by Sarah Lovett
From the street, the residence resembled a cage, a walled fortress, a broken-down castle. Something that would wash away with the next wave. If this had been Serena's home in Juárez, the child had lived in prison.
Victor and Chupey were already making their way up a rough foot trail cut into the hillside. Matt followed. As they drew closer, he saw that a satellite dish was attached to the edge of the roof. Just below the dish, a small bare bulb burned from the upper portal, and the hot buzz of insect wings hummed on the night air.
Matt swung around abruptly at the sound of footsteps. A group of small, dirt-smeared faces stared up at him. The arrival of Victor's taxi had attracted street urchins, just as the bare lightbulb attracted moths. There was no discouraging the underage entourage. Five of the boldest children followed Matt, Victor, and Chupey to the high metal gates. While Victor dealt with the padlock, Matt tried to banter with the children. They all responded with the same good-natured shrug. The big gringo's New Mexican Spanish was sadly indecipherable.
When the men were inside the gates—followed now by at least eight street kids—Chupey led the way under the branches of a dying elm tree to double wooden doors. These opened into the main house. This time, there was no problem with the locks—they had been pried open by other hands. Matt pushed the doors wide and entered a kitchen. He used the small light on his belt, while Vargas produced a full-sized flashlight. Beams glanced off walls painted turquoise, modest furnishings, and a confusion of pots, pans, cutlery, towels strewn across the floor.
The small living room, a bathroom minus running water, and a bedroom were all in similar condition—someone had made a thorough search of the ground floor.
Victor and Matt both questioned the children.
Who lived here? A little girl.
Who took care of her? Maids.
Where was the girl? Gone away.
How long had she lived here? Forever.
Did anyone come to visit the girl? No. Yes. An old man came to visit every week. And sometimes the children were allowed inside to watch TV.
Did the girl go outside the house? Never. Well, almost never. Sometimes the man who visited took her for rides.
What was her name? Serena.
While Matt was searching the residence, he noticed a small cupboard set in a dark corner of the living room. It was so narrow, he had to hunch down and turn sideways to look inside. But it wasn't a cupboard, it was a door.
He knelt down and crawled into a pitch-black space. Just past the wooden doorway, he cautiously stood and shone his light off the close walls. It was a small shrine; hundreds of unlit candles had been placed on an altar. Each wall was adorned with a framed picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. With his head bowed to avoid the ceiling, Matt approached the altar. His flashlight sent eerie shadows dancing in the gloomy room. He stepped carefully to avoid the fresh piles of rodent shit littering the floor. The altar was wooden, hand-painted, simultaneously rustic and ornate. A small framed photograph had been placed midpoint on the altar. Matt recognized the subject of the first portrait. It was the child, Serena.
Under the portrait, stacked neatly, were dozens of yellowing newspaper articles following the trial and incarceration of Cash Wheeler.
MATT FOLLOWED VARGAS and the children outside the house and up the exterior stairway. They entered through a room—a second bedroom—which had been searched in the same manner as the rooms below. Clothes spilled from a discarded dresser drawer. A pair of rubber boots, stockings, a T-shirt lay near a large television set. A few toys were scattered about the room as well. A stuffed giraffe lay prone on the tiled floor. One of the children, a small boy, squatted next to the stuffed animal; he gazed at it longingly.
There was one additional door. Matt pushed it open, Vargas at his side. Simultaneously their flashlight beams illuminated a long, narrow room. Both men stared, speechless. Victor whistled.
It was Chupey, nudging his way past the adults, who exclaimed, "¡Milagro!"
Miracle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RENZO SANTOS GAZED at his seminaked reflection in the mirror as he tossed the hotel key into the air. He saw the fingers of his gloved left hand snap at metal, pluck the key from its gravitational fall, secret it safely in the pocket of his black jacket. His next breath was one of approval; those particular reflexes were functional. The stitches along his thigh tugged uncomfortably at the damaged, swollen tissue. He flexed his gloved right hand, pain traveling from wrist to forearm to the injured shoulder. Not so good. He had limited ambidexterity; he would have to rely on his left arm for strength.
