Heartless

by Alison Gaylin

  He’d watched her, those clouded eyes bearing down on her skin, seeking her face for the truth. There had been a few seconds when she’d almost told him about Grace, how her death had shown them the damage the group could do. But then she’d thought better of it. Grace had been four years ago. No need to bring that up now.

  Finally, Jordan had said, “I believe you. You’re not doing it.”

  “Of course not. What makes you think—”

  “But the rest of them are.”

  Patty had thought, Jordan is just paranoid. He’s probably smoking too much marijuana himself. She’d heard him leaving the house close to midnight, and she’d seen him in the jardín, but she’d thought nothing of it. . . . Not until after his death, when she asked Vanessa if the group was still meeting and saw that telling look on her friend’s face . . .

  After a night full of dreams that were worse than sleeplessness, Patty now knew what she had to do. This morning, she had reserved a one-way ticket back home to Austin, set to leave from León tomorrow at noon. She had called Rafael, told him she had something important to discuss. “Come by at two,” he had said, “when I’m through teaching my class.”

  Patty lit a cigarette—the last one in her pack. She lipped the filter and took a long pull, the smoke sliding down her throat like hot liquid. Patty had quit when she got pregnant with her first child, picked it up after her husband had died, quit again a year later and started again after Grace. Someday she would give up smoking for good, but for now she needed the burn.

  In five minutes, she would walk across the street to Rafael’s studio and tell him she knew she was the only one who had kept the vow; the rest of them were still meeting. And then she would tell him about the maguey spines that had been placed in Jordan’s hands.

  The police hadn’t cared about the spines. They hadn’t cared about Grace. The new comandante, in particular, seemed to think Patty was delusional—some aging gringa hippie dreaming up dead women. “We have no record of this Grace’s death,” he had said, as if no record meant no Grace at all. As if she had never existed.

  But Rafael would care. Rafael still loved Grace—so deeply that he forbade anyone from saying her name so that she might rest in peace, with no interruption. He needed to know that Jordan’s body had been desecrated, not in a similar fashion . . . but in the exact same way that Grace’s had been.

  He also needed to know whom Jordan had met with, the night before his death—his shoulders slumped, his arms hugged to his chest so protectively, as if he’d shrunk back to his sixteen-year-old self. They had thought they were alone, but Patty had seen them from her rooftop patio, in front of La Cruz at midnight. . . . At the time, she had thought, Just a conversation. None of my business. But now, more than anything, she wished she could have heard what Warren Clark had been saying to her sweet, strong Jordan. She wished she knew what Warren had done to make him crumple up like that. . . .

  She would tell Rafael, and Rafael would listen. He would understand. He would know what to do, and she would leave town with a clear conscience, knowing she had done all she could to prevent another sacrifice.

  Patty stubbed out the cigarette and headed out her door. For a moment, she thought about what had been inflicted on Jordan. Will the same thing happen to me?

  She shook the thought away. Patty could stay safe for twenty-four hours. She was a smart, cautious, sober woman with a house in a busy area and a scream that could wake the dead. She was not like Jordan, who had spent his last night alive hapless in the desert, under the influence of hallucinogens. And besides, Patty trusted Rafael. He would keep her confidence.

  Patty crossed the street as two people were entering the doctor’s office—Naomi and a much shorter young woman with a delicate build and dark, wavy hair. San Esteban was one of those small towns where it was impossible to go anywhere without running into someone you knew, and realizing she’d soon be rid of that brought Patty a great deal of relief. She knocked on Rafael’s door without bothering to get the girls’ attention; Naomi would hear about her leaving soon enough, via Vanessa or Corinne.

  Within seconds, the door was opened by Rafael’s butler, Emilio. “Buenas tardes, señora.”

  Patty smiled. She had always liked Emilio. “Quíero ver a Señor Rafael,” she said. “He should be expecting me.”

  “Sí, Señora,” he said. “Follow me. They are waiting in the sunroom.”

  Patty said, “They?”

  Emilio nodded, and before she knew it, she was in the sunroom, her heart in her mouth, the whole group of elders standing before her like a firing squad.

