by J. J. Cagney
Evan stopped, his shoulders stiffened.
“Your sister and I were nothing by the time she died. She made sure of that.”
He stared down at her, this the face of the man who’d called her sister vile names.
“What happened to you, Evan?” Cici asked, her voice choked with emotion.
She assumed he wouldn’t answer, so she began to walk toward the door.
As she passed him, he reached out and slammed his palm on the door jamb opposite her, caging her with his body.
“I got schooled in what betrayal means, Cee. You’d be smart to remember who taught me the lesson.”
9
I am not bound to please thee with my answers. —Shakespeare
Evan’s words echoed in Cici’s mind. Betrayal. Did he think Anna Carmen cheated on him?
With Donald Johnson? That made no sense.
While the twins had made a point to avoid each other’s boyfriends, that didn’t mean they hadn’t found the same men attractive. Justin had been the only exemption. He’d liked Anna Carmen better—dumped Cici for her twin—which caused Cici not to speak to Anna Carmen for the entire month the two dated.
But Anna Carmen had talked to Cici before she’d accepted that first date. Cici had been sad, but more embarrassed by getting dumped by the boy she liked. Back then, Cici’s name meant trouble. That was part of the reason she hadn’t attended college in her home town to stay and support her dying mother. Cici had wanted adventure—maybe some wildness—while Anna Carmen had craved an organized sock drawer.
Cici remained too worked up from her conversation with Evan to go home. After visiting two of her church members who were in the hospital—one for a hip replacement, the other receiving chemotherapy—Cici decided to lunch with Mrs. Hodgkins at one of the retirement communities in town. The woman complained about the waitress’s service, the blandness of the food, and even the ugliness of the new carpet, but Cici didn’t mind. The woman just wanted someone to listen to her—to agree that her opinions and autonomy mattered.
The clock slipped past one when Cici arrived home and changed into a T-shirt, jeans, and low-heeled boots. She took Mona and Rodolfo for a short walk, but the dogs tugged on their leashes, tongues hanging far out of their mouths as the animals sought shade or, better yet, the cool Saltillo tile of her living room.
Cici added ice to their water bowls and left them happily crunching away, knowing they loved the cool cubes. She tugged on her leather gloves and jacket before pulling her Harley out of the garage. She buckled her helmet and then headed up 284 before turning onto 504 and making a quick stop at the falls in Nambé. After watching the cold mountain water pour down on laughing children and adults in the afternoon sunshine, Cici climbed back on her motorcycle and headed northeast toward Chimayó.
Her phone beeped in the pocket of her jeans. Sam, no doubt, asking why she’d left the city limits and the jurisdiction of her police escort.
She ignored the phone, focusing instead on the feeling in her chest, the awareness in her mind. Anna Carmen seemed closer than usual. As if . . . as if she was guiding Cici to something monumental.
Cici passed the sign that told of the Pueblo tribes that settled the area hundreds, possibly thousands of years before the second arrival of Spanish descendants. The area’s long weaving history was noted as well. Years ago, Cici’s mother brought her and Anna Carmen to the area to watch masters work in various textiles. The thoughts, like many Cici carried, made her sad.
Red chile pepper ristras hung from the local store and from the thick vigas holding up the front porch of a local bed-and-breakfast.
Cici pulled into the lot of the large Santuario. With a steadying breath, she removed her helmet, set in on the seat of her motorcycle, and headed toward the front doors.
After walking through the adobe arch and into the main sanctuary, Cici crossed herself, as was her family’s custom whenever they visited the church. She sat in a pew in the middle of the sanctuary, letting the silence clarify her thoughts. She stared at the image of Jesus nailed to the cross and shuddered. From there, she looked at the brightly painted wooden scenes surrounding the depicted death of the Savior.
Unfortunately, her thoughts bounded around even faster than her eyes could peruse the large wooden wall of images. Evan’s words continued to orbit through Cici’s head.
She was missing something—something that caused Evan to turn bitter and cold. Something that made J.R. want to protect Cici.
Cici sat up straighter. Something the law firm knew or possibly knew about Anna Carmen’s death . . . or what led to it . . .
