Murder on Masaya (Kea Wright Mysteries Book 3)

by RJ Corgan

  Her brain was still processing the fact that she had jeopardized the entire expedition with her presence. That mortifying thought, coupled with the shame that she had lost control of her body, made her leap gratefully into oblivion whenever it reached out to embrace her.

  Lying on her side, unable to rid herself of the wretched taste of the cherry sick that clung to the roof of her mouth, Kea existed in a space between the waking and dreaming worlds, entranced by the shifting steam and smoke that rose around her. Glimpses of shadows ebbed and flowed across her vision as she found herself immersed in another memory.

  “Keep your head down!” Alisha hissed in Kea’s ear.

  Kea shifted impatiently, wedging her elbows deeper into the moist sands, trying not to nudge the people lying beside her. They had all been bundled into a van shortly after sunset and driven close to the Costa Rican border. Not anticipating guerilla warfare as part of her geology fieldwork, Kea hadn’t thought to pack a balaclava, so she kept her pale face as close to the sands as possible. She wasn’t sure it mattered. Although she had struggled into the black long-sleeve shirt Alisha had lent her, it was two sizes too small and neon white crescents of her belly made brief appearances whenever she moved, shining like a jiggly, horizontal lighthouse.

  “They’re coming!” Someone whispered.

  Kea craned her head to see above the undulating ridges of sand. The moon stretched a long reflection that quavered across the lazy waves of the Pacific Ocean. Under its faint light, she spied several glistening domes shuffling slowly out of the surf.

  “Twenty thousand last night,” another voice muttered. “Hopefully, the same will come tonight.”

  Kea hadn’t been introduced to the rest of the rabble rousers, and judging by their masked faces, they weren’t eager to exchange business cards. Keeping to herself, Kea followed Alisha’s directions. After all, it had been the young woman who had organized the entire trip.

  In an ordinary world, Kea would never have agreed to such extracurricular nocturnal activities. The pandemic, however, had changed everything. Having arrived in Nicaragua shortly before the outbreak went global, Kea had dutifully self-isolated in her little studio apartment near the edge of the town. Through the first eight weeks she had streamed lectures, binged movies and television series, and even written a handful of papers she’d been meaning to finish for the last decade. After that, her energy had waned, and a funk began to permeate her soul. It was a different creature to the depression that ebbed and flowed in and out of her normal, everyday life. This funk felt unfamiliar, almost alien in nature, and seemed determined to draw the curtains on any hope for the future and insisted that she consume far too many frozen pizzas.

  It was only when Kea cut her hand chopping carrots, and the searing pain flared through her nervous system, that she realized how numb her senses had become during the period of enforced isolation.

  During Kea’s first few lonely months, Alisha had taken it upon herself to deliver a bowl of her mother’s stew once a week. Kea suspected the young woman was simply taking advantage of the excuse to get away from her own family, but the stew was so delicious she couldn’t refuse. Every Friday afternoon, Kea found herself eagerly awaiting the soft tap, tap, tap on her door.

  The day Kea cut her hand, however, Alisha made a fuss, insisting on bandaging the wound properly. It was the first time Alisha had been inside the tiny studio and after staring in horror at the rumpled sofa bed and unwashed dishes, she insisted that Kea come stay with her. Over the course of the next year, Kea was treated like a member of Alisha’s family, and unlike her own actual family, she genuinely liked these people. It was a peculiar feeling to feel like she belonged somewhere.

  Still, it had taken some convincing on Alisha’s part to get Kea to join tonight’s excursion.

  As thousands of sea turtles lumbered out of the waves and began their slow invasion of the beach, Kea was stunned by the sight. Amazement quickly dwindled to tedium, however, as it took more than an hour for the creatures to reach far enough inland before they started digging their nests. Lying prone on the sands, as the soft winds ruffled her hair, the susurration of the surf lulled Kea into a gentle sleep.

  “There they go!” Alisha’s voice jolted Kea awake. “Go now!”

