Ghost Flower

by Michele Jaffe

Hands out in a vain effort to slow herself, she tumbles over the dirt escarpment until her back thuds against some kind of ledge. Her eyes jolt open with pain and shock. Reaching out with one hand, she discovers she is lying on a ledge of dirt caught between the branches of a dry tree. Above her, she sees the edge of the flashlight beam.

  The light zigzags down the wall she’s just descended, getting closer with each pass. It stops inches from where she is, close enough that she can see it reflecting off her pinkie nail. Nothing happens. Could they not have seen her?

  Above her a single set of footsteps paces along what must be the edge of whatever gully she’s fallen into with a regular one-two gait, as the beam played in wide arcs around the whole area. A pebble trickles down and hits her in the face, and as she shifts to shunt it off, something cold slithers across her wrist.

  She bites back a scream. She lies there petrified, her heart racing so fast she can’t hear the footsteps above, until she realizes the thing on her wrist is just the chain from her BFF necklace. It must have broken as she fell and slid down her clothes. Soundlessly she closes her fingers around it and gropes for the pocket of her skirt. Finding it, she pushes the broken chain in next to the twenty dollars she always carries for emergencies.

  Now the footsteps stop, and the beam of the flashlight remains stationary a few feet in front of her head, as though whoever has it is standing and listening. She holds her breath, listening, hearing nothing.

  From above, a voice whispers her name, a voice she recognizes. “Come out, I just want to help you,” it says. Its tone is genuine, nice. But she knows this is a lie. It’s the same voice she heard right before everything went black. The voice that said, “You stupid moron, why did you change your clothes?”

  The light makes another arc, grazing her arm this time, and she thinks, This is it. It’s over. But then the beam of light returns to the side of the person holding the flashlight like a well-trained puppy. Illuminating his navy blue canvas sneakers for a few moments before he moves on.

  “I have to get help; I promised,” she thinks as the branch below her gives way, and she tumbles down, falling headlong into complete darkness.

  CHAPTER 46

  Grant looked a little taken aback at the enthusiasm with which I burst into his car.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “Yes. I’m just—happy to see you.”

  He eyed me. “I was thinking maybe we could go out to my place but—”

  “Let’s go,” I said enthusiastically. Bridgette was waving at me frantically. “I’d love to see where you live.”

  The drive out to the trailer that Grant shared with his brother—“we like to call it a trailer estate, actually”—was only thirty-five minutes, but the landscape and the feeling of the air changed so dramatically, it might as well have been thirty-five hours. Tucson dropped away like the tide ebbing during the first ten minutes of the drive, and after that we were in flat, golden desert.

  We exited the main highway, looped under it, and were on a smaller, secondary road that was headed right into the hills. After the second mile the pavement stopped, and we were driving on a rocky dirt track. I realized Grant drove his Bronco out of necessity, not vanity. Green pom poms of scrub desert blanketed the horizon on either side of us, and the hills in front looked flat and reddish brown in the midday sun. A handful of cows grazed on the rise next to the road.

  “Yours?” I asked.

  “They belong to the Kims, Roscoe’s parents. They own the ranch; my brother oversees it,” he said.

  He glanced over at me and looked like he was going to say something, but instead reached out and tucked his hand over mine. I smiled at him. Without taking his eyes off the dirt track, he smiled back, and we drove the rest of the way like that.

  We crested a rise between two hills and a valley spread out below us like a golden bowl. The only building you could see was a double-wide trailer.

  “Home sweet home.”

  I felt like we were a reinterpretation of Adam and Eve, alone together in a secluded paradise. As we got closer to the trailer, I noticed a corral built from slats of wood off to one side. “You have horses?”

  “A horse,” he said. “A project of my brother’s, trying to break her. She’s a bit wild though.”

  As we pulled up, I saw what he meant. The massive horse eyed us, snorted, then reared on her hind legs and made a kind of shouting noise for fifteen solid seconds. Her landing made the earth shake, and she stood there, glaring at us, pawing the ground with one foot.

  Grant’s eyes got huge. “Never seen her do that before,” he said. “Well, now that you’ve met the welcoming committee, let me give you the rest of the tour.”

  He pointed to a faded chair and table set up off to the side of the trailer with an old transistor radio on it. “The media room.” His finger moved to a trough that looked recently dug—“the mud baths.” He spun around and pointed to a dog house covered in peeling paint. “The guest house.” He came back to me. “I know you’re accustomed to something kind of luxe so—”

  “Is that why you’ve been so nervous?” I asked.

  He didn’t look at me, just nodded and led the way up the stairs into the trailer. He held the door open for me to enter and let it shut with a clatter. Then he stood there, his arms at his sides, little bars of sunlight crossing his face from the slatted blinds, his eyes glued to the tips of his navy blue PF Flyers sneakers. “I really like you. And you’re Aurora Silverton, and I’m—me.”

  “You’re terrific,” I said.

  “No, you are.” His face looked stricken, and he grew even more serious. “Which is why I’m really sorry for what I’m about to do to you.”

  My mouth went dry, and I felt my pulse in my neck. “What?”

