by Aitana Moore
Lee would have to leave the party in full swing to get the jewels and hide them; she would have to find a way to make her escape from the ranch, knowing that even with the jewels, it would be her word against the Aguirre's.
Her word or James’. He would believe her if she showed him the girls’ personal items. There had been foul play, and the authorities or the press would listen to James; people would always listen to someone like him.
Luz was gone. Little Luz, full of dreams and hopes, was dead. She would never be reunited with her father; she would never see her mother again; her parents would spend the rest of their lives wishing they hadn’t sent her away. She hadn’t even been buried with the medal she loved so much.
Lee couldn’t grieve, because her anger was too great. David, you piece of shit. You monster. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m willing to do to catch you.
Eduardo invited her to meet him early, while his grandchildren napped, and have the first glass of champagne with him. She needed to text James and enlist his help, so she went to the pink house at six o'clock in her long blue dress, her hair gathered in a chignon and Diego's leaf-shaped diamond necklace around her neck. Her cell phone was strapped to her thigh, and it vibrated as soon as she crossed the heavy oak doors. It could be a message from David to torment her.
"Vaya, por Dios!" Dressed in an expensive black tuxedo that did its best to make him look more dashing, Eduardo motioned at her in admiration from the top of the stairs. "It's a Greek goddess who has decided to come to my party!"
Lee ran up the steps and kissed him on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Eduardo."
She handed him the present she had brought with her from Mexico City, and he chuckled. "You know, I am like a child. I love presents."
He led her down the corridor and crossed so many doors that when they reached a small drawing room she supposed they were in his inner sanctum. He sat on the sofa, inviting her to take the place next to him as he tore the wrapping paper and opened the box with his gift.
Lee shrugged. "For the man who has everything."
"Muchas gracias!" he cried, revealing a scarf that was made of silk on one side and cashmere on the other. He patted her leg quickly. "I love my present, because you have very good taste — and I love that you call me Eduardo. Only an American would do something like that. Here in Mexico girls would call me señor and abuelo — and even viejo if they thought I wasn't listening."
"You don’t act like an old man.”
"Ah, let me get the champagne started. Where are people when you need them?"
Lee made a movement as if to get up and find someone, but he shook his head and stood, walking out. She put her hand up the slit of the dress and found the phone, keeping an eye out for Eduardo.
Typing in her code quickly, she read James' message, which appeared as coming from "Spa": I know you found the truth. I'm coming — but if you see this, PLEASE get out of there NOW.
The message was from that morning and Lee smiled. He was coming; he must be on his way already. He had believed her. She quickly texted back, I have found proof and will get it. Not in any danger, will see you soon. She erased both messages.
Eduardo's cane echoed in the hall and she only had time to put the phone back in the thigh strap and pull the dress over it, although she felt another message vibrating. James was probably telling her in no uncertain terms to get out. She needed to lock herself in the bathroom and talk to him; she would do it in a few minutes.
"Here we go," Eduardo said as he sat next to her again.
Two waiters followed in his wake. One carried a bucket from which a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and two crystal champagne flutes emerged; the other had a tray with a bottle of wine, the opener and two wine glasses. They set the drinks down on the coffee table before the sofa, and one of them uncorked the champagne.
Eduardo laughed. "Hop!"
He handed a glass to Lee and raised his own.
"Happy birthday," she said again.
The glasses sounded like bells as they clinked against each other.
"Would you like the wine to be uncorked?" the second waiter asked.
The old man shook his head. "I'll open it, if we want wine. You can go and close the doors.”
The two waiters nodded as they pulled the double doors shut.
"Haven't any guests arrived yet?" Lee asked.
"Yes, in different houses, like the pendejito cousins in yours. Some rich people are over at Miguel's. I'll have all the old politicians staying over here, but they come at the last minute. To each his own, eh?"
"You'll have a full house, or houses, then."
"Yes, but they won't bother us for a while. They'll arrive and be taken to their rooms to get washed and ready, and the party will only start after eight. When you say eight in Mexico, you mean nine. We have time."
Lee's smile wavered. That was a lot of time to spend alone with him. She would have a couple of drinks, talk to James and invent an excuse to return to the glass house until the guests were due.
"I like parties, and I like presents — but I don't want to feel old," Eduardo said with something like a pout. "And I don't feel old with you."
His hand fell more heavily on her thigh and stayed there.
Oh God, no. What an idiot she was. Why had she thought that Eduardo would see her as a girl, his grandson's girl, not to be flirted with, and certainly not to be touched? And what should she do now? With hours ahead of them, it would get awkward to keep giving him the slip.
"You look so sweet," Eduardo continued. "I'll bet you taste sweet as well."
A puritanical streak in Lee would always make her misjudge certain situations. This had happened before with old men, yet she hadn't suspected that Eduardo would get her alone when his house was filling with some of the most important people in Mexico to make such a decided move. It just wasn’t done.
Eduardo opened his lips as he stared at her cleavage; saliva gathered in front of his uneven yellow teeth and began to dribble down his chin. Lee watched him with horrified fascination, but she hadn't expected him to put his hand between her legs, his middle finger trying to burrow through her dress and panties. The glass dropped from her fingers and rolled on the carpet as she shrank away from his touch.
