Framed and Burning (Dreamslippers Book 2)

by Lisa Brunette

  Mick didn’t even have to think about it. “I’ll take you there,” he said, pulling a u-turn.

  As he drove, Mick remembered the first time he’d taken Donnie to this place. He’d promised him it was the most beautiful spot on earth, and Donnie was surprised to find they were heading into the belly of the Everglades and not to the beach or the Keys. Like a lot of people who were new to Florida, Donnie’s only association with the Everglades was its air boats.

  The heat of the city gave way to a lush coolness as he made his way into the River of Grass, as some called it. Mick knew it was no longer a functioning ecosystem, as it had been damned to the north and blockaded on all sides by the modern engine of progress. The only reason it continued to exist at all was because it fed the Miami aquifer, which supplied South Florida with water. But it was still the largest stretch of wetlands left in the country, and the word “swamp” did not do it justice.

  After a long stretch of quiet, he steered into a parking lot and motioned for Donald and Mary Ellen to follow him down a path over a hummock and then across a boardwalk that led to a platform high above the glades.

  It was approaching dusk, just as it had been the first time Mick brought Donnie to that place. The sky looked as if an artist had rinsed out her pastels in a tray of water, with robin’s-egg blue mingling with bits of lavender and fiery orange and rose cast from the setting sun. It was quiet, so quiet, that Mick thought he could hear the river of grass sighing beneath their feet.

  Here the largest birds in North America glided across the glades, their wings outstretched and casting strong shadows on the still blades of swamp grass: snowy egrets with bright yellow beaks, great blue herons, ibis with curved orange beaks, as if they’d stepped off an Egyptian hieroglyphic. Occasionally one cried out, its call echoing across the still river of grass.

  For miles in every direction, that was all there was: slow-moving water, grass, birds, and sky. Mick had the sense here that nature would go on, that it was and always would be, and that it was he, a human being, who had a shelf life. Rather than feeling limited or depressed by this, he found it liberating.

  When he and Donnie came here, they rarely talked. They’d bring sketchbooks, water, and snacks, and they’d sit for a long time, drawing, quietly working in each other’s company. Mick knew that Donnie came here by himself sometimes, too, and it made him glad to know he’d given the place to his friend like a gift.

  Donald had the urn in his hands. He motioned to Mick to take some of Donnie’s ashes and spread them. “This is for you to do,” he said. “And you can have some of him to keep if you like. We’ll take the rest home to Ohio.”

  Mick realized his face was wet where tears had slipped down his cheeks. He dried them on his shirt sleeve, lifted the lid on the urn, and scooped out some ashes. Leaning over the railing, he let what remained of his friend fall from his hand and become part of the wide river of grass.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace understood now why she’d been unable to get Candace Shreveport out of her mind. With her confession and the conch as evidence, Alvarez booked Candace for both fires. The woman had experienced some sort of psychic break after her confession and could only scream or cry or otherwise carry on about what a bastard Mick was, how he should have died in the fire. It could turn out that Candace took the murder rap but successfully plead insanity. She certainly was putting on a good show with it, if it wasn’t in fact genuine.

  Relieved of the burden of Mick’s case, Grace allowed herself to be squired by the dashing Ernesto Ruíz. After the commotion of Candace’s arrest died down, the three of them were still living in the man’s cottage, as their proposed safety move to his Brickell apartment seemed no longer necessary. Not that Mick was satisfied. In addition to preparations for Donnie’s wake, her brother had begun to look for a replacement studio, a live/work unit like the one he’d lost to the fire.

  Ernesto took her to a restaurant that was as much outside as it was inside, and this was the case year-round, apparently. One of the tropical city’s enduring charms, in Grace’s opinion, was the opportunity to dine al fresco. This place, near Ernesto’s office in Brickell, had been fashioned between the wide, branching trunk of a banyan tree, which sheltered diners from the sun and provided a romantic canopy.

  “I often come here for lunch,” Ernesto said once they were seated. “But just soup then, or a baguette sandwich. Tonight, we celebrate.”

  “Celebrate? That seems a bit strong, considering. A man’s dead, and this Candace woman will probably spend the rest of her life behind bars. Not that she hadn’t already created a prison for herself….” Grace let her words trail off.

