From thirty feet away I recognize the slope of Ana’s shoulders and the curve of her slightly-longer-than-attractive neck. She’s at the water’s edge, staring out at the row of brave figures with the sky burning behind them. That impossible combination of gawky and poised, that can’t be anyone else. The dress—a tight, iridescent tangerine sheath—must be new, but the jeweled clip holding up her hair is familiar. She’s got her phone to her ear, and I can hear the soft murmur of her voice.
I’ve missed her. I knew it, but I didn’t really know it until now.
There are only a few men on the patio, and none of them looks my way as I walk down the steps to the water’s edge. She turns around, and I can see in her face that she doesn’t recognize me. But then she does. I walk faster.
She puts her phone in her purse and waits for me to come to her. That squint is familiar and that stance—arms straight at her side—is familiar too, and it finally feels like I’m home. When I reach her, I throw myself into a hug. She catches me, but she’s stiff arms, hairspray, a crinkly dress. Not much more. I feel tears coming.
“Where have you been?” she murmurs into my hair.
I pull back and wipe my eyes, embarrassed. Ana isn’t emotional. “Away,” I say.
She steps back, and her dress makes a disapproving scritch, scratch. Skin rubbing taffeta. “It’s been four months. You owe me more than that.”
“I . . . can’t. I . . .”
She waits. I don’t finish. She should know better than to think I’m suddenly going to confide in her. It’s been years since that happened. After a few moments of waiting for nothing, she reaches out and smooths my wig like she’s petting a doll. It’s affectionate, but misleading; her face says I’m not forgiven. “Nice costume.”
“I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.”
“Then why are you here?”
To rescue you. But I never considered she wouldn’t want rescuing. Smoke tickles and stings my lungs. I cough.
“Something must be on fire,” she says, glancing over her shoulder and above the grove of palms. Now a black plume is bleeding over the orange sky like octopus ink.
“Where’s Papi?” I ask, eying the growing spill.
“He got a phone call and left. Or at least that’s what Lola said.”
“You don’t know where he went?”
“Since when do I keep track of Papi?” she says irritably. “It’s not like anyone ever tells me what’s going on. I don’t even know where you’ve been hiding out, but from the looks of your skin it must’ve been somewhere lame. Seriously, Valentina, you need to spend a week on the beach in a bikini.”
“Good to know you’ve been worried about me.”
She snorts. “Is that why you took off? So everyone would sit around and cry?” The fire-stained sky lights up her hair, making the black flash metallic orange as she twists her head to look back to Vizcaya. “We didn’t have to worry—Papi said you were fine.”
“You didn’t wonder how he knew?”
“Papi knows everything. But you found out all about that, didn’t you? Isn’t that why you ran away?”
She knows.
“I left because I . . .” I trail off as everything in my mind slides around.
Of course she knows.
The sky, the ocean, Ana—my world is rubber and Technicolor. It’s stretching and bending, barely recognizable. Ana and Lola have known for a long time. I’ve been the naive one.
“You left because you found out where the money comes from and decided to throw a tantrum about it,” she says.
I sway a little. I train my eyes on a limestone statue, but my center is being pushed and pulled by the waves lapping its base. If she’d seen what I’d seen from Emilio’s closet, she wouldn’t be so unmoved. She wouldn’t be okay. She wouldn’t be standing here so calm under such a violent sky. “How long have you known?”
She shrugs and turns her head in the direction of the fire. Hell is seeping over us, but she already knew.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask numbly.
“Papi told us we couldn’t.”
“But that makes no sense.”
“You mean because you’re the favorite?” she challenges, thrusting her chin out. Ana’s face has always been a little less than symmetrical, but this pose—chin cocked, jaw set—offsets it. It’s her strongest look.
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
My pulse rings in the soles of my feet, the waves of blood surging and ebbing. “So what if I am the favorite? How is that my fault?”
“It’s not. It is your fault that you responded like such a child, running away like that. So some of the art is stolen. Get over it.”
My breath catches.
“Sad, though, finding out the special hobby Papi shared with just you was actually smuggling masterpieces.”
Smuggling masterpieces. She doesn’t know? I’m too confused, and then I’m too relieved to talk, because it’s so much better for her to believe the cover. It means she doesn’t knowingly live in a bloodstained mansion, spending bloodstained money.
Ana smirks. “He said you were too young, too sweet, but he was really just worried you’d run away like Mama.” She ends with a laugh, a disingenuous ha that gets swallowed up by the slapping of a wave against the barge.
My crime. Mama’s crime. Laid side by side and examined by Ana’s discerning eye, they don’t look all that different.
“I’m not like her,” I say.
Ana’s face is hard and shimmery, a clear surface for the light to play on. “You don’t know that. You don’t even remember her.” She shakes her head, like she’s bored of this conversation, like it isn’t the most substantive one we’ve ever had. “What did Papi do to get you to come back? What did he buy you?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nobody knows I’m here.”
She reaches into her phone and pulls out her purse. “When he finds out, he—”
Before she can press anything, I step forward and snatch the phone out of her hand. She wobbles and steadies herself, but doesn’t try to grab it back. She’s too shocked.