"That's disgusting, stop it!" she cried.
It was the wrong choice of words. His face crumpled with fury and he gripped her wrist with surprising strength. Lee was slow; had he been a younger man, she would have grabbed the bottle of champagne and struck him with it, but she still thought him a frail old man. She would shake her arm free and run until she was out of the house — he wouldn't be able to follow her.
But the wrinkled eyes, which now held a malignant glint, read her thoughts. Eduardo’s arm moved, and suddenly she was falling to her knees and then sideways on the floor. The pain was so great that she couldn't breathe for a moment. No air reached her lungs, and she started to panic.
Eduardo's black leather shoes stood in front of her eyes. They were perfectly polished.
If she didn't breathe, she was going to die, but the pain was too sharp.
Finally, she pulled with all her might, and air rushed into her with a harsh sound.
It was only then that she realized he had hit her in the stomach with his cane.
TWENTY-ONE
It had been a brutal thing for the old man do — a disproportionate response to her rejection. He was mad, and Lee understood that she needed to fight him savagely. She needed to move past the pain and the shock and throw him on the ground, even if she broke all his bones.
Even if she killed him, she needed to throw him down.
Get out of there NOW.
James' words swam in front of her eyes as if she could still see them on the screen of her cell phone. He will be so angry. He told me this would happen, and I didn't listen.
She pulled herself up with one hand, ready to run, but with a grimace of hatred Eduardo lifted the cane again. Protecting her head with her forearm,
Lee heard the wood rap her skull before she felt the blow. Her hand found the fabric of the sofa and she clutched it.
If she fell again, he would keep hitting her.
She managed to get into a sitting position and tried to scuttle backwards, but her new shoes slid on the carpet and then on the ceramic floor as he moved toward her.
"I'm disgusting?" he said in Spanish. "And I have to hear that from a puta like you on my birthday?"
When he leaned on the cane, she grabbed it — but he wouldn't let go. He was strong for an old man, but he wasn't firm on his feet. She tugged at the cane until he fell to his knees, crying out in pain. Now she could run, although she needed to find a way out the back. His employees might help catch her. Who knew what went on in that place?
Lee stood, swaying, but Eduardo grasped the wine opener from the tray and buried it into the side of her knee. She howled in pain.
"Let's see what you do now, puta," he hissed.
Don't hold back! Lee took the bottle of champagne by the neck, but Eduardo did what she ought to have done to him and pulled both her ankles. She fell, and the back of her head hit the floor. Don’t pass out, she told herself as her eyes rolled in their sockets.
He'll kill you.
Instead, he crawled forward on his buttocks and one of his hands lodged between her legs again. The other twisted the wine opener further into her knee, and Lee screamed as he pulled her dress aside.
"What's this?" he asked, momentarily distracted from her body by the phone strapped to her thigh.
"Papá!"
Eduardo turned. Miguel stood at the door, his eyes bulging. Even in her state, Lee realized that he hadn’t thought his father capable of hurting anyone.
"Get out!" Eduardo cried. "Get the hell out of here, this is none of your business."
"Papá, what the hell are you doing?" Miguel asked, closing the door behind him and rushing to grasp his father by the shoulders.
The old man struggled, trying to get the cane so he could hit his son, but Miguel dragged him on the ground like a child until he was in the middle of the room. This only infuriated Eduardo further.
"How dare you?" he screamed at Miguel. "How dare you touch me like that? Help me up right now!"
Lee tried to sit, but her head was swimming. Blood ran into her right eye from a cut on her head, and she felt a stickiness between her legs. The vicious blow of the cane to her stomach had perhaps caused an internal injury, but Miguel didn't rush to help her. He stared at her torn dress, at the metal sticking out of her knee and at the blood as if contemplating a problem.
Turning, he went to the door and called to someone on the other side, "Go get my sons. Don't let my wife see you doing it."
Eduardo grabbed fistfuls of carpet and began pulling himself toward Lee again, but Miguel closed the door and slowly walked to stand between him and the woman on the ground.
"Why have you done this, papá?" he asked, as if speaking to a child who had pulled the dog's tail.
"What business is it of yours?"
"The house will be full of people in a little while," Miguel said reasonably. "And they'll see that you hurt a woman."
"She has a phone hidden on her body. She has been spying on me, on us. Go and look!"
It was hard to say whether Miguel obeyed his father as an accomplice or simply to try and get all the information about what was happening like the cautious, cold-blooded man he was. He pulled Lee’s dress aside almost respectfully, taking the phone and covering her again.
The phone was set to lock after a quarter of an hour because Lee was never away from it, and she always deleted James' texts as soon as she read them, but Miguel read the last message she had received and hadn’t yet read. He went pale, staring at her with a furrow between his brows.
"What does this mean? Why is someone under 'Spa' telling you to get out?”
"Oh..." Eduardo said. "She was asking people about Luz today. I think she came here to find out what happened to that desgraciada."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Miguel asked, still puzzled.
