“It’s okay,” Vanessa had said.
“No, it isn’t. Nothing is okay anymore.”
After the Master had fallen asleep, Vanessa had lain next to him, staring at the ceiling, that B. B. King song running through her brain. “The Thrill Is Gone.”
Magic didn’t exist if you didn’t believe in it, and Vanessa didn’t believe, not anymore. She’d been through this before—with EST and TM. . . . There had been that moment with the past-life counselor when it had suddenly dawned on her: How can you have memories from a previous incarnation when memories are stored in the brain, which dies? But it was never as bad as this. She had thought Rafael was the One, and Warren was the Next One. And, as it turned out, neither one of them was anything but pretty words and charisma. A whole lot of smoke and mirrors turned to dust.
It was all falling apart. The spell was off and the world was still dying. Vanessa’s body was speeding toward the finish line, and she didn’t give a damn.
Vanessa reached the front door of her house. She thought of Naomi inside. She needed to take better care of her niece. She needed to start listening to her. Naomi was seventeen, and whether the future lasted five more years or a million, it was her future. Naomi deserved her turn at the table.
The house was very quiet. Not surprising. It was only eight a.m. and Naomi, like most kids her age, would sleep till sunset if no one woke her. Soccoro was usually making breakfast by now, but maybe she’d used Vanessa’s absence as an excuse to sleep in.
Vanessa took the stairs slowly, her muscles protesting with each step. When she reached the top, Vanessa headed for Naomi’s room. The door was closed, as usual. Most other days, the closed door gave her some pause. Opening it made her feel like her own nosey, diary-reading mother, possessive and old. But this morning, she wanted to watch her niece. She wanted to see Naomi asleep and breathing softly, holding that stuffed turtle she still slept with—the one Lucy had bought for her when she was a tiny baby.
Quietly, Vanessa turned the knob and pushed open the door.
“¿Señora?’’
“¿Soccoro? ¿Qué pasa aqui?” Vanessa looked around the room. It was empty, save for the housekeeper. The bed was made. “¿Dónde está Naomi?”
“No se.” Soccoro was standing in front of Naomi’s laptop, peering at an opened e-mail. “No comprendo,” she said, and Vanessa moved around her, read the screen.
It was from TexCori91.
N,
I’m really worried. My grandma wasn’t on her plane. She still hasn’t shown up, and we can’t get ahold of her. Can you check on her?
Love,
Corinne
Naomi went to check on Patty.
Vanessa recalled the look in Rafael’s eyes, back when she told him she thought Patty was talking to the press. She remembered how he had told her, I will take care of this, and how he had never answered Vanessa when she asked where all the blood had come from, and it all seemed surreal— scenes sliced out of a bad dream. The Master wasn’t capable of murder, was he?
The truth was, Vanessa had no idea what he was capable of.
“I’ve got to go,” Vanessa told Soccoro, all her Spanish dropping away, along with tiredness and age and everything else. She raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time, praying that, if the same thing had happened to Patty as had happened to Jordan, she could at least stop Naomi from seeing the results.
Zoe pressed a towel against the wound on her chest until the bleeding stopped. It didn’t take long; it was a shallow cut. She found a box of Band-Aids in Warren’s medicine cabinet and slapped three of them over it, then hurried to the closet and threw on underwear, a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Good. I’m dressed.
That was about as far as her brain would take her right now. Washing, dressing. Basic actions.
Wash. Dress. Pack.
She pulled her suitcase out of the closet, started throwing clothes in. So far, so good. But then words from last night started leaking into her mind, moments from the dream that wasn’t a dream at all. . . .
She shuddered. Can’t think about this now. What she needed to do was pack, quick as she could, then call a cab and head over to León Airport before Warren returned and tried to explain. . . . Zoe thought, Where is he right now? It wasn’t even nine in the morning yet. Where do you disappear to at eight a.m.?
For God’s sake, Rafael, look at her. You have to take them unconscious now? Are you really that weak?