As he slipped out of the jacket, there was a short knock at the door of the hotel casita. He knew the DO NOT DISTURB sign was attached to the knob. Still wearing the gloves, he stepped naked from the bathroom and called out: "I'm in the shower; please slide it under the door." A single folded receipt appeared between door and carpet. Renzo collected his room receipt—or, more accurately, the receipt belonging to the gentleman known as Mr. Eric Sandoval.
Next, he walked to the bed and gazed down at the collection of equipment neatly laid out on the spread: modified cell phone, shortwave radio and police scanner, handcuffs, mace, numbered badge, .22-caliber semiautomatic and silencer, nine-inch switchblade. Each item was polished. Even the body armor was free of visible lint or soil. He reached down and plucked an eighth-inch strand of thread from the vest, which was imprinted with the words SPECIAL AGENT.
Renzo returned to the bathroom, where he slowly unzipped his alligator case. He measured out a small amount of powder, liquefied the drug, and filled a sterile disposable hypodermic needle. As he proceeded methodically with work he had repeated hundreds of times, a strand of saliva glistened on his lip. He chose to inject the drug into his uninjured thigh, near his genitals.
The tingling itch of warmth flowed into him almost instantly, and unlike even the purest heroin, this synthetic drug's euphoria wasn't measured by experience and repetition like everything else in Renzo's life—this white powder kept pushing him far beyond the edge to a place where he could walk on air and dance on water. It was so much better than orgasm.
When he checked his watch, the digital face showed ten minutes after eleven P.M. He dressed carefully in the dark uniform. He donned his field jacket and then the vest. The loaded .22 went into a holster, the switchblade slid into his left pocket. The gold badge with its registration number clipped onto the vest. He checked himself in the mirror. The layers had added fifteen pounds to his frame. The dark blue baseball cap rode low enough to touch his eyebrows and change the shape of his face. The bruise on his cheek was fading to yellow. In the center of the bruise, the single fang mark from el lobo had dried to a black scab.
He was almost ready. But first, the room. Earlier he had collected all the bloody towels, had compressed them into three plastic laundry bags, courtesy of the hotel. That same morning, the city had collected trash from its Dumpsters; the bags had been among the hotel's other waste.
He had refused maid service for three days—murmuring through the door that he had a twenty-four-hour flu. The bloodstained sheets and the mattress pad from his bed had been disposed of along with the towels. He had stolen clean sheets from a maid's cart and remade the bed himself. The mattress bore only the faintest ghost of his blood. Nothing that would arouse suspicion.
He had to ignore the traces of blood on the throw rug. Even if he scrubbed all night, evidence of the blood would remain for years.
The bathroom had been washed down, the room surfaces meticulously wiped with Windex, purloined from hotel supplies. Although he knew it was impossible to erase every trace of his existence, Renzo had come close to accomplishing that aim within the casita's twenty square feet. He had worn gloves for the last seven hours.
He left the room. A gleaming black car—a Cadillac Seville registered to a nonexistent man named Martin Diaz and supplied by a local associate—was parked fifty feet from his casita. As he covered the distance, he heard women's voices dr
ifting across the parking lot, but he saw no one as he unlocked the Cadillac and climbed inside. On Palace Avenue he turned left, heading for Mesa Verde Hospital. The traffic lights turned green as he approached—one after the other—and he crossed town within minutes. The trip went smoothly, but why not? He had already practiced his final route to the girl they called Serena.
SYLVIA ISOLATED THE staff key on her ring as she walked up the long, shadowy path to the hospital. She glanced back at the street expecting to see a patrol car; the Santa Fe P.D. was supposed to send a car past the hospital every hour. No sign of the cops, but several vehicles were parked along the residential street. The illuminated face of her watch showed eleven-thirty. Five minutes earlier, Rosie Sanchez had dropped Sylvia off at Matt's pickup truck, which was parked in the hospital lot. Sylvia had planned to check on Serena before heading home, where she would stay up late reading more of the files on Cash Wheeler's case. She'd limited her alcohol intake at Noelle Harding's party to a glass of wine, and she felt energized.
