by Becca Bloom
Pushing a couple of the tables together, we turned off the blasted television and gathered together as Sylvia brought plate after plate out to us.
The yellow walls glowed softly in the dimmed lights and lit candles, saving our ears from the loud thumps of electronic music playing across the street and the loud pops of the fireworks. Poor Lady had begun to howl.
My feet were sore from standing all day, but I wasn't quite ready to bear the pain in my backside by trying to sit. Plus, I couldn't help but feel it would be a kindness to let Lady inside the apartment. She was yelping as loudly as the day she'd found the bat.
"I'll be right back," I said, claiming a spot in front of Agent Vasquez before dismissing myself. I hoped Sylvia's hot meal would improve my chances of extracting what information I could from him. Vanessa’s wedding was tomorrow and I still had no idea who had killed Victor.
Their chatter followed me through to the kitchen and out the screen door to the backyard. Lady spun in circles and howled when she saw me. She ran up the stairs and scratched at the door just as she had done when the bat was trapped inside.
"Is another bat stuck, Lady?" I asked in a soft voice, trying to calm her.
She answered with a high-pitched howl.
I recalled what Jake had done to free the bat and decided I could repeat what he'd done. I couldn't ask for his help after what had happened today. I'd put on a brave face, but no amount of acting like everything was okay would help me forget my embarrassment.
Pulling out my keys, I turned the first lock. It spun as if I had left it unlocked. Today had been so hurried, I'd probably left it open. I tried the second lock and found the same. Lady howled again and I tried to quiet her. My heart beat in double time as I placed my key in the third and final lock. It wasn’t locked either. While I could understand forgetting one lock, I was too much of a city girl to forget all three.
I was about to turn around, run quietly down the stairs, and get Agent Vasquez when Lady jumped up on the door again and it burst open. Seeing her chance, Lady ran inside. With throaty growls, she lunged into my bedroom on full attack.
My blood went cold when a man’s voice shouted from inside my room and Lady yelped in pain.
There was no time to think. Running inside, a burst of fireworks lit up the hallway in time for me to see Edgar kick her inside and slam the door. It didn't matter how loud it was outside, I still heard the click of the gun in his hand as he pointed it at me.
Chapter 25
I froze in place, feeling like an extra in a movie set as I raised my hands up to show how defenseless I was. The only weapon I had were the keys in my hand and my mouth — if I could dislodge the panic in my throat long enough to scream. My aim was too bad to trust, so I went with my better option.
"Agent Vasquez is downstairs. He'll hear you," I said as loudly as I dared.
Edgar laughed, a cold, humorless laugh that sent chills up and down my spine. "Over the mayor's show? I don't think so. You can scream all you want and nobody will hear you."
"Was that why you shoved Victor into the freezer? To silence his screams?" It was a guess, but why else would he point a gun at me in Adi’s apartment?
Ignoring my question, he asked, "Where is it?"
I bit my tongue before shooting back a quick answer. I needed to stall. I needed to slow him down until my friends would come looking for me. Lady still howled from my bedroom. They'd hear her. They just had to.
"Where is what?" I asked, slowly lowering my hands.
He shoved the gun forward at me and I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Please, I don't understand. If you want me to help you, I need to know what you're looking for," I said through my squinting eyes. I wanted nothing more than to hightail it out of there, but I was stuck. Would Edgar shoot if I looked over my shoulder to see if someone had followed me?
"Victor's computer. I know you helped him fix it," he said, again waving the gun in his hands and sending my nerves skyrocketing. He clearly didn't know how to handle a gun (not that I knew a whole lot on the subject, but I'd taken a class. Jessenia had insisted on it. Man, I wished she was here … Not so that she'd be in danger too, but so that I could see her before Edgar shot me. Whether he did it on purpose or by accident, I prepared myself for the possibility. Looking for the positive, I'd certainly get out of the winner’s television presentation for sure if I was in the hospital.)
"Victor's computer?" I asked, shifting my weight back and bringing me a hairbreadth closer to the door. "It was a real mess. How do you know I was able to fix it?" I didn't want to lie outright to him. I wasn't good enough at it, and I wasn't willing to risk angering him more than he already was.
"I saw you with Diego. He gave you a receipt. Now, stop stalling and tell me where it is or I'll shoot!"
"I don't have it."
"I don't believe you. You're a liar." He narrowed his eyes and looked down the gun barrel.
I'd never got why Marty McFly flew off the handle whenever anyone called him a coward. Not until that moment. My fear gave way to wrath at his misjudgment of my character and all of a sudden, I was bulletproof. "Well, you're certainly never going to see it if you shoot me! Is that why you're in this mess? You killed Victor before you realized he still had something you needed?"
