Valley of the Moon

by Bronwyn Archer

“Oh my God, what happened to your arm?”

  “I fell,” I said, through gritted teeth. “It got cut.” A bolt of pain arced through my arm. The hikers exchanged glances.

  “You need to get that looked at,” the guy said. A master of the obvious. “Honey, hand me my first aid kit.” The woman pulled a red pouch out of her backpack and handed it to him. He unzipped it and pulled out a giant roll of gauze. “Good thing I took that wilderness survival class,” he said.

  After dressing my cut, they helped me down the steep hiking trail. As we made our way back down, I started shivering uncontrollably. The woman draped her hoodie around my shoulders.

  “Wow, what happened to your hair? Did you cut that too?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” My voice sounded ragged and torn. I saw them exchange another glance.

  At the bottom, there were police cars everywhere. Cops stood around talking into walkie-talkies. The Lamborghini was gone.

  I took my backpack from the man, who had carried it down the hill for me. “Thanks a lot for your help, you guys, take care,” I said, and limped towards my car, which was mercifully still in the parking lot.

  “Wait! Let’s see if someone can look at that cut,” the woman said, jogging after me.

  “Oh, no, that’s okay, I’m fine,” I lied. “My car’s just over there and my parents are waiting for me at our hotel. They’ll be mad if I don’t get back soon. Thanks again for all your help, I really appreciate it.” I glanced nervously at the police milling around, but no one seemed to notice the limping, bloodstained teenager in their midst. I fished my keys out of jeans pocket.

  “Wait, that’s her car?” I heard the woman ask the man. “A Ferrari?”

  “Excuse me, folks?” a voice yelled out. My heart tightened in my chest when I saw a portly young sheriff walking over to us. His face was red and sweaty “Did you all happen to come down that trail?”

  “Yes, we did,” said the man. “What’s going on around here?”

  “You didn’t happen to see anyone up there, a male Caucasian, black t-shirt, dark hair?” Actually, Officer, you just missed him. I shook my head and tried to look casual.

  “Nope. What’d he do?” the man asked the cop.

  “Hit and run. He injured one of our deputies a few miles down the road. His vehicle was spotted in this lot earlier.”

  “No kidding! We’ll keep our eyes peeled, Officer,” the guy said. The cop nodded and walked away. The hoodie the woman lent me had covered my cut and all the blood on my arm.

  I let out a deep breath and unlocked my car. My reflection in the window shocked me. It looked like squirrels had gnawed all my hair off just under my ears. It was uneven all around, which only made my pale skin and dark circles look scarier.

  I pulled the door open with my right arm, but the door seemed lower. You lost too much blood. You’re just hallucinating.

  “Looks like you might have a flat,” the man called. “Or two.” I stumbled in a circle around the car. All four tires sagged loose on the silver rims. I could see the slash marks. I closed my eyes and felt the Earth start to spin. Don’t lose it yet. Not yet. You need to get to a phone. I took a deep breath and looked at the couple.

  “Do you think you guys can give me a ride?” I tried to sound like it was no big deal to have your tires slashed randomly in the middle of nowhere.

  A white police cruiser sped by, slowed down as it passed, and made a tight U-turn into the crowded parking lot. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the words on the side of the car: SHERIFF NAPA COUNTY.

  The other police milling around turned to look and then resumed their discussions.

  I wriggled free of the hiker’s grip and backed away. How did she find me? What was she doing here?

  “Wow, they sent cops from all over,” the man exclaimed.

  The door opened and a slim, black-clad leg emerged. An elegant hand rested on the top of the door.

  “Lana, darling! There you are at last!” Ramona called out. The driver’s side door opened and a hulking Jenner emerged, mirrored aviators glittering, bald head glistening. His thick lips curled like a fish’s around a hook.

  Ramona, even in the desert, looked chic. She wore black slender pants and a sleeveless, silky white blouse. Her tan face was makeup-free, except for the scarlet lipstick.

  A concerned parent chasing a missing teenager wouldn’t have bothered with the lipstick, Ramona. I glared back at her. I took a step backwards, but the hiker put his arm around my waist and held me in place. I wanted to run screaming to the cops but my body felt like it was trapped in quicksand.

