“I’m some bastard son from a one-night stand he regretted. Blamed my mom for his shitty business troubles. He even got her thrown in prison.” He shakes his head, as if trying to erase the memory.
Push him.
Let justice come.
“But that’s not Belina’s fault.”
“I was a rebellion for her. She treated me just like Stefano treated my mom.” Something shifts, almost wistful. “But there was something to Belina and me. Our chemistry was rare.”
You’re the same.
You deserve the same.
“Incest is not that rare,” I snap. “You read about my grandfather.”
He blinks slowly. “What?”
Shameful little liar.
At the last words my mother ever spoke to me, I press on. “Just what I said. It’s not that rare, not in this room. You must have read about it in the papers of mine you stole.”
He holds up his hand, the fingers long and muscular but trembling. “What about Belina? Incest?”
“I need to explain another thing to Ricky Cardin, the genius,” I say. “It was a good thing my grandfather raped me before I got my period, so no baby risk. Guess you and your half sister weren’t that lucky.”
His eyes focus on me, so sharp, the violence in them palpable. “What the hell did you say?”
Give him the truth.
This is what he deserves.
What you both deserve.
I step toward him. “You killed your half sister. And your unborn baby.”
“I . . . didn’t . . . Stefano was her . . . I thought . . . I thought . . . No, you’re wrong. That was his baby. His girlfriend. You are a fucking liar.”
“I’m not. For what it’s worth, I thought Stefano was her boyfriend too.” I reach into my bag, run my finger against the knife at the bottom, making sure it’s there.
Slice his arm, and he’ll slice you back.
Just like with Granddaddy.
Find justice.
I pull out the DNA report and toss it on the table with a satisfying thud.
He snatches it up, several pages dropping as he clutches the first page. I highlighted the 100 percent match in pink.
“This has to be wrong,” he says, staring blankly at the report. “She was just some slut. Some woman who’d leave me. Leave her baby.”
Ester begins to cry as the rage erupts in my gut, spreading through my limbs as something clicks. I bounce Ester, not apologizing for the sound, not wanting anything else ringing in his ears. “Belina told you she was pregnant.”
His violent stare returns. “I yelled at her when she said she’d told Stefano about the FBI. She gave him one hundred grand to leave us all alone. As if that’d do anything. She’s so fucking stupid.”
“But why kill her? It was done,” I yell, bouncing Ester, feeling the weight of the knife in my bag.
“I wasn’t going to kill that slut,” he says. “I smacked her around, and she started crying. Saying, ‘Please don’t do this for the sake of the baby.’ She said it wasn’t mine. I mean, Jesus Christ, how many people was she fucking in this town? I said, ‘It’s bad enough you were screwing my asshole father—’”
I watch the realization flash across Ricky’s face as it twists sharp in my gut. Once he’d said those words, admitted that Stefano was his father, Belina knew what they’d unknowingly done. What they’d created.
“Then what did she do?” I ask in a whisper.
“She threatened me.” He drops onto the kitchenette seat. “She wanted me to kill her and that baby.”
“Don’t you dare blame her, you coward,” I hiss. “You wanted her dead so you could control Alec’s business with him in jail for it.”
He props his hands behind his head. “Alec going to prison was the only way to get those licenses. I saw it for a long time. He walked right into the murder charge.”
“He walked right into you,” I say.
“Fuck you, Devon.” He slams his fist on the table. “Why the hell did you bring your child here? You’re just like all these other fucking women.”
Keep pushing.
I step closer, realizing Ester feels stiff and unnatural, her nose hard when nuzzled against my chest. I want to take her out and be sure she’s okay, but she’s not. Neither of us is okay and may never be okay again. “Belina was a woman who was screwed over by many men. You’re just another user, stupid and dull. You killed her because she outsmarted you all the way to the end.”
“You’re making this so easy on me,” he says, standing. “Just like she did.”
Let him cut you like you cut your granddaddy.
Let justice take you.
Let justice take Ester.