A knock on the door interrupted Miguel, who unlocked it. It was David. His father closed the door behind him, and David's blue eyes widened as he looked from Lee to Eduardo and back at Miguel. There was guilt written all over his face, but also a kind of excitement.
"That one is after you, pendejito," his grandfather said. "She knows what you've done."
"What have you done?" Miguel was a little taller than his son, his shoulders massive. As he stepped forward, David stepped back. "What the hell have you done?"
On the floor still, Eduardo giggled until he coughed. "Ask him about the girls."
Seeing that David hadn't reacted, Miguel grabbed him by the lapels of his tuxedo. "What does he mean, what girls?" He slapped his son. "Tell me!"
David protected his face, red from the blow, and blurted out, "Abuelo killed the girls. My girlfriends. Las indias."
Lee's breath caught in her throat. Their crimes were more horrible than she had imagined, and he had called the girls "the Indians," as if the family referred to them like that. You animal, you scum! The cuts on Lee’s face stung as tears of rage ran down her cheeks.
Miguel, however, was working through a shock of his own. "What are you talking about?"
"Ay, tell the story right," the old man said, still chuckling. "You brought the morenitas to me because you liked to see them hurt."
Miguel's face was pale as he looked from his father to his son. "I just don't get what you're saying."
"It's like this, Miguelito. This woman," Eduardo pointed at Lee with a bent finger, "knows about the dead girls and came to find out more. If we don't do something about her, we are all screwed. David is screwed." Eduardo crossed his arms. "I'm not going down alone."
"It was an accident, like this one," David pointed at Lee. "I left María Jimena with him and when I came back, he was beating her, and I couldn't stop him."
"You didn't want to," Eduardo said. "You brought me three more girls just to watch me beat them. You liked it, enfermo."
"You're calling him sick?" Miguel narrowed his eyes at his father. "What about you? Why would you do this?"
"Because they think I'm old. I can see it in their eyes, so I show them I’m still strong."
"He's sick, he's sick," David mumbled under his breath, as if only Miguel could hear him.
His father turned, hissing, "But his brain is half eaten. What's your excuse?"
Lee's eyes opened and closed as the men accused each other. Clearly, she was the last thing on anyone's mind, until Miguel held up the phone, asking her, "Who has been texting you?"
She didn't answer, and Miguel's attention returned to his father. Motioning with his head, he got David's help to raise Eduardo from the floor but set him on a chair on the other side of the room.
"What are we going to do?" David asked his father in despair. "I can't go to jail, I can't."
Miguel turned to Eduardo. "The minister of foreign affairs is here. Others are on the way from the airport. Clean yourself up — there's blood on your shirt. Go receive your guests."
"I told them eight o'clock," Eduardo said peevishly.
Miguel ignored him, handing him the cane so he could stand up and walk to the door.
"If you try to frame me, David is going down as well," Eduardo said as he left. "You need to kill that bitch."
Cold beads of sweat gathered on Lee’s forehead as Miguel approached her. "Help me pick her up," he told David.
"Don't touch me," she said, shrinking away as both men took her by the arms and legs. They opened the door behind the sofa where she had been attacked and carried her into a room, setting her down on the bed.
"Abuelo is right," David said with a furtive glance at his father. "If she lives she'll talk."
Miguel's fury was contained. "Not everyone enjoys killing women. I want to understand what is going on here."
"I told you, abuelo—"
"Shut up, you'll onl
y tell me lies. Go to the glass house and ask Diego to put her things in a bag and bring everything here."
David hesitated for a second, but it was obvious that he would always obey a direct order from his father. "Just don't listen to her. She'll try to poison your mind."
Once he was gone, Miguel said with apparent calm, "I'm sorry about all this, believe me. But you need to tell me who is on the other end of this phone. I need to control what is happening — because if I manage, you might be able to get out of here."
On the bed, Lee shook her head. “Your father may have some advanced form of Alzheimer’s, but your son is a psychopath. You’re too smart not to know that when gangrene sets in, you cut off the rotten limb to survive."
It had taken her quite a bit of effort to speak. Miguel walked back to the room next door, which looked like a battlefield, to dial the number that had texted her: James' number. Even from the bed she heard his voice: "Hello?"
Miguel listened. James was too clever to say anything if he didn't hear her on the other side, and both men waited for each other to speak until Miguel ended the call. With any luck, he had only alerted James to the fact that someone else had her phone.
Miguel didn't approach her again. When Diego walked in, carrying her small suitcase, he gasped at seeing her all bloodied on the bed. David had perhaps told him their crazy grandfather had hurt her.
Miguel stopped Diego from going to Lee.
"Papá," Diego protested with a frown. "She's hurt!"
Shaking his head, Miguel opened her suitcase and rummaged through it. "Are all her things here?"
"I think so, but what the hell is going on?" Diego stepped into the bedroom. "What's that in her knee, for God's sake? Ashley?"
Seeing her hurt without understanding what had happened made him hesitate, but Lee read the innocence in his eyes. Miguel, on the other hand, had found her bag of creams and opened it. He held up the jars and stopped when one of them rattled. After shaking it, he turned it around and tried unscrewing the bottom. The cameras fell in the palm of his hand.
"What’s that?" Diego asked.