No. Something about Donald Johnson.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a slight shifting of movement. When she turned to look, no one was there. Frowning, Cici faced forward again, and the outline of a woman . . . of her sister, sharpened in the dim space.
“What did Donald know?” Cici murmured aloud. “Is that what got you killed? Did you give him information or did he give it to you?”
Cici didn’t know. And Anna Carmen wasn’t telling. Nope, she didn’t even try to speak to Cici this time.
“Susan Johnson doesn’t seem to know,” Cici huffed out. “But that didn’t mean someone in the community was ignorant of Donald’s actions—and the part he played in Anna Carmen’s death.”
A cool, soft draft slid over Cici’s hand. Like . . . almost like Anna Carmen was trying to clasp it.
Cici breathed in and out in slow, measured puffs, needing to control her breathing and calm her racing thoughts enough to stand, to exit this place.
“I need you to guide me,” Cici said. “I wish you’d told me more last year.” Her eyes filled with tears, but Cici blinked them back until she could see the altar clearly once more. “I wish you’d trusted me with whatever problem you had. I miss you, Aci.”
Cici walked from the centuries-old church feeling more drained than when she entered. She texted Sam as concisely as possible her revelations of the day.
Where are you? he asked.
In Chimayó. Be home in a couple of hours.
Be careful, he replied and she could practically hear the censure through those words. And let me know when you get home.
Instead of turning toward her motorcycle, she walked back down the road. A dangerous decision because the sun began to lower in the sky. With some guess work and guidance from that strange, cool air, she found the approximate spot where her twin had died, trying to channel more of Anna Carmen’s emotions.
Nothing came.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Cici murmured, willing her sister to answer. “Just that it’s bad and it’s still happening.”
If Anna Carmen remained nearby—if el Señor was listening—no one planned to answer Cici’s questions today. After the third car whizzed past, honking in a long peel of angry motorist horn, Cici gave up. She also realized just how hungry she was.
She stopped at Gabriel’s on the way home for some of their guacamole, which the waiter made table side. She ate it and her chicken and rice slowly, more picking at her food. Much as she longed for a cold local brew—maybe a Santa Fe Pen Porter—she’d never drink an alcoholic beverage while on her sister’s motorcycle.
She smiled down into her iced tea, thinking that was one of the best lessons her father taught her. At least, one of the few positive ones that stuck.
After zipping up her leather jacket and slipping back on her gloves, Cici rode home at a sedate pace, trying to wrap her head around Anna Carmen’s presence—then immediate disappearance. As she stopped at the deserted intersection of Paseo de Peralta and St. Francis, that cool brush of wind intermixed with the much warmer summer air. Cici glanced around, wondering where the chill originated because it felt just like the cold touch on her hand in the Santuario.
A truck—the same dark tinted windows, dark exterior that had appeared at her house the evening she walked with Justin and her dogs—sped up as it entered the intersection from her left. The
large engine revved loud as a roar as the back wheels squealed. The headlights aimed at Cici. A car kitty-corner to the black truck—the one with the green light, laid on his horn, alerting the rest of the cars now heading this direction to slow.
Good. At least innocent people wouldn’t be hurt.
Cici guessed it would be just five seconds until impact, maybe less. Probably, she wouldn’t be able to avoid impact, but no way she planned to wait there another moment and simply let someone flatten her.
She grasped the handlebars and squeezed the gas as hard as she could. Turbo injection—a nonstandard addition Anna Carmen made a few years ago to add some more zip to the machine—kicked in and Cici blasted sideways, up onto the sidewalk and into the field behind Gonzales Community School.
Cici screamed as her bike jumped the curb, then hit the rock-strewn field with a teeth-rattling thud. She squinted, trying to keep her eyes focused on the space in front of her after the truck’s front chrome fender missed her by mere inches. Her heart revved near as fast as the engine of her Harley as she wove around the chain link fence surrounding the school.
The truck tore over the rough terrain, spitting bits of gravel and broken sticks in all directions. Some hit Cici’s helmet, making a horrendous pinging sound.