  Ernesto held up his hands. “Of course, darling. Forgive me for not being more sensitive. You are right.”

  Grace put a hand on his arm. “With you, old friend, every meal is a celebration.”

  Ernesto gave her his five-thousand-watt smile, squeezing the hand she’d placed on his arm. “Remember when I took you to the Argentinian restaurant?”

  “Remember? How could I forget? I was a vegetarian at the time. And you bring me to a place with no menus. The waiters came out carrying platters piled with nothing but meat!” Grace gave him a playful slug on the shoulder.

  Ernesto laughed. “They thought you were being rude until I took the proprietor aside and explained.”

  “Oh, and then it was a carb fest after that. It’s a good thing I wasn’t off gluten back then.”

  “But what lovely ravioli they made! Ah, I can still taste how fresh. The spinach it was stuffed with, it was bright green. They must have made it to order for you.”

  “What was the name of that place, Ernie? It was a treasure, but if I remember correctly, it had a queer name.”

  “Zuperpollo.”

  Grace easily translated in her head. “Crazy chicken? That sounds more appropriate for a fast-food restaurant.”

  “Yes, I agree. But you have to understand the Argentinian mindset. Do you remember the sign? It was a chicken wearing a costume…”

  “Yes! Like a superhero! It’s coming back to me now.”

  “The sign, it was irreverent, but the food, they took very seriously. It is a pity you could not taste the meat. The memory lives with me still.”

  “And the singing!” Grace recalled how at the end of the evening, several generations of men gathered on stage and sang old songs, some sad, some seemingly silly, at least from what she could pick up with her limited Spanish. What a good time they’d had that night.

  Ernesto stroked her hand beneath the table, and she enjoyed the feel of his touch. The two of them reminisced on old times for a while, and then their food arrived. A converted meat-eater at this point in her life, Grace had chosen seared tuna with mango relish and star fruit. Ernesto had ceviche, a nice cold dish for a warm night. They drank an Argentinian wine in honor of that restaurant from so long ago.

  Neither was interested in dessert, and by this point, Ernesto had found Grace’s knee under the table. He squeezed it with a delicate but insistent grip that sent a shiver into her thighs. Grace remembered what a lovely physique the man had. He was shorter than she and built like a fire plug. Perhaps this had worked against him in his early years, but he was still solid muscle well into his seventies, and he had a stamina she admired, and in fact had taken full advantage of.

  He drew close to her at the table after the waiter whisked away their dishes. “So tell me about Mick’s case. Are you making progress?”

  “Oh, Ernie,” said Grace. “Let’s not talk about that business tonight. I’m having far too lovely a time.”

  He nodded and smoothly changed the subject. She could imagine him doing the same with his clients. “Would you like to see my office? I have some new acquisitions, a sculpture in particular I think you’d want to see.”

  “And you still have that Herman Miller couch, I trust?”

  Ernesto gave her a smile that was modest on top, with mischief underneath. “Yes, I do.”

 
An hour later, the two were spent. Sprawled on the aforementioned couch in various states of disarray, they let their breathing return to normal.

  Grace traced Ernesto’s lips with her finger. “You know you’re really very good at pleasuring a woman, Ernie. You should teach others your gifts.”

  “If you are referring to that epic—as the kids say—orgasm you had while my head was between your legs, I must say you are the one who should teach others.”

  “Oh, well, I have, as a matter of fact. Didn’t you know? At Seattle Community College, back when I hit forty. It was a continuing ed class. ‘Climaxing at the Climax of Your Life.’”

  Ernesto laughed, slipped his hand up under her hair, and brought her mouth closer to his for another kiss.

  Once he released her, she continued. “I didn’t know as much back then. Imagine, calling forty the climax of your life!”

  “Maybe you should offer to teach it again.”

  “Only if you co-teach it with me.” They both laughed.

  “Oh, I have no special technique. Only a deep love of women.” He stroked the inside of her thigh. “I love their fullness. Look at the way your hips swell here…” he circled the sides of her hips. “And as you’ve aged, the fullness grows. I have looked forward to seeing what time brings with each visit.”