My hands shake with rage, and the room narrows onto his face. My path, the only path, is clear.
“I saved Belina from being all used up and disgusting like her mother.” Ricky steps closer, his lean but muscular shoulders tensing as his gaze flicks to the counter and the knives. “But I’m no altruist. This deal with Miguel is my turn at last. My ends justifying any means necessary. You get it?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Some tension releases from his posture. He stares at me, desperate, cornered, searching for an out that’s not the inevitable one we’re careening toward. “Can you get this detective to back off?”
“I’m not doing you a favor, Ricky. Belina’s life mattered. You had no right to take it.”
His glare snaps back to the knives. “That’s not the right answer.”
“It’s the only answer.”
Let him stab you.
The voice is right, and I put my hand over Ester. My fingers are a warm contrast against her cool body.
Your family’s better off.
You’re better off.
Last chance for justice.
It’s a sacrifice. But this path was always leading toward justice, no matter the cost.
“You’re going to turn yourself in.” I step closer to make it easy.
His eyes are wide. His stare goes from me to the top of Ester’s head. As if he’s calculating where to strike. “I’d rather we all die,” he whispers.
I smile. “You first.”
The knife is in his hand in a second. He lunges toward me, and there is not fight or flight but focus. I feel the stiffness of Ester, an unnatural hardness against my body. I realize the truth of her, of what was done to save me, of our purpose at last.
This is where it must end.
This is her purpose.
This is your purpose.
Let it all end.
I grab Ricky by the wrist, directing the jab lower so the knife tears down, through Ester, through this baby I’ve wanted and never deserved. I feel the knife scrape the low C-section scars and away from the wire, which is what I need.
I grab his knife because it’s close, and he’s surprised I’m not focused on Ester. On the sudden silence on the boat. But he doesn’t understand.
“This is for Belina,” I say. “For our babies who didn’t deserve to die before they lived.”
I drop to the ground with a scream, stabbing the knife hard into the top of his foot. My arm is on fire from the force it takes to get the tip of the blade through bone and tissue and tendons until it reaches the wooden floor.
I roll away, registering only his screams. But justice isn’t done. I scramble to grab my knife as he reaches for me like a snake snapping his jaws. I lunge under his arms, stabbing the other foot, this one at a more painful angle. He drops onto his arched back like a crucified man, arms flailing, feet nailed to the cross.
Ricky’s screams turn to convulsive sobs, blood from both feet pooling around us. I must have hit a vein.
I fish an empty bottle out of my bag, a small one I use for pumped milk. I take a long scoop of the thick crimson liquid now reaching my feet. Screwing the yellow cap on tight, I show him his blood, savoring his panic.
I lick my lips and whisper Belina’s first words to me. “Medicine from the old country
,” I say but then share the truth. “Your blood will water her grave.”
He is moaning and cursing, his body shaking from shock. But it’s not over.
Ester is silent. The whisper in my head is silent. Pulling off the torn part of my blood-splattered wrap, I drop Ester and the wire to the ground in one terrible thud.
Ricky’s mouth gapes in horror at what I’ve done. At what I let him do. Our gazes connect for one moment in the total silence we created.
Like recognizing like.
All the voices have stopped.
Chapter 38
The voice was wrong. I am not a terrible mother. In fact, I’m no longer a mother at all.
During that moment of focus, my instinctual reaction to Ricky’s attack, Ester’s crying finally stopped in my head. My mind let go of the illusion. In the weeks since I left the hospital, I have not been carrying the weight of my baby but a grief doll that’s been wrapped to my chest. Cradled in my arms. Dressed and bathed and swaddled. Fed with fake bottles while I pumped real milk.
Ricky is bleeding and screaming, but I am here, past fight and flight. I have focus. I grab the wire tangled with the doll that I treated as my child for the past two months. I can’t leave her, so I take the pieces—the head, legs, arms, shredded stomach with white stuffing—and shove it all into my bag.
