Текст книги "Sixth Grave on the Edge"

Автор книги: Даринда Джонс

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

* * *

After Garrett dropped Reyes and me off, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on my favorite pair of pajamas. The bottoms were baby blue with little red fire engines all over them, and the bright crimson top read LIFE’S SHORT. BITE HARD. After forcing a goodnight kiss on Mr. Wong’s cheek, I strolled to my room and pulled back my Bugs Bunny comforter.

My room felt so big now. So open. It was weird.

I snuggled deep into the covers, adjusted my pillow until it was just right, then lay down until the top of my head rested on Reyes’s shoulder. He was in the exact same position, only upside down on his bed. We lay facing each other, nose to nose, our breaths mingling. The scent of him reminded me of rain in a forest. I raised a hand to his face, let my fingers brush down his cheek and over his mouth.

He did the same, pushing my hair back with a large hand, tracing my jaw with his fingertips. “Don’t think that just because there’s no wall between us you can take advantage of me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare.”

He fell asleep cradling my head, his heat rolling over me in scalding waves, and yet I wasn’t too hot. I fell asleep wondering how that was even possible.

I could sense the sun coming up over the horizon the next morning but fought my body’s natural inclination to rise with the chickens. It was still early; I was certain of it. Surely I could get in another half hour before duty—or the need to visit the little

señorita

’s room—called. Then I felt it. The undeniable knowledge that someone was looking at me. Someone was sitting and breathing and fidgeting in my space bubble.

I let my lids drift open to reveal the smiling face of a little girl.

“She’s awake!” she screamed, and I bound upright, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes.

A little boy ran into the room and scrambled up on the bed beside his sister. “What happened to your wall?” he asked, his huge dark eyes wide with wonder.

But now the little girl sat with her tiny arms crossed over her chest, stabbing me with a scalding glower, albeit an adorable one. Oh, yeah, she wanted me dead.

“Why do you have two beds?” the boy asked next. He was bouncing on his knees, clearly wanting to jump. “You look older than the last time we saw you,” he added. “And you have bedhead.”

“Oh, my goodness.” A woman rushed into the room to scoop up the two children and set them on the floor. “I am so sorry, Charley.”

I waved a dismissive hand at Bianca. She was married to Reyes’s best—and pretty much only—friend, Amador. The two little munchkins at her side, one beaming and one glaring the heat of a thousand suns, were their children, Ashley and Stephen.

Amador walked in, nodding his head in approval. “Hey, Charley. I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Thanks,” I said, climbing out of bed and smoothing my pajamas. Nothing like greeting guests in my pajamas.

Amador read my T-shirt, raised his brows playfully, then said, “Reyes told Ashley about the you-know-what.”

I walked around the bed and gave his lovely wife a hug. “The you-know-what?”

“You know,” he said, coming in for his own hug before I scooped up the rascal doing jumping jacks at my feet. “The, er, Post-it note.”

“Oh.” I looked down at her.

“No,

’jita

,” Bianca said, kneeling down to scold her daughter, “you don’t glare at people that way. It’s very rude.”

Reyes walked in, two cups of coffee in hand and an impish expression on his face.

Amador slapped him on the back. “No, I do,” he said, surveying the area. “I like the blending of two cultures, the definitive lines separating the two: minimalist and, well, not minimalist.”

“Oh, heavens,” Bianca said, “you will never get hired at

Architectural Digest

if you don’t learn the lingo.” She glanced around my area of our connected rooms and nodded, having made up her mind. “Minimalist and lavish.”

I laughed softly. “I like it.”

She took Stephen from me so I could accept the coffee Reyes had brought me. She must know me better than I thought.

“Can we do our beds like this, Mama?” Stephen asked Bianca. “Pleeeeeease?”

I hid a look of amusement behind my cup as I took a sip. Then I stifled a shiver of delight.

“Are you going to say yes?” Ashley asked me accusingly. Her lower lip quivered as I bent down to her.