Again, Zoe saw the look on Rafael’s face—that deepening rage at Warren. She saw Rafael moving toward him as if he were prey. . . .
Zoe’s throat constricted, her breathing grew shallow. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t have enough breath. She felt each individual bandage pressing against the cut. Panic threatened to overtake her whole body.
No, no, it couldn’t be. They wouldn’t. They’re not murderers. They’re weird, yes. But they’re not . . . Where had Dave gotten all that blood?
Bloodletting and consuming. Self-mutilation and speaking in tongues and the spilling of blood on the earth . . . But not that. They wouldn’t. They’re grandparents. Zoe put her hands on the bed, feeling for some kind of warmth, an indentation, anything to show Warren had slept in it before leaving that morning. But the spread was cool and flat, the bed perfectly made . . . just as Guadalupe had left it. She ran back into the bathroom. His toothbrush was dry, the counter scrubbed, no sign of any life, other than her own.
What had Rafael been planning to do to Zoe? What exactly was it that Warren had interrupted? She shut her eyes tight, hands balled into fists, legs frozen. How strong had Rafael’s rage been?
Zoe thought, Protection. Quickly, she made for the writing desk. She pulled out the key and raced out of the room and opened the garden safe. The stack of pesos was still inside. Nick Denby’s watch was still inside. The Day’s End promotional scarf was still inside. But the gun was not.
She heard the piercing brrring of the doorbell, and her heart shot into her throat. Easy, easy . . . She remembered: Back in El Borracho, Warren had promised to take the gun—Garrett Christopher’s gun—to the police the following morning. He had made good on his word. Relief washed over her.
He’d made good on his word, and he’d forgotten his key again, and now they could say goodbye. . . .
“Zoe? Are you there?” said the voice at the door. “I need your help,” the voice pleaded, and Zoe knew she would have to give it. It wasn’t Warren’s voice, though. It was Naomi’s.
TWENTY-TWO
“She never boarded the plane?” Zoe asked. She and Naomi were nearing the jardín, half walking, half running to Patty Woods’s house.
“It isn’t like her, either,” said Naomi. “I’ve known Mrs. Woods the whole time I’ve lived here, and she’s no flake. She would never just disappear without telling her family.”
“And the police—”
“They don’t care. They told me to wait another twenty-four hours and then I can file a missing-person report. Can you imagine?”
“Wait. . . . When you were at the station, did you see Warren?”
“No, Zoe. I told you. I haven’t seen him at all.”
Just after Naomi had shown up at her door, Zoe had borrowed her cell phone and texted him: FROM ZOE. BATTERY DEAD. TEXT BACK AT THIS PHONE ASAP!! She’d also left him a voice mail. So far, there had been no reply to either. What was he doing out there with that gun? If Warren was the one who had taken the gun . . .
They were getting closer to La Cruz. Zoe grabbed Naomi’s hand and yanked her across the street, narrowly avoiding a taxi.
“Whoa,” said Naomi.
“Sorry. Just a . . . weird reflex.”
“A new one.” They were in front of the church now. “Zoe?”
“Yeah?”
“Were you with my aunt last night?”
Zoe stared straight ahead. “Yes.”
“What did you guys do?”
Zoe inhaled sharply. “You know what, Naomi? I’d like to take this one step at a
time. First, let’s go see if Mrs. Woods is still at her house. And then we’ll talk about last night. In detail.” She glanced at Naomi. “Hopefully with your aunt there, too, because I’ve got a whole hell of a lot of questions for her.”
Zoe felt Naomi’s gaze on the side of her face. “What?” she said.
“Nothing. Just . . . you don’t seem like you’re on vacation anymore.”
Zoe turned to Naomi. “I guess I’m not.”
“I’m glad.”
They passed the church and rounded the corner on Murillo, and in spite of all her mounting confusion and fear, Zoe found herself smiling at Naomi, just a little. “Me, too,” she said. “I was getting sick of vacation.”
Patty Woods’s house looked dark from the outside, but Zoe rang the bell anyway. They waited. No answer. Still, Zoe thought she could hear something.