“You’re not telling him,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to do it. I’m going to go talk to him right now.”
She narrows her eyes.
“In person,” I say. “He has to tell me why. He has to look me in the eye and explain, and know that I know what he does. It’s why I came back.”
“Did you run out of money or something?” she asks.
“I don’t want any of his filthy money.”
“Wow. Your conscience is really . . . something.”
I shake my head. “I’ve seen things you haven’t seen.”
She studies me. “You’re different.”
My stomach sloshes, with the sound of warm salt water slapping stone. I am different. I’ll never again be the old Valentina.
I thought I came here to warn Papi, but now that he’s gone, I see it isn’t just that. I have to talk to him. He has to know I hate him for Yolanda Rojas.
I’m a monster’s daughter, but I’m not a monster myself.
“You’re definitely different,” she says. “It’s a guy, isn’t it.”
I don’t answer.
“Is that the real reason you ran away?”
“No.”
“It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“Is he here with you?”
“No,” I say, surprised that I’m answering her at all.
“What’s he like?”
I stare into the smoldering sky that Marcel made. “I don’t know. He’s sad. And brave.”
She rolls her eyes. “I meant what does he look like?”
“Kind of like a sculpture.”
“This is going nowhere,” she says, and holds out her hand. “Give me my phone back.”
“T
rade you for your keys.”
“Seriously?” She folds her arms. “You want to borrow my car? You realize it was bought with filthy money.”
“Ana, please.”
She pulls out her keys but doesn’t pass them to me. “And how am I supposed to get home?”
“Lola’s in there, right?”
Ana holds out the keys and I take them, passing her phone back.
“It’s not as simple as you think it is,” she says. “Not so black-and-white, I mean, with Papi being the bad guy.”
“I don’t think it’s simple.”
“But you think you’re better than me because I’m not running away or confronting him.”
I don’t. She doesn’t really know about Papi. I examine her dress. It’s shiny and tight, ruched around the middle, and gaping around her neck like her head is the stamen emerging from some lolling flower. It’s couture, but not beautiful. It’s not something I would wear, or even something I would’ve worn. I don’t think. Except I’m not sure I remember exactly what my former self preferred or why.
“I don’t think I’m better than you,” I say. I don’t understand her, but that’s not the same. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
This time she doesn’t deny it.
“Tell me.”
“Home.”
“Are you sure?”
“You insist I tell you, and then you don’t believe me?”
Home. I was sure he’d go to the marina to scream at someone as his millions melted and sank. The yacht was insured, but the cocaine, all that money . . . I’d imagined the horror flickering on his face. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, I just thought—”
“Lola was there when he got a call and started freaking out. He told her he had to go home, but that we should stay here.” She stops and sniffs the air. “That smoke is killing me. I wonder what’s burning.”
There are so many things burning right now, I can’t begin to answer. The yacht. My feet. My heart. I turn to leave. “Thank you,” I call over my shoulder.
If she responds, I don’t hear. Maybe it’s swallowed in the break of a wave against the limestone.
I want to slip through the party like a sliver. If I walk fast enough, if I don’t make eye contact with anyone, I should be able to glide through it to the valet unsullied. I can envision myself emerging clean and free on the other side of the revelry, leaving this dirty luxury for good. I almost make it, too. The canopy of chandeliers and drunken cackling tricks me into feeling hidden, but Emilio’s eyes find me. Or I find them. He glaring down from the balcony over the ballroom. An angry gash carves a ragged line down from his hairline, forking over his left brow. He shakes his head slowly. It’s either disbelief or a threat, either I can’t believe you did this or I’m going to kill you.
I smile.
He takes off walking toward the stairs, disappearing from my view. He’s coming down.
Common sense says to run, but I don’t. I rush to meet him, inexplicably eager to be close enough to see his rage. He thinks I’m still scared of him now? He can’t do anything to me anymore!
From the bottom of the stairs, I see him descending. I charge up, reaching halfway before we come chest to chest.
“You did this!” he snarls. “You set that fire. You tipped him off.”
My smile grows. He looks so ugly right now with his face pulled tight and that nasty gash. I hope the scar is permanent.
“This is a federal investigation you’re screwing with,” he goes on. “Do you have any idea how much time you can serve for obstruction of justice of this level?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say calmly.
“You think that pretty little smile will keep you out of jail?”
“Obstruction of justice? Gee, those are big words! How have I obstructed justice?”
He ignores me. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He is your father. I thought you were the one Cruz with a moral compass, though.”
“Don’t tell me who I am,” I spit at him. “And just so you know, I didn’t tell Papi about your plans for tonight. I didn’t tell him anything. He doesn’t even know that I’m here.”
“But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He’s gone. Worse, he’s gone with everyone he trusts, and I’m here. Do you know what that means?”
“That your little cartel bust is going to be pretty lame,” I say.