  “Hey, your mom’s here!” the woman said, unhelpfully.

  “She’s not my—”

  Ramona ran up to me, suddenly breathless. “Lana! Thank GOD!” She enveloped me in a bony embrace and whispered, “Get in the car right now.”

  “Ma’am, your daughter slipped and fell on some rocks, so she has a pretty bad cut on her arm.”

  “Oh you poor thing!” Ramona shrieked. “Oh my darling! I promise not to be mad at you for running away! Quick, get in the car and Officer Jenner will take us home.”

  “Whose home, Ramona?” I didn’t have a home anymore. According to Maya, it burned down. Everything had been taken from me. And at that moment, I knew that Ramona was involved somehow. Everything she’d ever done had been designed to hurt me.

  The hiker cleared his throat. “Uh, are you gonna be okay?” he asked me.

  Ramona flashed him a spellbinding smile. “She must be delirious from being out here so long. She’s a bit autistic, you see. She stole my car and ran away from school. Officer Jenner and I have been looking for her for two days.”

  The hikers looked at each other and nodded solemnly. I racked my feverish brain for a plan. If I ran over to a cop and told them about Arkady, I’d be safe from Ramona and Wade Jenner for the moment, but my dad would be in real danger.

  She’d make up some story, and they would hand me right back to her. I could try to run for it, but I’d have half the cops in the state looking for me. Anyway, I’d only get about five feet before collapsing.

  “Well, good luck,” the man said to Ramona, who theatrically wiped an invisible tear.

  “I can’t thank you enough. I was out of my mind with worry.” She met my eyes at last. “What happened to your hair, dear?”

  “She cut it,” the female hiker told her. Ramona looked at me, her eyes narrowed. I stared back at her.

  “How’s my father?” I asked.

  Her face stiffened. “He’s just fine. Come home and you’ll see him.” She glanced over at the slightly confused hikers, her mouth pursed. “Thank you both again.”

  “Get that arm looked at!” the man called after us.

  Ignoring them, she and Jenner dragged me towards the cruiser. I could feel blood steadily trickling down my arm and onto my hand. I was still wearing the hiker’s sweatshirt, but she didn’t ask for it back.

  A cold darkness edged in to my mind and I stumbled into the back of Jenner’s car.

  ***

  The night sky stretched to the ground like a lead curtain. Jenner’s headlights would occasionally illuminate a jackrabbit bounding across the narrow highway.

  At some point, I saw a sign. It lit up just long enough for me to read it.

  Hoover Dam - 25 miles

  “We’re taking a tour of the Hoover Dam?” I asked. “How educational.” There was no response from the front seat. I was feeling an ounce better after a short nap and some sips from the water bottle they had tossed into the backseat, but my forehead burned and my arm throbbed every time the car bounced.

  The back doors had no handles and no locks. A metal grate separated me from the cruiser’s front seat. I was a prisoner.

  The car bounced over a dip in the road. The suspension squeaked and I gasped in pain. We rounded a sharp turn and I saw lights behind us. Another car was about half a mile away—the first car I’d seen the whole ride. Its headlights flicked off.

  “Wh
ere are you taking me?” I asked. “Sonoma is the other direction.”

  “I told you, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “By the Hoover Dam?” Ramona glanced over at Jenner. He didn’t budge.

  Thinking felt like searching for matching white socks in a big basket of white laundry. It was exhausting, trying to find words that went together. I was so tired.

  I reached for my ponytail out of habit. My fingers felt my scalp where I’d sliced off my ponytail. The surviving wisps were barely an inch long. I sighed and leaned my head back.

  “Ramona, how did you meet my mother? It was at Barnard, right?” I heard a quiet intake of breath from the front seat. “You were the same year.”

  She opened the glove compartment and pulled out a box of cigarettes. Jenner had a lighter ready for her immediately. She took a long drag and blew out the smoke.

  “Tanith and I were freshman roommates.”