  NINE

  Dr. Dave’s assistant, Robin, looked nothing like Zoe had expected her to look. Something about the word holistic had conjured images of a blissed-out hippie princess draped in crystals and batik. But Robin was pure New York art house—blue-black hair and clothes to match, red lips pierced with three silver rings, skin the color of heavy cream. When Zoe walked into the office, Robin said, “Dave’s not here,” without taking her eyes off her computer screen, and it was as if Zoe were no longer in San Esteban—as if she’d been magically teleported to some video rental place on Twelfth and Avenue A.

  As soon as Naomi entered the room, though, Robin looked up and smiled. “¡Hola, chica!” she called out, and holistic suddenly made sense. Robin had a smile like sunshine. It changed her whole face. “How are the Calms Supremes treating you?”

  “They’re not,” said Naomi. “I think I need something stronger than herbs.”

  Robin’s smile dropped away. She looked personally injured. “Have you tried Reiki yet?”

  Naomi gave Zoe a quick sidelong glance. “Actually,” she said, “Dave should look at Zoe first. She fell on the cobblestones and landed weird on her wrist. We’re afraid it might be broken.”

  Robin looked at Zoe. “Dave’s not here.”

  “Yeah. You said.”

  “I was totally rude, wasn’t I? I’m so sorry. It’s just I was reading this really interesting article about echinacea and . . . wait. Your name is Zoe?”

  She nodded.

  “Warren Clark’s Zoe?”

  “Uh . . . yes?”

  Robin jumped up from her seat. “Which is the good hand?” she said, and when Zoe lifted it, she shook it vigorously. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You should hear the way he talks about you.” Her voice swooped up high enough to make glass tremble, causing a fluffy golden retriever to bound into the dimly lit waiting room, rear up on its hind legs and slam into Zoe’s chest.

  “Watch the wrist!” said Naomi.

  “Awww,” said Zoe. “Who’s this?”

  “That,” said Robin, “is the tremendously well-trained Adele. Down!”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Zoe ruffled Adele’s fur with her good hand, put her face right up to hers and let her lick her chin. Zoe loved dogs. No mystery to them at all. She glanced at Robin. “So, are you a friend of Warren’s?”

  “More like an admirer.”

  “Soap fan?”

  Robin shook her head. “Most of us here don’t bother with TV,” she said. “The cable hook-up is really expensive, and the only thing on local is old Magnum, P.I. episodes, dubbed into Spanish.”

  Naomi said, “You don’t have to be so modest, Robin. You’re definitely Warren’s friend. You guys hang together a lot. He totally confides in you.”

  Zoe stared at Robin.

  “Yeah, well . . . we’re pretty much the only two gringos in this town who are under fifty—except for you, Naomi, of course. So he doesn’t have much choice.”

  “But he confides in you?” said Zoe. “Because from my own experience, he’s . . . very private.”

  Robin shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone’s a little less private when they’re at the doctor’s.”

  Zoe was dying to ask Robin what Warren had said about her—not because she needed to know how he felt, but because she wanted to hear what Warren sounded like when he confided in another person.

  “You�
�re an actress, right?” Robin asked her. “It must be so exciting to be all made up, in front of cameras all day.”

  “I’m actually a magazine writer.”

  “I could have sworn Warren said you were an actress.” The smile fell away. Robin’s pale cheeks flushed. Suddenly, she looked as if she wanted to bang her head against the wall, as if getting the job wrong were enough to make Zoe hate her forever.

  “Easy mistake,” Zoe offered, but Robin just sat there, crestfallen. It made Zoe wonder about the other people in her life.

  Maybe Zoe was making snap judgments, but there was a quality Robin had. Zoe had seen it before, in certain child soap actors—an eagerness to please that bordered on desperation. The kid would be standing there, answering all your questions as if this were the Little Miss America pageant, until you asked her something she hadn’t rehearsed with Mommy and her face would crumble. Then you’d meet Mommy, you’d see that hardness in her eyes and you’d know why.

  Zoe glanced around the room for Naomi, and found her standing in front of the far wall, absorbed in a painting of some strange, dark green thing—it looked like part of a plant. Obviously, she’d checked out of this conversation a while ago.