  “You are quite the flatterer.” Grace felt herself glowing in the aftermath of their sex. As always, she took note of the moment, reflecting inwardly, knowing how blessed her life was. But then Mother Nature tugged at her, so she excused herself to use the bathroom.

  When she returned, she asked, “So where is this sculpture? Or was that merely a pretense to re-introduce me to our friend Herman Miller here?” She patted the enormous leather couch that had served them well.

  Ernesto had dressed while she was in the bathroom. “Let me show you.”

  He walked in sock feet to a far wall, where he flipped a switch, illuminating a large glass cabinet. In the center was a piece she’d never seen before, but she recognized the artist. It was a Garrison DeGrant.

  “How did you get it?” Grace went to the sculpture, drawn by the bright gold leaf applied in an uneven, deliberately rough manner over what appeared to be a set of primitive wings. The gold caught the light as she moved, reflecting it in glints. As Grace drew closer, she saw that they were wings, but they were oversized, as if too large for the figure beneath them. And the figure was a woman. She bore her wings as if they were a burden.

  “She is tragic, no?” Ernesto said. “An angel is supposed to be idyllic, but here, he has shown the cost of being divine. It’s so much to bear.”

  “It’s exquisite,” Grace breathed. “But Ernesto, the price…”

  “It is an investment. DeGrant’s place in the art world is secure.” He turned to a hidden panel on the wall, opening it. “As is my collection.” He punched in a code, and Grace heard a voice announce, “Disarmed.”

  “Please,” he said, motioning her toward the glass case as he opened it. “If you’d like to touch it, by all means.”

  Grace reached in, surprised that the gold felt warm to her touch. The medium beneath it was smooth stone that had been chiseled by DeGrant’s fine hand. She felt a strong vibration from the piece, as if the angel herself wished to shed her wings and walk away from them.

  “It’s wonderful, Ernie.” Grace yawned, suddenly feeling her age.

  “Why don’t you come home with me,” Ernesto offered. “We have an understanding, and I do not wish to disrupt that. But it would be nice for us both, I think, to sleep in each other’s arms.”

  Grace could not resist.

  >>>

  She stepped out onto a balcony, her bare feet aware of the edges where the sun-bleached pink paint was flaking off in chunks. Over the edge of the balcony wall, she could see the ocean, pale turquoise capped by white waves. Down below was the street, a row of Fifties-era cars lined up, kids playing around them.

  Grace recognized this place, though she’d never been. It was Havana. She must be dreamslipping with Ernesto—a consequence of letting her guard down with him. He was dreaming of his childhood in Cuba. He’d come over in the Mariel Boatlift, in his forties, she knew.

  She spotted a speck in the distance, a black dot in the sky. But someone was calling from inside the apartment. “Ernesto… Ernesto…”

  Grace stayed with him as he turned and went back indoors. There was an altar on top of a very old TV, also Fifties era. A striped cloth had been draped over the top of the TV, and a row of candles spread across. Dog-eared cards depicting Catholic saints. A shot glass full of water. Faded purple flowers.

  But Ernesto’s attention was on the TV screen, which zig-zagged in wavy lines. He picked up the pliers that were sitting to one side of the altar and used it to turn a spoke sticking out of the TV, where a dial had been lost.

  “A veces se puede recoger de los canales de los Estados Unidos,” Ernesto said, to no one in particular. The room was empty. He said it again, this time in English. “Sometimes you can pick up channels from the United States.”

  The pattern zig-zagged and then stuck on Bozo the Clown. But as soon as Ernesto set the pliers down, the zig-zag pattern resumed, rendering Bozo in black-and-white slices. Ernesto threw the pliers across the room. They disappeared down a hole in the floor. He bent over the hole, but it was a dark, bottomless pit, giving back nothing.

  Then a man in a suit came to the door, a man from the U.S. who seemed to be taking the census. “Is your mother home?” he asked, in English.

  Ernesto slammed the door in his face.

  A group of men were now set up in the middle of the living room, gathered around an apparatus. A pile of moldy potatoes spilled from a gunny sack. They appeared to be distilling alcohol from the potatoes. Ernesto watched for a moment, but they paid him no attention, so he went back out to the balcony.