“I’m still thinking about it. What do you think I should say?”

“I think you should say no. You’re too old for him anyway.”

“How old do I look?”

“I’m so sorry,” Bianca said, her smile suddenly nervous.

“Is that yours?” She pointed to a tiny doll made out of strands of soft rope. My sister, Gemma, had given it to me when we were kids.

“It sure is.” I took it down as Reyes and Amador discussed the finer points of Reyes’s décor, or lack thereof, in his room. Clearly my side outshone his, and Amador felt bad for his friend. It probably wouldn’t take long for my stuff to leach over to his side anyway. Poor guy. He was the one who took down the wall. He removed its only protection.

“Do you like it?” I asked Ashley. Maybe I could bribe her into liking me. I was so not above bribery.

“I guess.”

“I got two words for you,

pendejo

,” Amador said to Reyes. “Eight ball.”

Reyes tossed me a grin before he and Amador went to his luxurious pool table in the room adjoining his living room. Barely visible from where I stood, it was carved from dark woods with a rich cream-colored top. Good thing he knew the owner of the building. Neighbors rarely appreciated the noise of a billiards table in an apartment building.

It was good to see Reyes’s friends over. His life was slowly becoming normal. Or, well, as normal as his life could become. I couldn’t say

returning

to normal, because as far as I could tell, he had never had anything near a normal life. I studied him from my vantage point and wondered what he would consider normal. Was it a family with 2.5 kids? He had been a prince. A general in hell. A severely abused child. An inmate. Could he adjust to what we humans considered normal?

I sat on the bed and patted the mattress beside me. Ashley climbed up and took the doll to study it.

“What if I said yes to Reyes? Would you be very mad?”

She shrugged one slender shoulder. “A little.”

“Because he is supposed to marry you?”

“Yes. He promised.”

“Well, what if I only kept him for a little while? And when you grow up and become as pretty as your mother, you can decide then if you still want someone as old and grumpy as Reyes Farrow.”

The corners of her mouth tipped up. “He’ll always be pretty, though.”

She knocked that one out of the park on her first swing. “Yes, he will always be pretty.”

“Boys can’t be pretty,” Stephen said, squirming out of his mother’s grip. She lowered him to the floor and he ran to see what the menfolk were up to.

“Can so!” I called out to him.

Bianca chuckled and sat beside her daughter. “Sometimes, God gives us something even better than what we want. You have to have faith that he will give you someone just as pretty as Uncle Reyes.”

She eyed her mother, bewildered. “There’s

not

anyone as pretty as Uncle Reyes.”

And another homerun for the little lady in the pink sundress. She was good. I might have some serious competition when she got older.

* * *

After a long and fruitless talk with Ashley, I took a quick shower, dressed in my best PI attire, then waited for my neighbor—my other neighbor—to make her morning appearance.

And waited.

And waited.

I made more coffee, said my good-byes to the Sanchez family, and waited some more.

“You’re worried about her,” Reyes said, accepting a cup of coffee from my side of the playground. He looked good on my side. He had dressed in a pair of jeans, white T-shirt, and heavy boots. His dark hair, still wet from his own shower, curled over his forehead and around an ear. I longed to tuck it behind said ear, but it was just an excuse to touch him, to feel him beneath my fingertips.

But Cookie was officially very late. It was almost eight o’clock. She was always over by six thirty. Seven at the latest, and Amber had to be to school in about five seconds.

“Go check on her,” he said, crossing back to his apartment. “I have an order coming in.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, my tone a little sharp.

He turned back to me, one brow hitched in question.

“That is my cup you’re taking, mister.”

His dimples appeared as he walked back to me. “I’ll give you a dollar for it.”

“It’s my very favorite cup.”

He stepped closer until his mouth was at my ear, until his warmth coiled around me and soaked my skin. “Two.”

“I’ve had it since I was a kid.”