It was only after Rosie had driven away that Sylvia realized she'd left her briefcase—and Teague's files—in the trunk of the Camaro. The briefcase contained her cell phone and Day-Timer, not to mention hundreds of confidential documents detailing Cash Wheeler's murder defense. At least she still had her purse. But shit—now she was wide awake with nothing to read. Change of plan—she would hang out longer with the sleeping child. She was feeling very protective of Serena these days.
It took two tries with her key to unlock the street door of the hospital.
A young man, barely twenty, on graveyard duty, was slumped over the admissions desk. His body was so limp, he looked dead. Sylvia called out to him. When he didn't answer, she felt a tug of misgiving and walked to the desk. His face was pressed against a logbook. His arms hung loosely at his sides. Misgiving turned to alarm.
"Hey!" Sylvia slapped the desk. "Wake up." She heard the padding of soft footfalls behind her, and she swung around. Noelle Harding's security guard—Khalsa—gave her an oddly penetrating look.
"Are you here twenty-four hours a day?" she asked.
"The shifts are twenty-four on, twenty-four off—my relief called in sick." He reached past her and brought his baton sharply down on the desk.
The attendant's head jerked twice, then he wrenched his shoulders back in a motion that could only hurt. He focused warily on the security guard, blinked, and offered Sylvia a too casual greeting. She leaned over the counter to whisper: "I think you should call somebody to cover your shift tonight."
He rubbed his eyes like a child, then mumbled, "I'll get some coffee."
"Do that. What's your name?"
"Theo."
"Theo, I don't suppose you'd know if the cops have been by?"
The security guard answered for the young man. "It's been over an hour; they're due any minute."
When Sylvia left the lobby, the guard followed. The hospital was quiet, the main hallway dimly lit. The locked ward would be slightly eerie—it always was at night. Sylvia was approaching the security door to the ward when a psychiatric nurse stepped out of a stockroom. Sylvia greeted the woman. "Hey, Peggy."
The woman lifted her finger in a small wave and moved briskly in the opposite direction down the hall, back toward the reception area. As the nurse walked, she called over her shoulder, "I'm taking a coffee break in thirty minutes. Fresh pot of java in the lounge if you drop by."
"Maybe." Sylvia entered the locked ward with the security guard on her heels. As the psychologist passed the private rooms, she heard an occasional whimper or sigh from a restless occupant. She rose slightly on tiptoe, keeping her heels above ground to muffle the sound her shoes would make on linoleum.
She reached the child's room—Khalsa took up his position guarding the door—and she entered quietly, alone. Serena was in bed asleep. Her breathing was shallow and even. The covers were twisted around her small body; her arms clutched the pillow to her cheek. Sylvia sat on the edge of the bed. The glow of a street lamp rinsed the child's skin of its warmth and made her look unnaturally pale. Her mouth was pursed, lips just slightly parted, eyes closed and fringed with lashes. Her fingers clutched fabric. Her face—sweet and sad—reminded Sylvia of an angel.
Sylvia pressed the palm of her hand to the child's forehead, felt skin that was warm and moist. Serena didn't wake, but she turned, a sigh escaping her lips. Sylvia knew she could tell herself she didn't love this child. But that would be a lie. She wasn't sure when curiosity, duty, fascination had turned to love. Had it happened when Serena tamed Nikki? Or when the child wrapped her arms around the psychologist's legs, attaching herself permanently? Or when they slept side by side?
Sylvia sat still, letting her breathing soften, allowing herself to slide into that space between sleep and waking. She felt hyperalert, but her mind drifted, floating on each breath. No insistent thoughts rattled through her consciousness. In her brain pictures appeared and disappeared just as quickly. The child. Her own face as a child. Cash Wheeler behind the prison barrier. Her father, Daniel Strange.
She held the image of her father's face. Held it without pain. Without recrimination, for the first time in years. Until that image dissolved with all the others.