  The dark speck in the sky was closer now, and Grace could see that it had wings. They were large and glinted in the light, as if covered in gold.

  Ernesto watched as it flew toward him. Soon Grace could see it was the angel, the DeGrant figure. But she was magnificent in her sleekness and strength. She bore her wings as if made for them. Her feet were talons. She swooped down and picked up Ernesto, the nails of her talons piercing him. Grace cried out, feeling the pain of it. The blood dripped down from Ernesto’s body and dispersed into the sea.

  The figure flew a long way across the ocean, clutching Ernesto.

  Finally, land came in sight. A vast highway, cars swarming like bugs. She set him down in the center of a lane. He ran to the edge of the lane. Cars nearly nicked him as they sped by. He waited for an opening and then dove to the far lane, and then the shoulder.

  There on the side of the highway was the winged figure, but now she appeared to be a middle-aged woman, shaped like an apple and wearing a faded apron. Her wings were too large for her, and they weighed her down.

  “Mamá,” he said, running toward her.

  But then the scene switched, and Ernesto was hugging Grace’s brother Mick. Grace found this interesting, since in real life, the two were not close. Mick always seemed uncharacteristically brotherly and overprotective about her liaison with Ernesto.

  In the dream, Mick pushed Ernesto away, sat back on his heels and laughed, pointing at Ernesto. “You’re no angel!”

  Ernesto, and Grace as well, felt an enormous weight. He turned to the right and caught a glimpse of black feathers. The wings. He was wearing them.

  Under their weight, he fell to the ground. Mick stood, laughing. Ernesto could feel the gigantic wings growing back there, crushing him down. He couldn’t breathe. He yelled. Grace gasped, coming out of the dream.

  Ernesto had awakened next to her. He was still yelling, clawing in front of him, his eyes wild.

  “Ernesto,” Grace said calmly. “You had a nightmare.”

  Recognition flooded across his face. “Maldito,” he cursed. “That was…” He ran his hand over his thinning hair, at a loss for
words.

  “…A real doozy,” she finished for him. “You were yelling, you know.” She would not let on any more than what could have been observed by anyone of the non-dreamslipping variety. But spooning Ernesto as he turned to go back to sleep, she wondered what the dream meant.

  Chapter Eleven

  While her grandmother was puzzling over Ernesto’s dream that morning, Cat was trapped in a hoarder’s house with a battalion of beagles underfoot.

  Maysie Ray Duncan had thirty-three of her great-uncle’s paintings. That is, if you could find them under the detritus accumulated over however many decades Maysie had occupied the cinderblock home. It was set down on a canal in a quiet section of Miami suburbia. The beagles, which seemed to number at least twenty, had the run of the place, and judging by the odor that hit the back of Cat’s palate the minute she set foot inside, the dogs had quite possibly never been bathed.

  Unable to shake the feeling that they’d missed something about that first fire at Mick’s place, Cat was still investigating. Sure, maybe crazy Candace did set both fires. It was hard to argue with a confession. But Cat felt she owed it to her uncle to make sure.

  She’d combed through a digital catalogue of Mick’s art and decided she needed to talk to some of his regular buyers, people who made a point of collecting his paintings. One of them could have a grudge against him, she reasoned, or maybe they only wanted to destroy some of his work so the pieces they owned would go up in value.

  Which is how she got to Maysie Ray Duncan, apparently one of her uncle’s biggest fans.

  Behind a tower of newspapers dating back to the Sixties, Cat found a piece with Mick’s tell-tale signature on it—a wide M followed by a scribble followed by a cursive T followed by more scribble.

  “Oh, that’s Blue Shift Number Seven,” said Maysie with delight. “One of my favorites! Number Nine must be nearby. I wanted to get Number Eight, but I was outbid. Imagine that.”

  Maysie wore a velvet housecoat over a long silk dress. Her arthritic feet were stuffed into velvet-trimmed slippers. Her face was made up as if she were about to do a curtain call. Her hair was wrapped in a silk scarf tied above her painted-on eyebrows, the fringe falling down over her forehead.