After a quick glance at it, he asked, “Your cup predicted there would be a television show called

Downton Abbey

?”

“You don’t know that. Downton Abbey could be a real place in England.”

“It has the show’s logo.”

“It could be the house’s logo. Like its crest. The show used it for authenticity.”

“And a picture of the cast.”

“That could be anybody. It’s grainy.”

He set the cup down and leaned onto the counter, bracing one hand on either side of me. “Why don’t you tell me what you really want?”

“Your mouth on mine,” I said before I could stop myself.

And before I could retract my request, he bent his head and slanted his mouth across mine.

“I’m late!” Cookie barreled in, her clothes askew and her hair a tad more spiky than usual. She rushed over, took my cup of coffee, and downed it in three gulps. It was still pretty warm, so I couldn’t help but be impressed.

Then she noticed the fact that I was wearing a suit made of hunky man flesh.

“Oh, Reyes, hi.” She stumbled back.

“I’m late!” Amber said, following in her mother’s footsteps. Her hair hung in tangles down her back, her long limbs covered in wrinkled and mismatched clothes.

“Oh, my god,” I said to Cookie. “You’re wearing off on your daughter.”

Reyes straightened when Amber’s eyes alighted on him. She beamed brilliantly at him. “Hey, Aunt Charley,” she said, her focus fixed on Reyes. “Hey, Reyes.”

“That is Mr. Farrow to you,” Cookie said, realizing the depths of Amber’s attraction. “Go get your backpack. I’ll drop you off before I go to work.”

Amber lowered her head. “Okay.”

When she left, I asked, “She still hasn’t fessed up?”

“No.”

“She will, hon. I know Amber. It will eat her alive.” Cookie nodded, but before she could leave, I asked, “How was your date last night?”

A soft pink blossomed over her face.

“That good, huh?”

“It was—” She thought about her words carefully. “—nice.”

“I’m glad. You guys didn’t, like, make out or anything, did you? Because that’s just wrong. He’s my uncle, Cook. How am I going to be able to look at you?”

She turned and said over her shoulder, “I’m not discussing this with you right now.”

“Okay, but that means we’ll just have to go into more detail about it later. You’ll be embarrassed.”

Reyes chuckled. We stayed behind. Put off work as long as we could and talked. Just talked. We laughed about Amador’s poor sportsmanship when he’d lost miserably to Reyes that morning, about Ashley’s insistence that Reyes wait for her, about Cookie’s blush and Amber’s guileless adoration of him. It was nice. Everything about that morning was nice.

I knew it was too good to last. My forty-eight hours were up, and I still had no clue where Phillip’s girlfriend was. Not that I was about to hand her over to the bad guys, but I needed to talk to Agent Carson. To fill her in on my latest findings and my newest plan. Surely it would work. What could go wrong?

So, after a wonderful morning with my main squeeze, I realized time and tide wait for no man. Or woman. I called Special Agent Carson on my way over to my office. I couldn’t tell her what Phillip Brinkman told me just yet. I needed to talk to his girlfriend first, to get her side of things. If Carson pulled the plug on everything because of Emily’s testimony, the Mendozas would know that Brinkman was just trying to get out from under him. Everything would be lost.

It amazed me that he would rather go to prison than turn on them. That told me just what kind of people the Mendozas were, and that they were not to be trifled with.

Then again, I liked trifling. Trifling was my middle name. Charlotte Trifling Davdison. Let Papa Mendoza bring the fight to me. I was ready. And I had a fab supernatural entity who could sever his spine in the blink of an eye, should it come to that. So there.

“Carson,” she said when she picked up. I liked it. Clear. Concise. To the point.

I decided to try it myself. “Davidson.”

A loud sigh filtered to me. “Charley, you called me. You can’t just say Davidson.”

“What are you, the phone greeting police?”

“What did you get for me?”

“I didn’t get you anything,” I said, starting to panic. “Are we exchanging friendship bracelets already? I can go get one now.”

