Dios, not Toño. Evan was explainable; Toño was not. And the key for Bobby’s suite—she’d made that here. Richard would know how far she’d strayed from the truth.

  “Either way, let’s get this over with,” Evan was saying. “Let Richard come in, and we’ll deal with the fallout. Whatever it is, Luz, we can handle it.”

  If Richard bugged my apartment, I might never get the chance to return to the Benavides’.

  “I can’t walk away without knowing,” she said. “I need to see what Richard’s up to.”

  “Not inside.” Evan’s arms inscribed the tiny apartment. “Where could you hide—under your bed, in the closet?”

  “What if I climbed the tree out back or hid behind the garbage cans? I could leave the curtains open and watch him. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re nuts. First of all, if you ‘leave the curtains open’ all he has to do is close them. Second, you’re supposed to be at work—”

  “I’m not going. I already called in sick. I couldn’t leave Toño.” And I have to avoid Bobby.

  Evan paced, front door to back, living room to bedroom. He stopped by the back windows. “You’re right—we ought to know what he does. I’ll stay, though, not you. Outside, as you suggested.”

  Luz joined him at the window and looked out at her narrow brick patio and the trees beyond. She tugged Evan’s arm. “I can do it.”

  “What if I’m not Richard’s only watcher? You should get on the bus like you’re going to work.”

  “No.” It came out as a shout. She could not go back there today.

  Evan recoiled at her vehemence. With a look in which she read pity, he said, “You don’t really have to go, Luz. Just get on your usual bus and get away from here.”

  Evan was right. She had to act as though it was a normal day. “What about the curtains?”

  “Can you fix it so they don’t close all the way?”

  “Probably,” said Luz. “The damn things are off their tracks half the time anyhow. What will you say if Richard spots you?”

  “If I’m careful, he won’t. If I’m not, I’ll say that—I’ll say I followed him because I was worried. That’s a lie he can’t refute, unlike the one where I say you left for work.”

  After Luz agreed to let him spy, Evan moved two garbage cans from the corner of the patio and rearranged them to flank the gap in the drapes. He rigged a tarp over them, a ratty blue one stained with leaves and bird droppings, and weighted the tarp with rocks the way people did to keep rodents out. Evan hunkered between the cans and used his penknife to poke a hole in the tarp at eyeball level.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned his suspicion about Richard. She’d reacted with such horror. Even audio, like a bug on the phone, would be damning, if not so personally embarrassing. There was also, in addition to the creepiness of his uncle catching them in flagrante, Luz’s worry about contacting her cousin, although Evan doubted that was as big a deal as she feared. As primary anti-Benavides forces, the FPL would be on the same side of the political fence as U.S. drug agents.

  As soon as they were ready, Evan drove his car several blocks away. When he returned, Luz slipped out the gate and didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Luz had suggested meeting at the Botanical Gardens where they had their first date. In the weeks since her visit with Evan, the rainy autumn had glided into cool and breezy winter. Today, the sun shone through a patchwork of high, thin clouds. Two maintenance workers swept leaves from a path and watched, impassive, as the wind destroyed their efforts. The brisk wind swirled, then died, and the men plied their rakes again.

  Aside from the workmen and a rowdy school group headed for the adjoining Natural History Museum, Luz had the gardens to herself. Although it wasn’t a large park, the buffer of immense trees, shrubs, and flowers created an oasis in the middle of downtown. She strolled past the orchids and through the formal gardens until she located the massive mahogany under which they’d lain that day.

  Luz sank onto a bench near a stone wall out of the wind. She sat, quivering with fatigue, quiet for the first time in days. Too tired to do anything except sit with her head bowed and feel the warmth of the sun on her back. For company, she had only a few squabbling birds. The rustle of leaves. The drone of an engine far away. Farther away, somewhere in the city, Toño was finally getting real help. Somewhere else, Bobby still swaggered. And Richard was inside her apartment.

  Most of the blame for arriving at this tipping point was hers: She hadn’t told Richard the whole truth; no wonder he didn’t trust her. The only way to make it right was to come clean about the Benavides—Toño’s presence in her apartment was a side issue that, if Richard hadn’t discovered those lies, had better remain her secret. She could tell Richard about Bobby’s sexual sadism, her worry for Cesar. Be explicit about her reasons for questioning his decision to annihilate Martin and spare—however temporarily—his son. But if she did, there was a good chance Richard would summarily dispense with her services. Here’s a plane ticket. Go home. Then she’d die alone, never having been able to even the score with Bobby.