  As one, the group rose from the sands like a wave of darkness. Following Alisha’s lead, they skirted the dunes, shielding themselves from the shoreline. Then, with a yell, they dashed across the sands toward the flickering red lights. Startled, the poachers fled in the opposite direction.

  Kea, terrified of stepping on any of the creatures, quickly fell behind the others. Picking her way between the giant sea turtles, she was alarmed at their size. Some were as large as overturned shopping carts.

  The sight of the poachers fleeing stirred something inside Kea that she had never felt before. As she knelt to help Maria and Blanca right an overturned turtle, she realized what it was. Her entire career as a scientist had consisted of documenting, of observing. Now, for the first time, she had made a difference, been part of something greater.

  Grinning, she flicked on her own flashlight, the lens covered with red paper so as not to disorientate the reptiles, and searched for another inverted turtle. She found one not more than ten feet away, a leatherback, easily as long as she was tall and twice as wide, had been overturned. Stepping closer to help, she discovered that its head had been smashed in and its insides ripped out. She fell to her knees in horror, transfixed by the gruesome sight.

  “If there isn’t time to wait for turtles to bury the eggs in the ground, the poachers cut them out.” Alisha stood beside Kea, her light briefly examining the turtle before moving on to the next. Kea trailed behind her, as they moved from one dead turtle to another. “Two thousand nests were destroyed last year. There simply aren’t enough military to patrol all the beaches. It’s up to us.” Her light lingered on two more bloodied corpses. “But you can’t save everyone.”

  Suddenly, a ripple of darkness flowed across the beach, transforming the sea turtles into boulders covered in grit and ash. Kea was back on Delta level once more, knee-deep in the rockfall as time seemed to unwind. Boulder after boulder hopped over each other in reverse until the crater wall was whole again. A thousand soft shapes the size of rabbits darted between the cracks. No, not rabbits, Kea realized. Socks. The woolen critters seethed in and out of the wall before ganging up on one large boulder and, with a giant set of knitting needles, they pried the rock loose. The massive rock tumbled toward her and while she tried to roll out of the way, a chittering in the shadows beside her caused her to jump. A million insects swarming up her legs, their chitinous little feet tapping and teasing at her clothes, seeking a way inside.

  It was then that she saw Masaya, the face within the fumes. The goddess was not what she expected. Ancient and withered, with long gray locks that hung around her visage like a shroud. Mischievous obsidian eyes were sunk within her wizened gray skin that glinted in the amber light of the fire, as if challenging Kea.

  Surely the perks of god-like powers would include a decent moisturizer, Kea thought absently.

  The goddess Masaya spoke to her then, Kea was certain. It was as if the wraith knew of her sins, both those in the past and those she was about to commit.

  Kea couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if Masaya was smiling in approval.

  It was a hideous sight to behold.

  The insects and socks kept pawing at her. When they reached her face, she screamed in terror. The creatures spoke to her then, with one booming voice.

  “Kea, stop taking the mask off!” Simon sounded quite cross. “Take it off to puke, but put the damn thing back on afterward!”

  “Blanca!” Francisco called over his shoulder. “Get the oxygen cylinder!”

  “No more tacos,” Kea moaned. “I told you mom, tacos and the llama are not friends.”

  She felt the rubbery embrace of the mask on her face and she relaxed. She was safe. Everyone was safe.

  “
Make sure the llama doesn’t get into the tequila,” Kea advised. “He can’t mambo after the hard stuff.”

  Then she was gone again, blissfully slipping into the darkness of memory and dreams.

  Chapter 10

  WHEN KEA woke next, it was to be sick. As horrible as it was, she seemed better after the act, relieved at the notion that this vile thing might leave her alone, at least for a short while. Unfortunately, it returned to claim her almost every hour, on the hour. The muscles in her neck and chest, strained by the throes of her illness, writhed in agony. Sinews that she had never used in her life were yanked rudely into existence and begged for relief.

  In between the events, Kea curled into a ball, unable to move. Unable to sleep, she was tortured by dreams of her past. Never had she felt so trapped within the confines of her own body. It was as if her mind had stopped occupying space within her head and was huddled deep inside. Disconnected. Apart.