“Obviously, that’s off. Just like you wanted, right? And Victor’s somewhere trying to figure out how fifty-five million dollars of coke just went up in flames, probably making a list of people to kill for it right now. I hope you feel good about that, by the way.”
“As long as you’re on the list, I feel fine.” But I don’t feel fine. Sinking the yacht was supposed to cripple Papi, make him scramble, make him doubt Emilio. It wasn’t supposed to inspire a killing spree.
“I should’ve told you the whole truth about your family,” Emilio says. “I wanted to spare you, but that was clearly a mistake.”
“You think you can hurt me? Too late. Ana just told me she and Lola have known about the art for years.” I turn and start walking back down the stairs.
“Not that. Your mother—I showed you those other pictures, but I didn’t show you the pictures of her.”
I stop, but I don’t turn around. He can talk to my back.
“Not that you’d recognize her. They had to use dental records to ID the body. We think she tried to leave him.”
Horror slices me open from the inside. Am I bleeding here on the steps? I make myself turn now because I have to see him. “Liar,” I whisper.
That’s the face I remember from starry nights on the yacht. “I’m sorry,” he says, and for a second I think he is, because I remember that sad glimmer of wishing things were different.
“Liar,” I say again, but it’s more of a cry this time, because I think I see in the way he’s looking at me that he did love me and he is sorry, which means what he’s saying must be true.
“I’m not lying,” he says, hardening his features, and the look is gone. “Still think he deserves to get away? Still proud of who you are and what you’ve done?”
My thoughts aren’t fast enough to rein in impulse. I march back up the steps between us, and I spit. It hits his cheek and he recoils in shock. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes it off while I walk away. Forever.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY-FOUR
At a certain time of night, at a certain velocity, the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne becomes a roller coaster. It’s that way now. I’m flying between ocean and sky, strapped into Ana’s car, perched on a thin track. I see nothing but the lights of other vehicles dotting the road before me. Am I even steering? Those lights are like blisters, swollen and pulsing, nagging at my eyes as I veer between and around them.
All my dreams of her have been wrong. I imagined her abandoning us. In my most charitable moments, I had her too horrified to know what else to do. And of course, my sisters remember her too well, missed her too much for that kind of charity. They hate her.
How far did she make it? Did she escape in a car, speed across the Rickenbacker at night like this, shaking and crying, too terrified to look in her rearview mirror?
All these years of knowing nothing, I want to know all of it now. How did he do it? Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he sent someone else to kill the mother of his children.
I push my foot to the floor, and the car hums higher, its pitch matching my panic. The causeway crests, and the lights of Key Biscayne open up before me. It’s a cluster of diamonds in a black nest—none of Miami’s neon glare, just unapologetic opulence. Home. I swing into the exit lane and swerve off the causeway and onto the boulevard that spans the island.
Memory is such a liar. It’s been four months since I’ve seen my home, and I’ve pictured
it every day. But those images were all mopey versions of truth, tearstained and wrinkled like a folded photograph in a back pocket.
Now that I’m here, I feel what I couldn’t recall. There’s something metaphysical hovering over me as I drive the familiar streets, like a vibration or an invisible crackling. Thrill. Power. Wealth. It’s been here all along. It took leaving and coming back to recognize it, though.
I pull into the wide circle of our driveway, under the portico, past the pillars and vine-choked nymph statues. They look more twisted up than usual, strangled by ivy.
I park in front of the cluster of fruit-laden avocado trees and step out of the car. I’m suddenly inexplicably calm. Maybe there’s a maximum amount of shock and sadness my mind can hold, and I’ve reached it. Now I’m holding on to a cold, distant sort of anger, and it’s entirely cerebral. I don’t feel scared. I feel dangerous.
Should I use the front entrance? The side door? The back? Indecision binds me. This is my house, but I don’t ever want to go inside it again. And I want to confront Papi, but I don’t know if I can bear to see his face now that I know.
Without thinking, I reach up to squeeze an avocado. My fingers sink into the flesh, releasing the scent of decay. More than floral. Turned. The avocado slips off the tree without a tug. I begin walking through the flower beds, letting the rotting fruit roll out of my hand and onto the earth as I make my way around the side of the house. At the first set of windows, the blinds are drawn. Papi’s office. It’s dark.
I keep walking, through bushes and cypress and king palms and jungle growth, past more darkened windows, until I hear the ocean. A few more feet and I reach the gate. Beyond it a staircase goes two ways—up to the deck that wraps around the back of the house, or down to the rocks and the waves.
I edge closer until I hear voices, then shrink back against the house instinctively.
Papi. His voice is the only one that carries over the sound of waves slapping salt and sand against the rocks below. I can’t hear the words, only that he’s spitting them.
I’m inching toward a disaster, a tragedy, like I can stop it. Why am I here? Loyalty? Love? Revenge?
The image that appears in my mind answers none of it. I see a gun. Papi’s gun. I have to be able to protect myself against his goons, don’t I? My memory reproduces it as black, thick, shineless. He keeps it in his office, in a locked drawer, but the key isn’t hidden, or at least it wasn’t. I stumbled upon it years ago.
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