  “This,” he said and held out a VHS tape with the words “Tocco Luces: A Film by Grant Villa” typed on the label.

  I laughed.

  “But first, what can I get you to drink?” He pulled open the refrigerator. “I have lemonade and—looks like lemonade.”

  “That would be great.”

  He poured out two glasses and brought one to me as I was looking at a shelf crammed with books and tiny animals whittled out of corks.

  “My brother’s work,” he said. “He’s the artistic one.”

  We toasted and made small talk, but I realized how nervous he was when he was reaching to show me something and knocked his glass down my shirt.

  He looked panicked, like he’d done something irredeemable. To show him it was okay, I said, “If you’re trying to get me out of my clothes, all you had to do was ask.”

  He laughed and relaxed a little. “I’m so sorry. My closet is over there. Grab anything.”

  He turned and carried the glasses to the sink, and I went to his closet. It had two shirts, three pairs of pants, a trench coat missing both a belt and button, and a pair of green high heels in size 10.

  One of the people who was there that night. Someone close to you.

  Grant? But he had left. He left early. Everyone saw him.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t have come back, I realized.

  There was a wide red stripe of dirt up the back of the trench coat and matching stripes of dirt on the backs of the green shoes.

  That’s what I’d realized during the fire as I tugged Althea to safety. That was the answer. Liza had been dragged up to Three Lovers Point.

  I closed the closet and was fumbling in my pocket for my phone when he came up behind me and said, “What’s taking so long, sexy?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, trying to keep my voice cool and level. I pointed to the phone in my hand. “Bain just called, and something happened to my grandmother. I—I’ve got to get back to the hospital. It’s an emergency.”

  He smiled at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, putting one hand on his chest and skirting around him through the door.

  “It’s not just because you’re suddenly having second thoughts about m
y movie, is it?”

  “No,” I forced a laugh. “I really want to see it. Soon. It’s just, my grandmother,” I gestured with the phone again.

  “I understand,” he said, following me.

  “Stay where you are, I can let myself out.”

  He was smiling as he reached the door and stood in front of it. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “I thought chivalry was dead.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I think we both know you aren’t going to be leaving here.”

  I swallowed. “I don’t know—”

  “There’s no phone service out here. You didn’t just get a call from Bain. You saw Liza’s trench coat and shoes in my closet. And you realized the truth.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Look if you just let me—”

  “I killed her,” he said, just like that.

  My knees went out from under me.

  Because I knew he was right. There was no way he could let me leave there. Not alive anyway.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I didn’t mean to, not at first. I only wanted to teach her a lesson. But you coming out first when it was supposed to be her—you made me so angry. I squeezed too hard.”

  “It was my fault?”

  “I just wanted to teach her what it felt like to have someone hurt you. To be in someone else’s power. She had everyone fooled. Even you. Everyone thought she was so sweet and nice and compassionate. But at home—you should see what she did. She manipulated them. Terrorized them.”

  This didn’t sound like the Liza everyone described, but it absolutely sounded like the Liza I knew in her ghostly form. “What do you mean?”

  “She was a controlling bitch, and she enjoyed hurting people. She would threaten to hurt Ellie if Victoria didn’t behave how she wanted. She made life in that house a living hell. I just—I just wanted to help.”

  “By killing Liza?”

  “I had to, don’t you see? It was the only way to free them.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I strangled her outside of the party. Then I dragged her body to the top of the ledge. I took off the trench coat and the shoes—”

  My mind flashed back to the red stripe on the back of the coat and the heels of the shoes. “—because they would have shown she was dragged and you wanted to make it look like she’d still been alive and walked up there herself.”

  He nodded. “And then I pushed her over.”

  “It makes—” The room started getting blurry around me, and I struggled to stand. Had he put something in my drink? I thought about him pouring out the lemonade for both of us. We both had some, but he—spilled his on me.

  So I had to go to the closet.

  “My God, you planned this. You wanted me to know. What did you put in my drink?”

  “Just something to make you sleep. You were getting too close, asking too many questions, so we decided it was time.”

  Had he said “we” or “me”? His voice was starting to sound like it was coming from a long way away. He came toward me, and I got ready to fight him. But my hands were like big clumsy paws. Someone else’s paws.

  I felt myself being lifted up and moved. Oh good, a part of my brain said. He’s just taking me to the bed. I’m so tired. Maybe if I just take a nap, I thought. Just a little nap and then I’ll have more strength.

  The next thing I was aware of was a wall of heat hitting us. Sunshine pricked at my closed eyelids, and I realized we’d somehow moved outside. I struggled to form the words “Where are you taking me?” but I’m not sure if they came out because I didn’t get an answer. I tried to open my eyes but had to shut them against the brightness.

  After only a few steps he stopped. There was a grunt, and I had the sensation of being lowered, like he was bending over. Then I felt something against my back, and his arms were gone. It was slightly cooler, and the light had dimmed.

  I opened my eyes and recognized I was in the trench I’d seen in front of the trailer, the one he’d joked about as the mud baths. He took a step away, and then from over the lip of the trench the blade of a shovel swung into view. I was showered with dirt.

  He was going to bury me alive.