  Something burst in my heart. I stayed as calm as I could—I wanted her to keep talking. “Did you move to Sonoma when she did?”

  “No. I was in New York. I’d met Martin by then. I tracked her down years later and convinced Martin to buy me a house in Sonoma.” She flicked her ashes through the grate into the backseat. “Tanith was easy to find, even with her new name. Your Ambrose friends could have found her—and you—if they hadn’t been such fools. But foolishness runs in that family. All that money and not one clue.”

  “So my dad knew you were…acquainted.”

  She shook her head. “Of course not. We never let on. She made me swear I would keep her new identity secret. Tanith didn’t want anyone from her past to find her, including me. She wasn’t too happy when I found her. But I kept my distance. Until she was…out of the picture, so to speak.”

  She took another drag and turned to face me. She blew the smoke through the metal grate. “Did you know Tanith hated her money? She had this ridiculous idea it was cursed. That’s why she refused her inheritance when Claudette died. And it went to Georgette instead! Such a fool.”

  She knows about the Ambroses. She knew about the inheritance.

  “Why did you tell Severine I was studying abroad? Why didn’t you want her to find me?”

  The police radio in the cruiser squawked. A fuzzy voice blared. Through the static I heard that the body of a “male Caucasian, deceased” had been found at Valley of Fire State Park. Good-bye, Arkady.

  Jenner and Ramona exchanged glances. He switched off the radio.

  “Maybe she was right about the curse,” she said slowly. “After all, look what happened to her. And, of course, to your poor baby brother.” She drew the last three words out slowly.

  The Earth tilted and I slid right off the edge.

  She peered at me through the grate and her eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Ha, I knew it. She never told you. So typical. Well, you might also like to know that her baby’s father was the love of my life. She stole him from me, and I cursed her for it. And then the baby…” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head and took a long drag.

  “What? What happened to him?” I managed to whisper. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. Ramona had never been her friend. Ramona hated my mother. She’d hated her for years.

  Which explained how she treated me.

  “Your foolish mother let those crazy old spinsters babysit him one day so she could do some Christmas shopping. He climbed into a bathtub full of water. Tanith found him in it when she got home. He must have been one or two.”

  So much about my mother came into sharp, jarring focus in a single instant.

  I had a brother. She lost a baby.

  An anvil of grief came down hard on me, breaking me into a thousand shards. After craving answers for so long, I was finally getting them.

  I wanted to go back to not knowing.

  The truth was too hard.

  The truth sucked.

  No wonder she didn’t tell us. No wonder she was sad.

  No wonder she jumped.

  I sobbed quietly in the backseat. The cracked pleather seats dug into my thighs. Cigarette haze filled the car and burned my eyes. Jenner opened his window and icy air flooded the car, clearing out the smoke. Outside, the ragged landscape came into focus. The moon had risen and eerie formations threw shadows across the desert floor.

  Ramona stuck the tip of her cigarette through the metal grate and flicked the end. Hot ashes hit my arm.

  “When I married your father, he begged me to add you to my will. He wanted you to be protected in case he died. Unlike your dear mother, who left you with nothing.”

  I wanted to scream at her, tell her to shut up and stop talking about my mother, but I also was desperate to hear more.

  “She cheated you, Lana. Just like she cheated me. Did you know all three of my daughters have wills of their own?”

  “All two you mean,” I muttered.

  “If one of my girls dies, God forbid, her father and I inherit her estate.” She cracked her window and tossed her cigarette out. Orange sparks streaked into the darkness.

  The stunning audacity of her plan hit me. First of all, if I died, Ramona and my dad would get my inheritance from Georgette. And second, it revolved around me dying.

  But there was a glaring flaw in her plan.

  “Too bad for you I’m not your daughter anymore.”

  She let out a strange high-pitched laugh.

  “But you are, Lana! Your father never finalized the divorce! He wanted you to remain my legal heir—for your protection! Oh, it’s ironic, isn’t it? And now…” She cackled and nodded. “I think my marriage to your father is going to work out, after all. For you too, Wade.”

  Panic arced through my chest. Her plan only worked if my dad was dead, too. Then she’d get it all.