Naomi said, “Is that . . . someone crying?”
For the hell of it, Zoe tried the door. It drifted open. They both stepped in and an awful smell crashed into them, the crying at full volume now. Both were coming from upstairs—the rooftop patio. They heard a long, piercing wail and then the crying got softer.
“That sounds like my aunt,” Naomi whispered. “She must have seen the e-mail from Corinne. . . .”
“Get out of the house,” said Zoe.
“But—”
“Go across the street and call the police. Tell Robin we need her to bring something stronger than chamomile, and then you . . . wait for us outside.”
“But—”
“I will handle this. Do not come upstairs, Naomi.” Zoe didn’t wait for a response. She tore across the courtyard and up the stairs, covering her nose and mouth as that smell pressed on her, getting stronger and stronger. She knew what it was. She’d sat in on an autopsy once and so she knew. . . .
No, no, no, no . . . Maybe Patty Woods had died of natural causes. Maybe she’d had a heart attack or overdosed on pills out of guilt and grief. What a strange thing to be hoping for, but compared to the alternative, compared to what Zoe somehow knew she would see on the roof—compared to that, an overdose would be a blessing.
When she got up to the rooftop, Vanessa rushed at Zoe and fell on her, sobbing. “I’m so, so sorry, Zoe. I should never have believed in him. I should never have followed the Master. I see that now. I’m so, so sorry, Zoe. I’m sorry. . . .”
“Are you saying Rafael had something to do with . . .” Zoe never finished the sentence. Her skin went cold. For several moments, she could hear nothing but her own pounding heart, the blood rushing into her ears, as she stared at the mutilated thing on the patio floor.
Rafael couldn’t have done that. No human could have done that. . . .
“I’m so sorry.” Vanessa wept.
Zoe put her arms around Vanessa and held her close. She had never noticed how thin Vanessa was, how frail. She could feel Vanessa’s every bone. She focused on Vanessa, the living person. She closed her eyes, too, breathing shallowly through her mouth so she wouldn’t gag, wouldn’t faint, wouldn’t think about what had happened up here, what had been done to a grandmother.
“Patty was right,” Vanessa said. “First Grace, then Jordan and then Patty herself. That’s what she got for knowing. . . .”
“Knowing what?”
“Sangre Para La Vida. Our group. It was still meeting, after what happened to Grace. We kept it quiet—always at Las Aguas, never in town. We kept the cuts small, explainable. But Patty found out. And Jordan did, too. I thought it was Carlos who killed him, Zoe. I wanted it to be Carlos so badly. . . .”
Zoe caught a glimpse of one of Patty Woods’s hands— outstretched, palm facing the sky. A small maguey spine had been placed on top. “Oh, my God.”
“It’s one of us. One of us did this horrible thing to Grace and Jordan and Patty and . . .”
“Vanessa?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to Warren last night? After he told Rafael to . . .”
“God, you remember. I’m so, so sorry. . . .”
Zoe squeezed her eyes shut. “Did Warren take me home last night?”
“No . . . no, Xavier did. I dressed you, and a few of us helped take you to his car, and then he brought you back.”
“Xavier? From Las Aguas? With the hawk?”
“He’s a good man. The only good one.”
“How did he get in?”
“Most of us have keys to one another’s homes. . . .” She let out a trembling breath.
“Could Xavier have known about the garden safe? Could he have taken the gun?”
Vanessa said, “I don’t know what happened to Warren. Dave told us he went home.”
“Dave?”
“Oh, God. Oh, Patty . . .” Vanessa started to sob again, and all Zoe could think of was Dave, drunk on pulque, touching Robin’s blushing face. Poor Patty. Immune to Warren’s charms. Only one way you could get that bitch’s blood to rise to the surface, right, Warren?
Zoe gritted her teeth and hugged her. She heard sirens on the street, the front door opening and rushing footsteps and Spanish spoken over police radios. Zoe made sure Vanessa was turned away from Patty’s body. She tried not to think of the smell or the sight of it. She rubbed Vanessa’s back and told her, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She said the words the same way you’d say them to a frightened child, over and over, as if repetition could lead to believing, and believing could make it true.