  “Robin,” Zoe said, “I quit my job at the magazine two days ago, so even if you got it right, you’d be getting it wrong.”

  “But—”

  “And anyway, I’m flattered you thought I was a TV actress.”

  Robin’s face relaxed back into a smile. “No wonder Warren likes you so much.”

  Zoe exhaled. She sat down on the waiting room couch, resting her bad wrist in her lap. She watched Adele trot over to Robin’s desk and wedge her large body underneath it and thought, At least she’s comfortable with the dog. “Where did you get Adele?”

  “She was a street dog. Followed me home eleven years ago, when she was just a puppy.”

  Zoe looked at the girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. “Eleven years? Did you grow up here or something?”

  She smiled. “Now you’re just trying to flatter me.”

  “Oh, come on. How old—”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  “No way.”

  “Actually, I’ll be thirty-eight next month.”

  Zoe stared at her—the full cheeks and lips, the soft brown eyes, guileless despite all the makeup. Not a line on her whole face, even when she smiled. “Man,” she said, “I am definitely trying Reiki.”

  Robin laughed. Adele shimmied out from under the desk and started barking, and it hit Zoe how spry and youthful she was, too, for a big, eleven-year-old dog. “Is Adele into Reiki, too?” Zoe asked.

  But Robin didn’t answer. Her face went stern and professional, and before Zoe knew what was happening, Robin was up and moving around her desk, Adele on her heels, rushing toward Naomi, who had turned to them, her sunburned face stark white, her knees buckling. With a thud, she collapsed on the floor.

  Dr. Dave showed up just as Naomi was coming to. He told Zoe to wait in his office while he tended to Naomi, giving her ice chips and placing a cool compress on her head and stretching her out on the waiting room couch as Robin grabbed her desk phone and called the Reiki master next door, ignoring Naomi’s pleas of, “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  Only then did Dr. Dave turn his attention to Zoe. Like Robin, the doctor did not match her preconceptions. It must have been the name Dr. Dave . . . but for whatever reason, Zoe had expected a children’s show host in a lab coat—a big, jovial guy with personality to spare.

  Yet the sallow, expressionless man who bent Zoe’s wrist back and forth as if it were a car part, who placed her hand on the X-ray tray, saying, “Keep still,” and nothing more . . . this man had the look and personality of a piece of plywood— yang to Robin’s colorful, desperately attentive yin.

  Zoe hoped there was that type of balance between them—for Robin’s sake. Either he defined the word withholding or Dr. Dave was in a very bad mood. She half expected him to strap her to the table, trot out the dental tools and start asking, “Is it safe?” like Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man.

  He left her in the examining room briefly to develop the X-ray. The room was silent save for the hum of the fluorescent lights—a sound that, while usually easy to ignore, is close to torturous when you’re forced to pay attention to it. Zoe looked at the diploma on the wall, from Tufts Medical School. She couldn’t help but wonder what brought a dour man like Dr. Dave to this bright, festive town—not to mention what possessed him to hire someone like Robin.

  Maybe he really was just in a bad mood today. . . .

  Two minutes later, he was back in the room. “Not broken,” he said, as he clipped the wrist X-ray to the lightboard.

  Zoe said, “That’s a relief.”

  He regarded her the same way a frog might look at a fly—unblinking, emotionless, vaguely predatory. . . . “I’ll wrap it.”

  He opened a cabinet and removed an ACE bandage. Zoe had a tremendous urge to tell him not to worry about it and haul ass out of his office, but then he took her hand and began wrapping the wrist with gentleness and efficiency, and some of the tension eased from his face. “So,” he said, “how are you liking San Esteban?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He gave her a smile that was mild, almost pleasant. It must have taken a lot of effort on his part—the small talk- smile combo. Then he said, “I’ve been living here close to twenty years and the sunsets still take my breath away,” and she almost fell off the table.

  “What brought you here?”

  “Rafael.”

  “From next door?”

  He nodded. “I used to live in Glendale, California. He was the minister at my church. He moved down here twenty-five years ago.”

  “A minister-turned-artist.”