“What do you have?”

“I had chlamydia once. Thank God for antibiotics.”

“Did you talk to Brinkman? What did you get off him? Have you heard from his men? Have they threatened you again?”

She was so serious. “Yes, I talked to Brinkman, and no, they haven’t threatened me again. I need a little more time. And I need to talk to Brinkman’s girlfriend, Emily Michaels.”

“Charley, I told you, that is not possible.”

“Do you remember the last two—no, three—cases I closed for you? Where’s the trust?”

“I trust you implicitly. But the men who want Emily Michaels dead are not quite so trustworthy. And either way, I’m not giving you her location.”

“Then can you set up a meet?”

After a long, thoughtful moment, she said, “If it will help this case, I can do that. It will take a couple of days.”

“I only have a couple of hours. I need to see her now.”

She cupped a hand over her phone, and I could only imagine the expletives flying around her. “Give me thirty minutes. I’ll see if I can perform miracles.”

“I have complete faith in you,” I said, giddy with hope. Once I had Emily’s side of things, maybe I could talk some sense into her, since it didn’t work with her boyfriend. There was simply no reason for him to go to prison for a murder that never even happened. He might have to do some time for money laundering, but I’d leave that up to Carson.

* * *

I headed down to the restaurant to grab some breakfast when Cookie came in. She seemed devastated. We sat in a corner booth so we could talk, not that anyone was in. The place didn’t open until eleven, and it was barely eight thirty.

Since none of the servers were in yet, we were served by a very sexy cook whose dimples seemed to calm Cookie down a bit.

“She broke down on the way to school,” Cook said, her heart hurting. “That incident with Quentin really scared her.”

“It scared me, too,” I said, stirring my coffee.

“I guess I didn’t realize how serious it got. I was just so upset that she would skip school and leave campus like that.”

“I was a little surprised as well, but they really like each other. It has me a tad concerned.”

“Why?” Cookie asked, surprised. “Quentin is a lovely boy.”

“And he’s four years older than she is.”

“Three. Amber will be thirteen next week.” She shook her head. “It’s so hard to believe that. She’s just growing up so fast.”

“I’m a little surprised you aren’t more concerned.”

“I would be, normally. He is too old for her, but have you seen that girl?”

Amused, I said, “She’s a knockout, I know. Which is reason enough for my concern.”

“Yeah, but again, Quentin is wonderful, Charley. I’ve never seen Amber so smitten. Except when she sees Reyes Farrow.”

“She does like them older, doesn’t she? Speaking of Quentin, what about the girl in the cable car? Miranda. What did you find out about her?”

She looked into her glass of water and took a drink before answering. “I meant to tell you. We’ve just been so busy. I left the case file on your desk.”

My interest piqued. “And?”

“It looks like she had a very hard life, Charley. I didn’t get very far with the file, but I managed to get a copy of her autopsy, the investigation of her disappearance, and the court transcripts of her mother’s trial.”

“Where is she now? Miranda’s mother?”

“She’s in the women’s correctional facility outside Santa Fe.”

I nodded in thought. “Looks like I’ll be making a trip to Santa Fe very soon. Did they give you a cause of death?”

Cook took another drink. “They said most likely blunt force trauma to the head. She was there over a month before they found her body, so it was hard to get an exact cause.”

Since Cookie wanted to talk about Miranda’s case about as much as she wanted her fingernails pulled out with pliers, I veered back to the subject of Amber. “I’m glad that rascal of yours admitted the truth.”

Cookie relaxed the tight grip on her glass. “I am, too. She was more worried about my reaction to her lying than her skipping school and leaving campus with a boy.”

“Told you,” I said with a wink. “I knew it would eat her alive.”

“Yeah, I totally played it up like she’d broken my heart and I would never be the same again.”

“And she fell for it?”

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

19

Do you believe in love at first sight,

or should I walk by again?