  Also, much depended on what happened at her apartment. Richard poking through her things—worried or saddened at her lie—was vastly different from Richard who’d set out to spy on her beforehand. Luz sank her face into her cupped hands, and her vision filled with fireflies born of the pressure of her fingertips.

  The next thing she knew, a voice called, “Luz? Luz, where are you?” Evan, in his plaid jacket, walked along the far side of the cleari
ng.

  “Here,” she said, standing and waving. “I’m here.”

  Evan jogged over and dropped onto the bench. Panting, he said, “We have to talk.”

  “What happened?”

  “Richard came. Right after I called. He had a gun, Luz.”

  “No!”

  A passing couple pushing a baby stroller glanced over at them and then hurried away.

  Evan shrugged. “He kept it in his hand while he did a quick walk-through of the apartment. Then he went into your kitchen. He spent maybe five minutes there—and walked out the door.” Evan flung out his arms to punctuate his statement. The remaining birds scattered.

  “What?” Luz shook her head. “He didn’t search the apartment, go through the closet or drawers?”

  “He was in your bedroom—out of sight—for maybe twenty seconds. Didn’t touch a thing in the living room.”

  “What did he do in the kitchen?” she asked.

  Evan raised his hands skyward, as though in frustration. “I couldn’t see him from where I was hiding.”

  He’d bugged her kitchen, not somewhere more central—near the phone, by the sofa, in her bedroom. Luz squeezed her arms around her shoulders. “Did he have anything with him?”

  “He brought a shopping bag.”

  “And he left with it?”

  Evan closed his eyes, the way he did when he called up a visual memory. “Yes, he had the bag, and I’d say it looked about the same when he left. Something in it, not heavy.”

  “Five minutes?”

  “Not even that, three or four.”

  What could he do in a few minutes in her kitchen?

  As though Evan heard her question, he said, “You’ll have to go see what’s different.”

  Everything was different: her uncertainty, this tightrope of burgeoning intimacy with Evan that made her body warmer when he was near. Everything became different the moment she began trusting Evan with the whole truth that defined her, not the bits and pieces she thought the outside world could accept.

  “Thanks for watching.” Luz put her hand softly on Evan’s. He laid his other hand on top and squeezed hers.

  As much as she wanted him close, this hand-holding was closeness like she’d never experienced, even when her naked body lay entwined with his. This was personal and—oh, how she wanted to run away.

  Evan cleared his throat, about to speak—

  “While I waited for you,” she said hurriedly, “I was hoping for a sign that whatever Richard did would point me in the proper direction. If only I knew what the future has in store for Cesar—” Luz broke off and laughed. “Martin Benavides said practically the same thing. Too funny, me and the man I’m supposed to kill having identical concerns.”

  Evan tightened his grip on her hand. “After what happened, I wondered if you’d have second thoughts about going through with it.”

  Of course, he didn’t understand: Whatever he thought he knew came filtered through Richard and through her half-truths.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she began, “although, yes, I’m still thinking about it. Martin Benavides never paid for the evil he did. On the contrary, after he murdered my father, he rose through the ranks, became president, was honored, got rich and fat and—” Luz stood abruptly, her hand slipping from his. She needed more distance to say this part.

  “Last fall, it felt like Richard was giving me a present,” she said. “I was alone. I was going to become progressively unable to take care of myself. Helpless.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  Luz turned from the bench and spoke to the trees and grass. “And for so many years, I’ve had this hate, a raging desire for revenge. My father’s death wasn’t only my father dying. My mother couldn’t face life without him, so she mostly died that night, my childhood died, our whole life died. Every thing I knew disappeared. And everyone. Except my mother, and overnight she turned into a bewildered old woman. And then she got sick and turned her face to the wall; she wanted to go home—to Jesus, to my father, to Guatemala. That last, of course,” added Luz with a shrug, “is how I got involved with the guerrillas.

  “Then Richard shows up. Hey, Luz—” Luz whirled around, pitching her voice to a baritone, an imitation of Richard’s brusque affability. “Want to, A, return to Guatemala and, B, kill the man who murdered your father and—while we’re at it—how about C, blow yourself up in the process, eliminating that messy end-of-life stuff that’s distressing you?

  “Evan, it was Christmas morning. Santa Claus had given me my heart’s desire. Okay, there turned out to be some details missing, a few unmentioned strings attached. But they were details. Until I returned to Guatemala, and the little things became more important, and the abstractions I’d lived with for so long became people. I don’t want to—” Luz twisted away again. She’d never get through this. After decades of armoring herself with hate, she didn’t know how to set free the child who still cowered under the hard shell of her façade.