I see the flash of the mother on Hope Street who seemed shocked at the sight of me and Ester or, I guess, me cradling a doll. Even now, only moments away from the delusion, I know I will never be ashamed. With the fullness of love, grief must be paid by the ones left behind. To carry on living after a desolation that’s carved you into a new, lesser form.
Stepping outside the cabin, I am that lesser person. I hear Ricky’s cries and feel some relief that he’s confessed. He’ll be going to jail after the hospital to treat the wounds I gave him. For weeks, months, maybe his whole life, every step will be a painful reminder of what he’s done.
The boat rocks harshly in the wind, slamming against the dock. I hear another scream from inside. I think of Ricky’s scars. Of mine. Somewhere in my mind I remember reading that scar tissue is not stronger than the skin that was there before the separation. But it keeps us together enough that we can go on.
All small comfort in the emptiness of my new existence without Ester.
Police officers rush the dock, and I raise my hands in the air, focusing on the red and blue lights. One officer takes me by the arm, gets me off the boat and over to Detective Ramos.
“Are you hurt?” Detective Ramos asks, and I shake my head. He frowns, unconvinced. “The ambulance is waiting.”
I dig into my bag for Ester’s cotton hat and press it into the slight wound.
“Ricky’s feet are stuck to the floor,” I say and stop walking along with him, as if demonstrating.
“Stuck?” He glances, frustrated, toward the ambulance.
“I put knives through his feet,” I say. “He can’t move. Doubt he’ll ever walk the same again.”
He blinks at me. “Okay.”
“Send the medic to him so he doesn’t bleed out,” I explain. “I want him to spend the rest of his life in jail.”
He leans toward my wound, turning on his flashlight, and quickly checks where I’ve held my shirt up enough so he can see. “You’re still going to the hospital,” he says.
“Please,” I say with urgency as the two men with a stretcher near us.
“To the boat,” he shouts at them. They don’t slow, continuing down the dock.
I keep the pressure on the cut, and with my other hand, I dig through the cotton and plastic limbs to pull the wire out of my bag. I hand it to him, though they have the audio recorded in their van parked nearby. My cheeks heat despite the cold because I realize he knew.
“Thank you,” I say, finally processing what this deception meant. Wondering who knew and who didn’t. “For letting me do this with Ester being . . . not real.”
He nods once and then focuses back toward the boat. I hear the radio crackle and then a voice: “He’s alive but lost a lot of blood.”
I smile in relief. “Can you get my knife back?” I ask. “Once it’s out of his foot.”
“Probably,” he says.
A piece of the carrier across my chest lifts in the wind. “Where’s Jack?” I ask.
Detective Ramos doesn’t answer but instead takes a step back.
The weight of familiar arms comes around me. “You’re okay,” Jack whispers. “You’re okay.”
I lean into Jack’s chest, inhaling his shuddering breath. I’d be crying too, if my heart didn’t feel as if it were gone, left in the belly of the boat.
“She’s in shock,” Detective Ramos says to Jack, then faces me again. “Another ambulance will be here in four minutes. You’re going to the hospital. Head that way.”
At the mention of the hospital, a memory returns. The only moment I spent with Ester after she was born. The doctor tried to hand her to me. “Stillborn,” I remember him explaining. Died during my C-section, as I almost did. I stared at her in the doctor’s gloved hands. Her dark hair contrasted with the pale-pink blanket wrapped thickly around her small body.
But I couldn’t hold her. I said no. Unable to believe it. And then everything went black. I cried for her. For days. For weeks. Until Jack said, “Do you want to hold our daughter?”
Jack’s gaze goes to where Ester was across my chest and stomach. There is a flicker of hope. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he says in a rush. “I needed you to come back to me. I read an article about it helping someone . . . and when I handed you that doll . . . you were there for the first time since she . . . died. I hoped a few days. Then with your work. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
I touch his face, and he leans into my open palm. “You did the right thing,” I say. “I’m here now.”
He pulls me tight, a shudder in his chest as he lets out a long breath, one I imagine he’s held since he put a doll in my arms and pretended it was our daughter.