—T-SHIRT

Having just received a delivery, Reyes came in from outside with a woman following in his wake. A very familiar-looking woman. One with a determined gait and fire in her eyes. The minute those eyes landed on me, I ducked under the table, my head landing in Cookie’s lap.

“Tell her I’m not here!”

Cookie coughed, then glanced around frantically. “What? Why? Who?”

“Mrs. Garza. Tell her I’m not here.”

“She already saw you,” she said through gritted teeth. “She’s coming this way.”

“Pretend like I passed out and call an ambulance.”

“I am not calling an ambulance to cover for you.”

“No, really, it’ll work.”

“Charley Davidson, they have better things to do with their time than—”

“I can see you from here, Ms. Davidson.”

From underneath the table, I could see Mrs. Garza, too. Though only her bottom half. She had a killer bag slung over her right shoulder, turquoise with a woman’s face painted

Día de Muertos

style, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was wearing an amazing pair of Rocketbuster boots. One of which she was tapping impatiently.

That woman had the best clothes. Then again, I was probably paying for them, thanks to her son, aka my investigator, Angel. She’d recently figured out I was the one sending her money every month and insisted I tell her what was going on, why I was depositing five hundred dollars into her account every month. That was until Angel blackmailed me into a raise. Now it was a cool $750, but I figured he was worth it.

But Angel didn’t want her to know. He was so adamantly against it, I couldn’t help but comply. What he didn’t take into account was the fact that his mother was smart. She knew there was no uncle the minute Angel and I concocted the excuse. But what else could I have said? He just did not, under any circumstances, want her to know the truth.

He said it was because his death had devastated her and he didn’t want her to have to go through that again, but she seemed to handle the prospect of another explanation better than he did. Could there have been something more to Angel’s reluctance? I’d wondered that a lot since she came into my office that day. It had been only two weeks. She wouldn’t be put off for long. I could tell by the determined set of her jaw. She wanted answers. Answers I could give her only if I betrayed Angel.

She finally had enough of waiting and leaned down to peer at me under the table. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

I crinkled my nose, busted beyond belief, then popped up out of Cookie’s lap, wondering in the back of my mind what that would look like. “Oh, hey, Mrs. Garza! I didn’t see you.”

After taking a long moment to fold her arms over her chest, she said, “You sent more money this month.”

“Right, um, your relative’s estate was larger than we’d originally been told.”

“It magically got bigger?” She was such a stunning woman. Even at fifty, she had an amazing body and fantastic hair. Combine that with her thick Spanish accent and her rich, husky voice, and she was what Garrett would call a TKO.

“It did get bigger. Weird, huh?”

“Right,” Cookie said, nodding in agreement. “Totally weird. That was one eccentric aunt you had.”

“Uncle,” I corrected her.

“Uncle. Aunt,” she said, going in for a save. “I think he was a cross-dresser.”

Not bad. Not bad.

Mrs. Garza slid into the booth with us. “I’m not here to cause problems, Ms. Davidson.”

This was not going to end well. “Call me Charley,” I said. “And this is my assistant, Cookie.”

She blinked at her. “Your name is Cookie?” she asked her. No one had ever questioned that, but she was right. It was an odd name. And yet it fit her so perfectly.

“Sure is.” She held out a hand, and Mrs. Garza shook it.

“I am Evangeline.”

“Oh, we know,” Cookie said. “We make out a check to you every—”

“So,” I said, interrupting her before she said too much, “what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“You. This money. This

tío de tu imaginación

.”

Well that was uncalled for. “I have a couple of imaginary friends,” I said, correcting her, “but my uncle is very real.”

“No,

my

uncle,” she said.

“Does your uncle know you think he’s imaginary?”

Just when I thought she might grow frustrated enough to storm out of the room, she stopped and implored me. “I just have some questions. For him. For Angel,” she said, pronouncing it

Ahn-hell

.

“I don’t know anyone named Ahn-hell.”