Cici squeezed the throttle harder and the engine shrilled as she took as hard a turn on the bike as she dared. She couldn’t outrun that big truck engine. Her tires skittered and Cici worked to regain better control of the bike.
The truck revved, sounding closer.
Cici gulped. Few choices. None good.
She’d been here, at this school, last week to read to the kids. The teacher—a friend of hers and Anna Carmen’s—had pointed out a gap in the chain-link that led onto the playground.
Where was it? Far to the back, used to let older kids into the playground for the activities they didn’t want their parents or the school lights to discover.
The truck roared behind her, close enough for Cici to feel the heat through her leather jacket.
There. She nearly missed the gap. Holding her breath, Cici veered her motorcycle through it, shrinking her body as tight against the motorcycle. The leather on her gloves and jacket ripped before the points of the chain-link managed to gouge the skin from the back of her hands and her forearms, but Cici bit hard on her lip as she shot through the wire and into the relative safety of the field.
Until the truck plowed through the fence.
As she wove around the tetherball posts, she screamed as loudly as she could, “Anna Carmen, I am really mad at you!”
Cici cut around the school, nearly hitting the corner of the building and its protruding brown bricks as she jumped another curb onto the sidewalk and then slammed back into the parking lot. Much as she wanted to look behind her, she focused on veering around the center median.
With a quick prayer to the God who seemed to have neglected her these last few heart-thumping minutes, she flew onto West Alameda, cringing as heat from exhaust and moving cars bombarded her. More honking horns, this time followed by angry, raised voices cursing her as she sped along the bike lane and then jumped another curb onto the river trail and into the Alto Youth Center. Finally, she slowed the motorcycle to a more sedate forty miles per hour.
Sirens blared from somewhere behind her. Cici drew a deep breath. Her palms were slicked with sweat and blood. Her fingers, stiff and white, remained wrapped around the black plastic of the handle grips.
Home.
She just wanted to get home. To her dogs and the relative safety of her small house.
Her breath came in short pants, and as she turned onto Urioste Street, heading toward Agua Fria, she finally got up the gumption to look in her small side mirror.
The black truck, the demon beast that would haunt her nightmares for months yet to come, was nowhere to be seen.
10
No legacy is so rich as honesty. — Shakespeare
Cici called Sam as soon as she pulled her Harley into the garage.
“You did what?”
Cici locked her knees, unable yet to climb off the motorcycle. Her heart beat faster than any Maria Benitez flamenco routine—and twice as hard.
“Like I had a choice, Samuel. That truck came at me—even plowed through the fence. It wanted to plow through me.” The last word ended in somewhere between a shout and a wail.
Holy See and all the saints . . . Cici could not believe she was alive and in one piece. She frowned at the bloody coverings over her hands and arms. Mostly in one piece.
Better than she’d expected when that cold breeze hit her neck.
Cici gulped, so thankful for this chance to breathe, to think. To be mad at Sam.
“I just heard about this,” Sam said on a sigh. “Christ—”
“Watch it!”
Cici managed to totter off her bike and move into her kitchen. She planted her butt in the closest chair as Sam spoke into her ear, his voice dripping with annoyance—and . . . could it be? He sounded . . . scared.
“You say worse than that,” Sam said. “Stay put. I’ll need to get a full statement. And, for God’s sake, stop getting into trouble, will you?”
“Like I ask for it,” Cici muttered, hanging up the phone.
She’d had her fill of Sam-talk for the night.
The doorbell rang.
Cici froze.
She fumbled with her phone, ready to redial Sam’s number.
What if the person in the black truck was out there—on her small porch—now?
She crept forward, her finger hovering over the “Talk” icon.
Silencing her dogs, Cici walked through her living room to peek out the small window. Relief swamped her, making her limbs heavy. Tears burned up her nose. An adrenaline crash, Cici decided. She huffed as she slid her phone into her pocket. Then, she opened the front door.
“Can we talk, Rev?” Juan Sanchez stood on her small wooden porch, hands tucked into his frayed jeans pockets.