Police officers clustered around the body, bagging the flacid hands, the gaping chest cavity, the rib cage—a large portion of which had been removed and placed on the wrought-iron dinette table. Zoe heard one of them say, “Corazón ausente.” Missing heart.
Dr. Dave showed up—not Robin. Zoe froze at the sight of him. He took Vanessa to a chaise longue at the far corner of the patio, where you couldn’t see the body and the smell wasn’t quite as bad. But before leading her there, he glanced at Patty Woods’s mutilated body—the bones he had said were so similar to Zoe’s—and it didn’t escape Zoe, the calm interest on his face.
Dave gave Vanessa two Valium with a bottle of water. Zoe walked over to him. She took a breath, made herself look him in the eye. “Last night, at Rafael’s party . . .”
“I don’t remember much of that party, unfortunately,” he said. “Robin told me I made an ass of myself.” He looked at Vanessa. “Breathe deeply. It shouldn’t take long for the pill to begin—”
“You were talking about Patty.”
“I was?”
“Warren and Patty. You said, ‘Only one way to get that bitch’s blood to rise to the surface.’ What did you mean by that?”
Vanessa stared at him, “You said that, Dave?”
“This is not the time or the place to answer—” Dave started.
“It wasn’t the time or place to say it last night, either,” Zoe said. “I want to know—”
“Your needs are not my priority. Vanessa’s are.”
Vanessa said, “I know why he said that.”
Zoe stared at her.
“Vanessa, you don’t have to tell her—”
“I want to. It’s the least I could do, after what we did to her last night. . . .” Vanessa’s eyes were calm, the Valium taking effect. “We had a meeting the day before yesterday. Patty mentioned similarities between Grace’s death and Jordan’s. Warren punished her for saying the name. He slashed her face.” She looked at Dave. “That upset you, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It did, I’m sure. It upset me. But I did nothing about it because Warren could do no wrong. . . .”
Patty’s face floated through Zoe’s mind, the cross-shaped slash on her cheek. . . . “God,” she whispered. She thought of the way Warren had looked at her—that fierce caring, that healing gaze. She thought of how he said he always wanted to protect her and keep her safe and fix her, and she tried to reconcile that with how Patty had been slashed—a grieving woman. She felt the blood draining out of her face. . . .
“He
was observing the Master’s rules,” Vanessa said. “We aren’t allowed to say Grace’s name.”
Dave said, “You just did. Twice.”
“I don’t care anymore, Dave. I really don’t.” She cast a quick glance at the group of police officers. “Look at what his fucking rules did,” she said. A fresh tear spilled down her cheek.
A uniformed officer came up to speak to Vanessa. His questions were basic: What time had she discovered the body? Why had she gone to the house in the first place? How long had she known the victim? He asked the questions in Spanish, yet they were so simple Zoe understood them all. The whole time, she felt Dave’s cold gaze on her. After about five minutes, the cop took down Vanessa’s phone numbers and told her, in English, “Go home and get some rest. I will be in touch.” Vanessa looked relieved. “Are you coming, Zoe?” she asked as she and Dr. Dave started out.
“I’ll catch up with you,” she said.
They began walking downstairs. “Dave?” Zoe said.
He looked at her.
“Did Warren really tell you he was going home last night? Vanessa says—”
“Like I told you earlier, I was in bad shape. I don’t remember a word of what I said to anyone. And it appears I’m better for it.”
“Okay . . . well, I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t be too long,” he said.
Breathing into her hands to avoid the death smell, Zoe moved closer to the police team. They were speaking rapidly in Spanish—she couldn’t understand most of it, though she did catch one phrase. “Veinte y cuatro horas.” She tapped one of the cops on the shoulder. “Are you saying the approximate time of the murder was twenty-four hours ago?”
He turned and glared at her.
“¿Habla inglés?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have no comment.”
Heartless Page 24