Cookie shook her head, too, completely baffled. She was getting really good at this stuff. Of course, she was not lying. She’d never seen the little punk, though I’d described him to her on several occasions. Every time, a starstruck expression would come over her face. She liked the kid. So did I. Usually.

Evangeline held up hand. “Spare me. I know who you are. I know what you can do.”

I kept waiting for the subject of our conversation to pop in. He always seemed to sense what his mother was up to. While I wanted to tell her, to let her know what a great kid she had and how well he was doing, Angel was so vehemently against it, I didn’t know what to do.

“Charley,” she said, leaning in to me, “I insist.”

Maybe if I just explained why I couldn’t tell her. Then again, that would be confirming her suspicions, but I had a feeling she was like a pit bull with a stuffed Elmo. No way was she giving up until everything was out in the open, polyester guts and all.

There was one place Ahn-hell wasn’t allowed. “Follow me,” I said, scooting out of the booth and leading her to the women’s restroom.

“Is he in here?” she asked, kind of appalled.

“No, that’s why we are. He is no longer allowed in the women’s restroom.”

She stilled. I’d just confirmed all her suspicions. All her hopes. Who wouldn’t want to be able to talk to a lost child? I couldn’t imagine what she went through when Angel died. He told me she was devastated. Understandably so. But the thought of the agony she’d suffered tightened around my chest as I watched her face. Every emotion known to mankind flashed across it.

“So, what everyone says about you is true.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. That whole chess-team thing was a big misunderstanding.”

I didn’t amuse her. She was lost in her thoughts. In her hopes and, deep down, her dread. “You can speak with the dead.”

“I can, but only when they want me to, for the most part. Evangeline,” I said, knowing I was going to regret everything I was about to say. Angel was going to kill me. “He doesn’t want you to know he’s … he’s still with us.”

A hand with impeccably finished nails covered her mouth. She leaned against the counter, clearly afraid her legs would give. I let her absorb, mull, and otherwise process everything she was going through. After a long while, she said, “Why—?” Her voice hitched. She swallowed and started again. “Why doesn’t he want me to know about him?”

“He’s afraid you will mourn all over again.”

“All over again? I’ve never stopped.” After a moment, she asked, “Is he well?”

I bit down, not wanting to give her any more information than I absolutely had to. “Yes, he is. But like I said, he is vehemently against me telling you any of this. If he finds out, he will be very angry with me.”

Her chin rose. “It’s my right, Ms. Davidson. I have more of a right to know about him than you do.”

“No, I agree. It’s not me, Evangeline. I don’t know why he—”

Before I could finish, a young male voice filtered toward me, its tone even, calculating. “You did not just do what I think you did.”

He appeared across from me by the women’s stalls. I didn’t know what to say. If I spoke to him, she’d know he was there. He rushed toward me, absolutely livid, and literally wrapped a hand around my throat, pushing me back against the wall. The paper towel dispenser bit into my back on impact, but I let him be angry with me. He had a right. I’d promised him. I’d promised him I wouldn’t say anything. Ever.

“You did not tell her about me.”

Evangeline said something, but it was drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears. He was furious, uncontrollably so.

I felt Reyes, but he didn’t appear with his raging anger like I was worried he would. He revealed himself slowly, methodically.

Dangerously.

I had no idea what he could do to Angel, nor did I want to find out.

Placing my hand on the one he had wrapped around my throat, I spoke softly to Angel, soothingly. “Sweetheart, I know you’re angry. But she figured it out on her own, hon. Just like I told you she would.”

Reyes moved closer and I raised a hand, silently begging him not to hurt Angel.

Angel sensed him. He glanced to the side, applied one last ounce of pressure to my throat, then pushed off me, turning and letting his anger consume him.

“I’m okay,” I said to appease Reyes, but he stayed put right where he was, hovering incorporeally close by.

Evangeline looked on, a slight rush of terror surging inside her.