  During these periods, she slipped in and out of consciousness. At times she was aware of her surroundings, at others she was unable to tell reality from her dreams.

  Masaya did not help. The antic light of its shifting fire meant that Kea could not tell if her eyes were open or shut, losing her ability to discern fantasy from reality.

  “Any other symptoms?” Simon was back. “Bowel movements?”

  “Normal,” Kea croaked. “Except when I do need to go, I start throwing up again.”

  She shuddered, remembering squatting over the crevasse and then being forced to quickly invert. She was stripped down to her undershirt and wedged at the back of the shelter, fully exposed to the others who were less than ten feet away. All no doubt wishing they were somewhere, anywhere, else.

  “Good news then. Definitely norovirus.”

  Good news? Kea could not believe the delight in his voice. Still, not being intentionally poisoned was a positive sign. “Yay?”

  “You’ll be ill for another few hours, but it should stop after that. You’ll be able to hydrate again then. I mean, you’ll be weak and sore for days, but once you can keep fluids down, you’ll be mobile.”

  Having delivered his diagnosis, Simon moved away to check the dressing on Daniela’s leg. Daniela, Francisco, and Blanca had been within what Simon described as the ‘splash zone’ of Kea’s illness. While the paramedics had already checked everyone for symptoms, it could be hours before they would know who else was infected. Carlos, Luis, and anyone else who had been in contact with Kea or her water bottle, were also at risk.

  Blanca informed Kea that the rest of the healthy members of the team were rigging a line to get everyone up the rockfall, although it would take several more hours to devise a setup that could enable them to accommodate stretchers.

  “This wasn’t how I imagined this rescue playing out,” Kea apologized from behind the relative comfort of a small boulder where she had wedged herself.

  “I was climbing Cerro Negro once,” Francisco began, “made it close to the summit, but I felt something coming on. Food poisoning, I think, hit me from both ends. I managed to get behind a rock, but then a tourist helicopter comes out of nowhere and hovers directly over me. There I am, completely naked …”

  Thankfully, another convulsion prevented Kea from hearing the rest of the tale. As she rinsed out the chunks in her mouth with water, she returned to the conversation to hear Francisco in mid-flow regaling them with another tale, this one set on a frozen peak in the Andes and having to go to the bathroom.

  “It was the middle of the night and it froze solid halfway, I had to use a fork to pull it out,” he enthused. “Nothing’s more glamorous than fieldwork.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Blanca scolded. She cradled Daniela’s head in her lap and smoothed her hair. “She’s trying to sleep.”

  At any other point, Kea would have ridiculed the idea of being able to doze next to the roar of Masaya’s cauldron. Now, however, all she could do was lower her own head into her hands and pray for sleep.

  When the dreams unfolded around her once more, she was standing in the street shouting. “There is no way in hell that I’m doing this!”

  She knew this memory immediately. They had been celebrating Josine’s mother’s second marriage and Kea had danced so hard, her feet had hurt for a week. She let the dream wash over her as she relived the night. Too many margaritas, too much food, and too many tequila shots.

  The evening had been a blur of shrimp, plantains, and about forty-five of Josine’s cousins and the other graduate students dancing and singing. They had all wound up in a bar in Masaya where tequila shots were handed out. By Francisco, of course.

  That could have been two hours ago or twenty, Kea couldn’t be sure. Alisha’s tone had gotten all serious, the kind of deep dark seriousness that could kill any buzz. She dragged Kea into the streets of Masaya. On her way out of the bar, despite her intoxicated state, or perhaps because of it, Kea noticed Dominic gazing at Josine.

  A love triangle. How quaint, Kea thought, as if spotting a Bay Breasted Warbler.

  Once outside the bar, Alisha’s mood immediately shifted, a full one-eighty, enthusing about planning the next protest. She kept chatting as she led Kea through the streets of Masaya before stopping abruptly in front of a tattoo parlor.