  “Actually,” Dave said, “he’s always been a little of both.” He brought the bandage around her thumb, crossed it over the back of her hand.

  “We corresponded. He mentioned this beautiful town with so many older Americans and not one doctor who speaks English.” He glanced up at her. “I know a business opportunity when I see one.”

  Zoe said. “You must be busy.”

  “Always.”

  “Were you with a patient earlier?”

  He stopped wrapping. His expression suddenly shifted back to cold. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . . when Naomi and I got here. . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You weren’t around.”

  “Yes.” He glared at her for so long she started to sweat at the temples. Zoe felt as if she were under a microscope—an effect that was only intensified by the thickness of Dr. Dave’s glasses, the black ice of his eyes.

  “Well . . . ,” she said, “I was . . . I was just . . . I was thinking maybe you made house calls and . . . never mind.”

  He started wrapping again. “I wasn’t with a patient,” he said. “I was at a meeting.”

  The fluorescent lights groaned. She stared at the diploma until the words made no sense. Then Zoe realized that while the doctor was still holding her arm, he had stopped wrapping her wrist. “Are you enjoying yourself,” he said, “with Warren?” He gazed intently at the delicate pale skin on the underside of her forearm, the network of blue veins running beneath.

  “Yes, I am. . . .”

  “How old are you, Zoe?”

  “Thirty.”

  “Perfect.”

  “For what?”

  Zoe noticed a strange glint in his eyes—a sort of shared joke, only she wasn’t the one sharing it. “We don’t get many young people.” He ran his fingertips over the veins, and she yanked her hand away. Pain shot up her arm, making her gasp, but more important was getting away from Dr. Dave, as soon as possible.

  “No sudden movements,” he said quietly.

  Zoe headed into the waiting room, where she saw Naomi on the couch with an arm thrown over her eyes, Robin’s black-clad form blocking a man who stood with his flat hands two feet above N
aomi’s body and was speaking in some foreign language.

  Would you just give the poor girl a pill?

  “Does that feel any better?” the man finally asked.

  “Yes, much.” Naomi stood up. She looked mortified.

  Zoe said, “Should we settle up?”

  Naomi nodded vigorously. “Thanks, Paul,” she said to the man—the same man Zoe had seen in the jardín, his hands on La Cruz.

  Zoe gaped at him.

  “Anything for the niece of my beautiful Lady Vanessa,” he said in an aging surfer’s voice—all sunlight and cheer, the polar opposite of the way he’d sounded earlier. Were you talking to me? Do I know you? “Did you want me to treat you, too?” he asked Zoe.

  “Nah.” She held up her bandaged wrist. “But I just might take a rain check.”

  Paul beamed at her. “Awesome! Hey . . . didn’t I see you about an hour ago? In the jardín?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said tentatively.

  His tanned face twisted into an apologetic wince. “I was kinda harsh, huh? Everybody knows, though, don’t interrupt Reiki Master Paul when he’s absorbing Cruz energy— right, guys?”

  Robin and Naomi nodded.

  “Sorry,” said Zoe.

  “No hay problema, chica. You had no idea,” he said. “Anyway, if I knew you were Zoe, I wouldn’t have been as rude.”

  “You . . . know who I am?”

  “Warren’s told me all about you.”

  She stared at him. Warren confides in the Reiki master, too?

  “He said you had the perfect energy for San Es. And he was right about that. He’s right about everything.” Paul smiled, somewhat reverently. “You have a pure white aura, Zoe.”

  “Uh . . . thanks?”

  He opened the side door—the one that led to the courtyard between his and Dr. Dave’s offices—revealing a burst of tropical color. What was it with the gardens in this town?

  “So much to learn. Warren will teach you.” Paul winked— at Robin. Then he walked out the door.

  While Naomi was in the examining room, Robin added up the bill. Zoe watched her tonguing her lip piercings as she clacked away at her keyboard. Warren’s confidante . . . and she wasn’t the only one. Reiki Master Paul, Guadalupe, even the intensely creepy Dr. Dave . . . they all seemed to know Zoe, yet she knew none of them. Maybe Warren isn’t really a private person. Maybe he’s only private with me.