I held on to my throat and shook my head at her. “I’m okay. I just swallowed wrong.”

“Please stop lying to me, Ms. Davidson.”

Lowering my head, I took several deep, calming breaths, then focused on Angel. He had never, in all the years we’d been together, raised a hand against me. He’d never even come close.

The cat was out of the bag and I was no longer going to pretend otherwise. I would take full responsibility, but I would not be treated that way. “Why are you so against this?” I asked him. “What the hell, Angel?”

“My Ahn-hell?” Evangeline asked, hope sparkling in her eyes. “Is he here?”

“Tell her no,” he said, glowering at me. “Tell her he’s not here. He’s never been here.”

“I won’t do that. She already knows.” I stepped to him. “She’s smart, hon, just like you told me.”

“Too smart,” he said, working his jaw in resentment. “She’ll figure it out.”

“That you’re here?” I put a hand on his shoulder as Evangeline held both of hers to her heart.

The glare he cast me was so toxic, so full of vehemence, my lungs seized under the weight of it. “That I’m not her son.”

It was my turn to be surprised. He’d knocked the wind right out of my sails with that statement. I stood unmoving, trying to absorb what he’d said. Trying to figure it out. “What are you talking about?” I asked him at last. “Then just who are you?”

I felt it the minute the thought came to his head. He was going to disappear on me. I could just summon him back, but he was not getting away that easily. I grabbed his arm before he could go.

He tried to pull out of my grip, but I held fast and asked, “What are you talking about?”

He suddenly seemed embarrassed, as though he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It took him a long time to talk, but I waited, rather impatiently, refusing to let him off the hook.

“My middle name is Angel. Her son’s first name was Angel, and we both had the same last name: Garza. We took that as a sign that we were supposed to be brothers. I loved him more than anyone. I lived at the home with all the other outcasts.” When he looked at me, the pain in his eyes swallowed me whole. “With all the other kids whose parents didn’t want them. Mrs. Garza was always so nice to me. We’d pretend that she was my mom, too. I loved being at his house. I loved that she looked at me like I was any other kid. Not like a kid from the home.” He turned away again. “How do you think she would look at me if she knew I was the kid who killed her son?”

Despite my determination to hold my reactions at bay, I gasped. Evangeline wanted to ask me what was happening, but she knew enough to keep quiet for the moment.

“Angel, what happened that night?”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “We got in a fight with a group of neighborhood kids over some ice cream bars. Angel, the other Angel, wanted to scare them. He stole his mom’s car and the gun she had under her mattress and we went looking for them. I drove. I was a better driver than he was. When we found them, he started shooting, but there were kids there. Little kids. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. Or maybe he didn’t hear me. He wasn’t really trying to hit them. He just wanted to scare them, but I was worried he would accidentally shoot a kid. So I wrecked the car on purpose.”

I stepped to him and touched the wound on his chest. “This is a gunshot wound,” I said, trying to understand. He’d told me years ago they’d struggled for the gun and it went off. He never told me the other kid died as well. He’d definitely never told me he was the other kid.

“No. I flew out of the car and landed on something sharp, like rebar. But Angel died, too. I didn’t think it would be that bad. I just thought the crash would bruise us up or something. But I killed us both. I killed my brother.”

“Is he still here, like you?”

“No. Angel crossed the minute he died. Went straight to heaven. I watched him go, and I figured I’d go to hell for killing him, but I never did. I was just there. I was so lost and alone until you came along.”

I covered my mouth with a shaking hand. “Angel.”

“And then I thought I could make it up to his mom. I figured, when you offered me a job, that I could help her out.”

“So, all the aunts and uncles and cousins you tell me about?”

“They were his. Not mine. I never had anyone. I just wanted to make it up to her. To all of them.”

My heart broke into a million tiny pieces. He died trying to do the right thing, and the guilt had been eating him alive all this time. “What is your real first name?”