We make our way toward the lights as a cold and salty blast of wind whips off the dark water. The cut barely burns, like a gentle echo of the much worse pain from my C-section incision that didn’t want to heal. This cut isn’t as severe, not as deep, but the same emptiness continues beyond the bloodstain. Both cuts are nothing compared to the ballast now residing in my chest at the truth.
As we near the end of the dock, I see the lights of the second ambulance approaching. I stop to untwist and remove the last pieces of the baby wrap still around my shoulders and tied at my waist. I pick up a few thin rocks stacked nearby and drop to my knees. I dig into my bag and pull out what’s left of the doll.
Jack says something behind me, a question, a concern, but it doesn’t matter. I wrap her one last time, gently placing the pieces onto the stretchy fabric along with the rocks, covering the perfect nose, Jack’s black hair, my green eyes. I tie it all together and kiss the top of her head, something I’ve done a thousand times, and drop her into the water.
Epilogue
Seven months later
Cynthia rises from behind the shining marble counter at her second location, Capitol Chip, across from the statehouse. Tonight is her soft launch, and Mayor Soriano should be arriving soon.
“Detective Ramos is in the corner,” Cynthia says, brushing the sleeve of her white silk shirt. “Tell me those are the olives.”
I hand her the sack containing the tub of blue cheese–stuffed olives for the Uncle Cal martini she’s put on the menu as a tribute. “The recipe is in there too.”
“Hallelujah,” she says. “Not sure the olive-stuffing business is a good fit.”
“I’ll keep to the pro bono,” I say with a grin. I started working a few cases for Legal Aid. Mostly paperwork, but if I’m up for it, perhaps more. “Nice ribbon.” I nod toward the gigantic red bow across the counter between us.
“Ah,” she says, cringing, but I see how proud she is of this amazing place she’s built. “I’ve got to fi
nd those damn big scissors.”
“I’m bringing some champagne to celebrate after you close tonight,” I say. “I don’t care if you have a full bar. My treat to celebrate you.”
She nods once and steps around to give me a tight hug. She’s a hugger now. With me.
Heading over to the barista, I ask for two black coffees, mine decaf. It’s still quiet. Most of the preparations have been made. The servers are gone, getting ready for opening night.
I start to sit at the two-top with Detective Ramos, but there’s a padded envelope in my chair. I place my coffee down and hand him his. I slide the envelope into my messenger bag with a nod of appreciation at having my knife back.
He’s already drinking his coffee in long gulps. “Thank you,” he says as if I’ve delivered him a winning Powerball ticket. “Baby still won’t sleep more than two hours.”
His gaze flicks up to me. That happens now, when people who have heard the rumors mention any news about babies. I smile, almost sincerely. “It’ll get better,” I say. “Especially when it can’t get worse.”
After scrubbing a hand across his face, he takes a long sip. “Damn,” he says. “Everything tastes good at these fancy places.”
I wait a moment for him to take another sip. “You connected with Phillip?” I ask.
Detective Ramos grunts before answering. “Yeah, yeah, he’s getting everything he needs for that damn book of his,” he says. “I spend more time talking to him than my wife.”
“Thank you,” I say. “He got one hell of an advance, so he’s feeling the pressure.”
“Good for him,” he mumbles.
“Stefano’s sentencing is next week,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t know how much his testimony against Ricky helped.”
Stefano told the whole sad saga of Ricky and Belina on the stand during Ricky’s trial. He seemed remorseful, but what does it matter? Ricky will go to jail for the rest of his life for the murder of Belina and illegal work for Stefano. Alec was equally tearful, but he got off with probation, thanks to his deal with Max.
Jack asked me after the trial if I felt betrayed by Belina. If she’d used my friendship to get to Alec for Stefano. It’s possible, but I’d been the one to find her in Swan Point Cemetery. To have her friendship and help through my pregnancy. I wonder more if I let her down. If I’d been a better friend, if I’d asked more questions, offered more help. She didn’t owe me her secrets. But I did owe her my friendship.
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