  I tried to sit up, but my head swam. And at some point when I was sleeping someone had bound my hands behind me. I tried to kick and discovered my legs were bound too. “NO!” I opened my mouth to yell as the next shovelful of dirt fell on me, catching me on the chest and neck. Coughing, I turned my head as the third one was flung over. I took a breath as the fourth one came and got a mouth full of dirt.

  I fought against the dirt and the pull of unconsciousness as hard as I could, coughing and retching. I screamed his name, anyone’s name, I pulled on the ropes, and I used every ounce of energy I had to keep my eyes open. The light above me began to swim, and then there was dirt in my eyes and a heavy weight on my chest and on my legs. And I was falling backward, spiraling, descending, screaming, plunging.

  Into nothing.

  CHAPTER 47

  There is a phone ringing. I have to get to the phone, but my arms are so heavy. The road beneath me is warm, and I’m crawling toward it on my stomach. The phone I’ve got to—

  I knock the receiver off and try to say hello, but my voice won’t come out. I bend down, contorting myself to get my ear near the swinging orange receiver. “Hello,” I try to croak again.

  “Hello, Ro,” the voice, her voice, Liza’s voice says. “It’s time to wake up. It’s safe now. You’re safe.”

  “But how—” I start to say and get a mouth full of dirt.

  I woke up coughing.

  The sky was a muted blue above me. The earth was cold around me. My head swam. My arms ached in agony.

  I was alive.

  I listened attentively for footsteps. What had happened? Where was Grant?

  The shadows were longer now, and I guessed at least an hour had passed since I blacked out. I forced myself to sit up, sending a chorus of agonizing flares through my head. Shifting slightly, I discovered that someone had unbound my arms. My legs were still tied together, and I tried to reach for them. But my fingers were too numb from being under me. Instead I used my arms to haul myself up to the side of the trough. I sat there, legs dangling into it, catching my breath for a moment, marveling at the feeling of the sun on my face.

  I turned and saw him.

  Grant was lying on his stomach in the dirt. His face was half-turned, his glasses askew, and the eye I could see was open. A massive pool of blood flowered from his head.

  I was sure he was dead, but just in case, I crawled to him. The feeling had begun to come back in my fingers, and I used them to feel for a pulse on his wrist. It was faint. But it was there.

  I turned him over. His lips were moving.

  “Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get help.”

  “No, stay.” He held onto me. “It’s—”

  I was not going to let another person die in my arms.

  There was a hammer lying near him covered in blood, which explained his injuries. But not who had inflicted them. Or if the person was still there.

  I had to get us away.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket but saw that he had been telling the truth about there being no service. With trembling, clumsy fingers, I worried the knot in the rope around my ankles until it loosened enough for me to pull it off. Barefoot, I staggered to his truck.

  It was locked. “Where are your keys?” I asked him, but I could have been asking the air, the wind.

  I eyed the trailer. They could be in there. And so could whoever did this to him. I was thinking that I had no choice but to brave it when I heard a whinny.

  I turned and saw that big wild horse. The horse Roscoe’s family had gotten rid of, the horse they called Medusa because she terrified men.

  Our eyes met. She stomped her foot and flared her nostrils like saying, Come on, what are you waiting for?

  I may have been able to fool Bain and Bridgette about my identit
y, fool them into thinking I was an imposter—but I could never fool a horse.

  I knew what I had to do. Grabbing Grant beneath the arms, I dragged him toward the corral. “Here girl,” I whispered. She looked at me for a moment, baleful, blaming as though saying, Oh, sure, you snubbed me before, but now you want me.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I told her. “I had no choice.”

  As though she understood what I was saying in that uncanny way horses had always understood me, she flicked her mane once and came to me. Just like that. Like no time at all had ever passed.

  She bent her head, and I hauled Grant onto her thick neck, then climbed up behind him. Gathering him against my body with one hand and a handful of mane with the other, I clicked my tongue and gave a slight kick, and we were off.

  Riding a horse didn’t come back to me the way people say riding a bike does. It came the way breathing does, as though I had been missing something vital in my life, and now, at last I was intact, whole, alive again. This wasn’t just a ride. I was riding home.

  There could be no going back now. No denying I really was Aurora Silverton, had been her all along. When N. Martinez looked for my Aurora Silverton’s prints by name, he’d learned my secret—and kept it for me. But it would now be an open one. And somehow all the reasons I’d had for pretending not to be myself didn’t matter anymore.

  I caught snippets of memory as they rushed by me on the wind. The night it all started, wandering around outside the party whispering, Colin, where are you? Colin? Feeling unworthy to be with him because of what Stuart had done to me. Because I was a filthy slut.

  A flashlight beam slashing across my face. Pain. Darkness. Far-off laughter. Voices whispering.

  A truck-stop bathroom in broad daylight.

  A newspaper that told me seven days had passed.

  I still had no idea what had happened during those seven days. But when I woke up, I learned two things: Liza was dead, apparently of a suicide; and the police wanted me for questioning. I couldn’t remember what had gone on at the party or how I’d gotten where I was.

  I was certain of only one thing, and that was that I had to run away. That I was not safe. That Liza might be dead, but I was the one who had been set up.