Time didn't stand still, but it didn't seem to pass either. It simply balanced between the life-and-death decision of each inhalation, exhalation. Sylvia slid out of the space as gently as she had entered it. The first thing she saw was the sleeping child.
So that's what the good part of meditation was all about. All these months of sitting, straining her back, aware of every distraction, every ache and pain—all the while her mind revving like a motor. But this was a completely different state: clarity, simplicity, light. Perhaps Serena experienced something similar when she prayed?
She stirred, then gazed out the window, searching for a moon. If it was up there, it wasn't visible; it would have already moved along its path of orbit beyond the limited view offered by the east-facing window. When she stood to leave, her hand grazed the pocket of her silk jacket, and she felt something hard.
The medallion.
She'd forgotten to return it to the child. She took the silver chain and guided it gently over Serena's head.
"I promise, I'll always look out for you," she whispered. Then she kissed the child's cheek. Serena stirred without waking, twisting her body on the bed, and her small fingers found the medallion.
When Sylvia left the room, Khalsa was at his post outside the door. She said, "Keep an eye on her for me."
He nodded, and a ghost of a smile played over his rough features.
As she approached the lobby, Theo the Sleepy appeared from another hallway with a cup of steaming coffee. He lifted the cup and said, "This will keep me awake. Peggy made it fresh."
"You sure you don't want to get someone to cover for you?"
"Too late now. Anyway, I've got an astronomy midterm to study for." He slipped behind the desk, dropped into his chair, and faced an open textbook.
"I'll be right back." Sylvia heard the lock engage as the front doors closed behind her. She moved quickly down the walkway and stepped over to an idling vehicle. "Hey, wondered where you guys were."
A red-haired police officer smiled at her. "McDonald's. This is our dinner break. Aren't you here kind of late?"
"My third trip today. Might as well bring my suitcase and move in." Sylvia pulled a cigarette from her pocket and smiled. "Coffee break. Just wanted to say hi."
The cop handed her matches. She shivered as she lit the cigarette. The November air was cold, and she was dressed for a cocktail party. As she inhaled smoke, she lifted her face to gaze at the night sky. Yes, the moon was floating above the western horizon. Liquid yellow, it was somewhere between phases: gibbous and quarter.
She allowed herself three hits of nicotine, then she dropped the cigarette and ground it with fierce energy into the sidewalk. She waved to the cops. "Bye, guys."
Briskly, she retraced her steps to the hospi
tal door where Theo the Sleepy let her inside. When she glanced back at the street, the cop flashed his lights.
RENZO WATCHED THE cop's headlights flash—once, twice—as the woman returned to the hospital. Was it the shrink? From this distance, he couldn't tell for certain. He'd parked the Seville one block south of Mesa Verde Hospital. At the moment, he could see Santa Fe P.D.'s finest, engine idling, in front of the building. His mouth tightened; they should have responded to a radio 10 code by now: burglary in progress. His decoys were late.
But even with the delay, Renzo felt as if his body were encased, safe from emotion, shrouded in calm. He didn't blink when the cops activated their flashing lights. They accelerated down to the end of the block, away from where Renzo was parked. As they turned the corner, they sounded the vehicle siren, one short whoop.
THEO WAS FAST asleep at his post behind the reception desk at Mesa Verde Hospital when the police siren sounded. He was still asleep forty-five seconds later, when someone rapped hard on the glass doors.
Khalsa had left his post in front of Room 21 to walk to the lobby; he'd heard a faint siren—one short wail—and he wanted to investigate. Two feds had come by the hospital earlier in the day—asking questions, looking at the girl. The combination of the feds and the regular cop patrols had him spooked. Everybody was interested in the half-pint occupant of Room 21. He'd read the newspapers today. He'd known right away—they were writing about her. Why else would a woman like Noelle Harding hire him to stand outside a hospital door all night?
In the lobby, when he heard the rap on glass, his blood pressure jumped. The sight of the man startled him—black pants, shirt, vest, and cap, gun in holster, badge, insignia. The uniform wasn't anything he recognized right off. It wasn't a D.E.A. or police SWAT uniform.