“Sure.” Cici stepped aside to let the hulking teen into her home. “What’s this about?”
He swallowed hard, a heavy sound full of emotion that eclipsed the ticking of the dogs’ feet on the tile floors as they settled into comfortable positions.
“It’s about your sister.”
Juan fidgeted before Rodolfo shoved his leonine head against Juan’s thigh, nuzzling closer both to offset Juan’s nervousness but also because the big, white dog liked to be pet. All day, every day. The teenager scratched Rodolfo’s head and the dog’s eyes narrowed in bliss and his tongue flopped from his mouth as he smiled.
“You weren’t here then—when it happened. But you know Marco died of an opioid overdose. They said . . . the police said he downed a whole bottle of Demerol in the boys’ bathroom at the start of football practice. By the time anyone found him, he was . . .”
Juan swallowed and wiped his eyes with his thumb.
“My dad yanked me from Capitol that next week. Sent me to Saint Michael’s. He didn’t want me mixed up in Marco’s mess.”
Cici nodded as she settled into her brown leather club chair opposite the loveseat where the teen settled his size forty bulk. Mona pressed against Cici’s side, not liking the attention her brother was receiving. Cici pet the dog’s soft, feathery ears.
A moment later, Mona turned and began to lick Cici’s hands and forearms, laving away the sweat and dried blood. Cici wished she kept whiskey in the house—she could really use a shot of something bracing right now.
But she didn’t do hard liquor.
“So young,” she murmured, hating the idea of this young man going through the same grief process Cici struggled to overcome each day. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Juan. I know how hard it is to lose a sibling. And I know how lame my words sound . . . how uninspired and not enough.”
“I . . . I miss him.”
Cici leaned forward. “Of course, you do.”
Juan cleared his throat. “Not why I’m here. We were cleaning out t
he old trailer. Me and my dad.” Add in Mrs. Sanchez, and that equated to the young man’s entire family. Not unlike Cici’s own shrunken relative pool.
“All right. That’s good.”
Juan shrugged. “Maybe. Dad says we gotta move out of Abuelita’s neighborhood. He can’t stand all the rich bit . . . er, older people.” Juan’s face flushed as did his neck. “Er, sorry, Rev.”
“I’ve thought some of those Acequia Madre folks were bitchy myself a time or two.”
Juan startled and Cici bit back a smile. “Oh. Right. You grew up over there. Dad don’t like it. So, we went back to our property out on Brickman. Where we still got the old trailer and stuff. Anyway, Dad says we gotta clean it so we can live in it again.”
Mona stood and walked around to Cici’s other side where she once again began bathing Cici’s broken skin. Juan’s gaze followed this time and his eyes widened.
“What happened to you?” he gasped.
“Met a fence that didn’t like me. My bike’s scratched up.”
Cici frowned. That was the first time she’d thought of the Harley as hers. Did it matter? She wasn’t sure, but owning it, caring for it, riding it to its limit seemed crucial somehow. Like . . . well, like the motorcycle wanted to be hers.
Or maybe that Anna Carmen wanted it to be Cici’s.
Cici bit her lip as she watched Mona’s pink tongue lave her broken skin. Yes, Anna Carmen passed the bike to her tonight. Officially.
Cici had to blink back tears. Now wasn’t the time for her own baggage.
What had she and Juan been talking about? Right. The move back to the family’s trailer off Brickman.
“Are you happy about that move, Juan? I know they can be hard.”
The teen shrugged. “Don’t care so much where my bed is, Rev. I mean, I liked Abuelita’s fine. It’s closer to Jaycee, her being down near Madrid.”
He flushed a little. Jaycee and Juan had begun dating toward the end of the past school year. He was such a big guy—rarely spoke unless he needed to—and Jaycee was bubbly, an effervescent force. They made an adorable high school couple. Only time would tell if they could manage the eighty-mile separation when Jaycee started at UNM and Juan at Tech in another year—at least those were the top schools of choice the teenagers mentioned last time Cici had asked. And they’d need to make it through their senior year first, but Juan and Jaycee seemed solid. Now.