  My teeth banged together. I wrapped my arms around my chest to try to stop shaking.

  “It can’t be true.” My voice was a thin whisper. “You were never my mother and never will be.”

  Her face turned back to stone. “Get ready. I think we’re nearly there.”

  I heard a familiar whine in the distance. The purring roar of a car I knew. I looked out the back window again. The car had cut the distance between us in half. I could just make out a silvery grill. The engine gunned again and the smooth purr filled the desert valley.

  I knew that sound—it was an Aston Martin. I was almost positive. Holding my breath, I peered out the back window again and saw the headlights flash off, and then on again.

  Was it him? Jenner had a gun. It would be a quick fight.

  I had to do something. I had to give him a chance.

  And try not to die.

  I unbuckled my seat belt and slid across the backseat, until I was right behind Jenner. I buckled myself back in.

  “Excuse me, Wade?”

  “What?” he barked.

  “Did you ever meet Ramona’s friend, Louis Quarry? He was my teacher at Briar, before she had him fired.”

  Ramona’s head snapped to attention. “Shut up, you little bitch!” Her black eyes flashed blue in the lights from the dashboard.

  “Keep talking, Lana,” Jenner ordered.

  “Mr. Quarry was young, smart, and very handsome. All the girls had crushes on him. Apparently, Ramona did, too. She seduced him—”

  “LIAR!” Ramona cried. “How dare you—”

  “Mona, shut up,” Jenner said roughly. I was suddenly grateful for the metal divider between the front and back seats. “Lana—go on.” His giant fists tightened on the steering wheel. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

  “When he broke off the affair, she had him fired.”

  He pounded a fist into the wheel. “Mona? Is it true? How could you?” To my amazement, he sounded genuinely hurt.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “She’s always been a good liar, just like her mother. You know I love you, darling.” She reached over and stroked his cheek. He jerked his head away from her.

  “Cause if I found out you
were running around on me, Mona, I don’t know what I’d do.” His voice cracked and a muscle in his meaty cheek twitched.

  Keep going. It’s working.

  “It’s true,” I said. “I swear—Mr. Quarry told me the whole story.”

  “It’s a lie! She’s a lying little bitch!”

  Jenner blinked his eyes and regarded me for a thick moment. I stared right back at him.

  “I don’t think she is lying about this. Nope, don’t think she is.”

  “Remember what I promised you if you helped me, darling! Remember the dove! I know she has it. Georgette gave it to her. It’s worth at least a quarter million, Wade! It’s practically priceless. You can have it—it’s yours, darling!”

  Jenner sneered. “Your uncle’s guys searched her house and didn’t find shit.”

  Uncle?

  Victor Savitch.

  Ramona’s maiden name was Savage.

  There was no way. Was it possible? Her uncle? But that would mean…so many things. My brain was running on fumes. I couldn’t quite put that piece into the puzzle yet. Not yet.

  Ramona glanced at me nervously and hissed, “Wade, quiet! She’ll tell us where it is. Trust me.”

  I could barely breathe. Fear squeezed my throat so tight it was almost impossible to swallow. My brain spun through the insane implications of this new information. Did Ramona send Victor to harass my dad, trick him into a bad loan, and cause him so much stress that he would break? If that was her plan, it worked.

  I glanced down at my backpack. My mother’s dove—was it Georgette’s Dove of Justice? The one they mentioned in her obituary? It was shoved carelessly into the pocket of my jacket, which was wadded up in my bag.

  No wonder they’d broken into my house to search for it.

  No wonder Victor wanted to kidnap you. He must have thought you would tell him where it was.

  I felt like I was teetering on a thin rope stretched across a deep chasm. I knew I would never get away from them alive.

  Jenner gritted his teeth and spat, “I thought you loved me, Mona.” A tear rolled down his face, which had turned bright red. His lips twisted into a vicious sneer. His leg jerked down and the cruiser shot forward.

  “Wade! Wait!” Ramona screamed. The car bounced wildly as it careened down the black highway. I grabbed onto the strap in the back.