  “Don’t want to what?” Evan spoke so quietly Luz could hardly hear him over the blood pounding through her temples.

  “Hurt Cesar.” A jolting release, like a small crack in her armor, realigned her spine. Luz gasped in surprise, and a flood of oxygen surged through her body, spurring her to reveal more. “And even though smashing the drug network is a job worth doing, they’ve picked the wrong target. Bobby does all the legwork. Oh, Martin is guilty, too, but despite his political clout, he’s a recluse. Assassinating him for propaganda value—I don’t see the point.”

  She came to a full stop. Honesty required her to add one more thing. “As much as I hate him, his grandson loves him.” Luz swallowed. “I don’t know how I can live with—no, let me start over—I don’t know how I can die knowing I’d annihilated the only love or stability Cesar knows. He’d grow up broken, just like me.”

  There, she’d said it, and the thunderbolt she imagined would strike her dead when she emerged from her shell did not materialize. Instead, a space opened inside her, warm and welcoming, where before she’d felt only the pinch. Now, there was room for something new.

  Evan’s old leather satchel lay on the bench beside him. He picked it up, turning it slowly in his hands. Like a string of worry beads, his long fingers rubbed the smooth leather, gently, intently.

  A flash of heat, sharper than desire. A flash of wanting. Wanting Evan’s hands to wander across her skin the way he caressed the leather. His fingers would feel warm—or perhaps they’d feel cool and she would shiver. Either way. She needed to know.

  “Evan?”

  He smiled as he looked up but kept quiet.

  “I’m good at pushing people away but don’t know how to let them in. Let you in.”

  Evan’s mouth opened. Still he said nothing. Damn. She had to make him understand. Not that she even understood.

  “Half the time I’m so angry. I’m mad at myself, furious with the people who stole my life. But it’s taken a death sentence for me to understand how much that hatred diminished my life. And the other half of the time I’m scared. I’m afraid to love the way my parents did. That sort of deep and honest connection—I couldn’t bear its loss any more than my mother did. Besides, I never wanted to let anyone know who I really am, how broken and dark I feel inside. It was easier to stay angry and alone than to admit to pain. But right now, here with you, I’m more afraid of being alone.”

  Evan sat straighter, pulled his shoulders back. The distance between them, less than three feet, became an unbridgeable chasm.

  “This isn’t like it was before,” Luz whispered to the grass. “Before with us, I mean. I want you to know me.”

  He didn’t move.

  Luz closed her eyes. She didn’t want the rush of oblivious passion. She wanted Evan, Evan of the smiling eyes and strong hands, Evan who fed her chicken soup when she was ill, who smoothed the covers over her after they made love.

  A movement of air brought fleeting warmth. She didn’t dare move. And then his hands settled on h
er shoulders. Evan’s warmth seeped into her. He pressed his palms into her muscles and slowly rotated them.

  Luz began to cry. He moved closer and rested his chin on her hair. He whispered, over and over, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  And they stood under the tree and hugged until her tears subsided.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Luz shut her apartment door behind her. She stood in the dark and inhaled, wondering if she’d get a whiff of Richard’s distinctive bay rum aftershave.

  Nothing.

  She flipped the light switch and entered the kitchen. Richard hadn’t messed with the right side of her kitchen. Evan could see that space from his hiding place outside—eliminating her stove, sink, and the tiny slice of counter between.

  That left the counter and cabinets along the kitchen’s back wall and the refrigerator and small utility closet on the left side, along the wall separating the kitchen from her bedroom. Primarily concerned he’d bugged her bedroom, Luz checked the utility closet first. It was deep, and her hand didn’t come close to touching the back. Luz stepped in to inspect the shelves, moving everything, running her hands along surfaces.

  Sponges, brushes, soap, broom, mop. The trash can was empty, the floor dusty and littered with crumbs that hadn’t landed in the can. When she’d examined everything and stepped out, her foot left a clear mark on the dusty floor. Although Richard undoubtedly had access to miniature electronics, he would’ve had to step into the closet to touch the back wall. There wasn’t another footprint. Therefore, he hadn’t.

  One down.

  Refrigerator next. The top and sides were bare. It was wedged so tight in the tiny space that Richard couldn’t have reached the back. Her refrigerator magnets? Luz sighed. It would take ages to look at minutiae like that, but they’d been here when she arrived; therefore, they were suspect. She examined each one.

  Nothing again.