  “No, no, no.” Kea tried to drag Alisha toward the bar. “I’m not getting a tattoo. I’ve learned to say that in four languages.”

  “It’s not for you,” Alisha chastised. “It’s for me.”

  “Your mother would kill me,” Kea replied automatically.

  “I’m twenty-two.” Alisha refused to budge. “And my mother has seven tattoos. Plus, I’ve got three already.”

  “Booze and tattoos are a terrible idea,” Kea insisted. “As I’m sure the artist inside would agree.” Although from the dank look of the shop inside the window, it was likely the owner wouldn’t be too discriminating, depending on the amount of cash dispensed. Of course, Kea supposed, Alisha hadn’t been drinking, so she’d probably been planning it all night. The memory had taken place before the pregnancy, so at least, Kea reflected, hepatitis had not been a worry.

  Kea didn’t remember clearly what happened next. No doubt Alisha had batted those damn puppy dog eyes, because the next thing she knew Alisha was sitting in one of those chairs that only dentists should own.

  Kea examined the sketch Alisha had laid out for the artist, a short little man with a mullet of greasy hair, a Hawaiian shirt, and a surprisingly expensive-looking gold watch. The sketch was simple: two little marks, colored in black.

  “I don’t understand why you would want a punctuation mark on your wrist,” Kea complained.

  Alisha traced the image with a slow finger, her eyes unfocused, distant.

  “I met a man once,” Kea said, hoping that she sounded wise, or at least sober, “who insisted on wearing question marks on his lapels. It was a terrible fashion statement.”

  “This is different,” Alisha protested.

  “I know. This isn’t a piece of clothing. It’s worse. You want to stencil a semicolon on your neck.”

  “It is not a punctuation mark.” Alisha sulked. “It’s more than that.” The young woman let out a sigh, and spoke very slowly, as if explaining a fairytale. “If your life is a story, and you’re the author, a semicolon represents a point when you could’ve ended the sentence but chose not to.”

  Kea felt like she was missing something, but waited, expectant.

  Alisha raised the sleeve of her long-sleeved t-shirt and traced the scars on her wrist.

  It didn’t occur to Kea before now that she’d never seen Alisha not wear a long sleeve shirt. Even on the hottest days in the field.

  Kea realized that she wasn’t nearly sober enough for this conversation.

  Rather than feel revulsion or pity at the sight of the mutilation, Kea experienced a different sensation. A connection.

  “In this case, the author is me,” Alisha said, her voice little more than a breath, “and the sentence is my life.”


  As Alisha traced the symbol with her finger, Kea was surprised to see Alisha wearing a smile that broke her heart. “I chose not to end my story.”

  Kea remembered that day, out on the ice when she had been hunted, her friends lying dead beside her, and she had decided that she was going to survive. In order to do so, Kea had killed a man, and in that moment, she became someone else, someone she no longer recognized, someone whose eyes she couldn’t face in the mirror each morning. She took Alisha’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “I’ve been there too,” she whispered, “not so long ago.”

  Alisha nodded, as if to say, I know.

  “I CAN tell that you’re awake,” a male voice said. “You’ve stopped snoring.”

  “I never snore,” Kea protested feebly. “Must be Masaya. Probably has sleep apnea. Have a hard time finding a big enough CPAP machine though.”

  “Are you getting enough oxygen?” Luis crouched into her field of vision. “You’re not making much sense.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, maybe you’re not getting enough oxygen!” Kea shot back, oddly proud of the childish retort. Words and energy still seemed beyond her reach. “I did all the things, climbed all the way down, did the thing with thing, and then the …” she broke off, consumed by a coughing fit. She blinked slowly when finished, as if making sure she hadn’t hurled up any vital organs. “Then, this horribleness of … gah ... So, you … you do better!”

  “Kea.” His gloved hand touched her brow, smoothing away the strands of hair encrusted on her cheeks. “Everything will be okay. It is being taken care of. I promise.”

  In a fit of sudden anger, Kea rolled her head out from under his hand. She found herself blinking at the semicolon tattooed on her wrist. It reminded her of something important, something she needed to do.