"You have no idea what I've given up for that family. I ran that place for years, and for what? So it could go to a lazy loser with no business sense? I kept that place going when he would have gone bankrupt after a month."
"So you killed him out of jealousy?"
He scoffed. "Me? Jealous of Victor? No way. He was a fool just as his parents were."
Riding on a bravery high, I took a half step back, putting my weight on one hip. I didn't expect him to tell me everything, but my hope grew with each passing minute. I had to believe someone would come for me. I just hoped it was Agent Vasquez … or Abuelita. She could take on a madman with a gun. I knew she had the firearms for it.
Raising my eyebrows and shrugging my shoulders, I looked at him to continue. When that wasn't enough, I tried to remember tricks from every mystery novel I'd ever read and Murder, She Wrote episode I'd ever watched. "Look, Edgar, I believe you. I've seen firsthand how good you are in managing a business. In fact, I want to thank you for your help today. There's no way I could have managed without you."
His forehead bunched up. "That's right! I'm good at my job. I take pride in my work and you think they'd give me a raise when I asked? Instead, I got fired."
I managed to take another step back toward the door, covering over my movement with a gasp. "Seriously? How unfair. What did you do?"
"Hey, stop moving! You're just stalling." His gun, which had strayed off to the side, was now firmly pointed at me again.
I raised my hands back up. "If you shoot me, I can't tell you where the computer is."
"Then tell me already! You don't think I'll shoot?"
With the way the gun shook in his hand, I believed it wholeheartedly.
I didn't know if it was my imagination conjuring a creak on the stairs or if it was real. I couldn't risk taking the two steps back to look. Please, let it be Agent Vasquez.
Raising my voice a touch and tilting my head toward the stairs, I said, "I have no reason to doubt you. I'm just trusting that you're smart enough to see how foolish it would be for you to shoot me after killing Victor. If you let me out of here, I won't press charges against you." I'd let Roberto take care of that. From the sounds of things, there was a lot more than murder on Edgar's growing list of wrongs.
"You know too much."
"No, I don't. For all I know, Victor’s death could have been nothing more than an accident. I mean, you got mad at each other, maybe threw a few punches. Guys do that all the time, right? But the dry ice, that was just an accident. How could you know it'd poison him in a matter of minutes? The consequences to you will be far worse if you kill me on purpose. They'll assume you did the same with Victor and you'd never see the sky again once they locked you
up." I didn't know if my argument made any sense at all. I was grasping at straws.
"You think I'm dumb? You think I didn't know that he'd die?"
"No, I definitely don't think you're dumb," I said, trying to placate him. It most definitely was a creak I had heard on the stairwell. More was the pity Victor would see whoever it was before I would. I needed to move.
"You looked in my room for the computer?" I asked.
"So you do have it! Give it to me."
Keeping my arms up, I said, "Just don't shoot me, okay? I'll get it for you." Taking a step closer to the door, I peeked outside to see Agent Vasquez leaning against the shadows on the other side of the door.
I walked down the hallway and opened Adi's door. I just hoped it was as much of a mess as it had been the last time I'd waded through it in search of a screwdriver.
Taking a step in, I disappeared behind a wad of crinoline and ducked down to the floor to crawl behind her bed as a shot fired over my head. My ears rang as I huddled on the floor, trying to find a space to peek through without blowing my cover.
My ears still rang seconds later as the noise quieted down enough for me to venture to peek over Adi's bed. Not that I could see anything over the bolts of fabric, throw pillows, and multicolored toolboxes scattered over the top of her duvet cover.
"Jessica?" I heard from the hallway.
"Is it safe?" I asked.
"Come on out. We have him."
It took me a minute to find my way back to the door, but I eventually made it. Brushing a couple of sequins off my shoulder, I saw Edgar writhing between two rough-looking police officers, his hands cuffed.
"You're in a whole lot of trouble, mister," I said to Edgar poking him in the chest with my finger a-la-Abuelita before the men pushed him out of the hallway and down the stairs.
"Thank you for coming. I was praying you would," I said to Agent Vasquez. The surge of energy I’d felt minutes ago wore off to leave my legs wobbly. My whole body shook.
"When Lady kept barking like she was possessed, we figured something was wrong. My men were stationed nearby. I radioed them over and here we are. It turns out, your dog’s a hero."
As soon as he mentioned Lady, I ran to the bedroom and yanked open the door to let her out. She bathed me in kisses as I dropped to my knees to check her for injuries, only pausing briefly to lift her ears and growl toward the doorway.
Agent Vasquez scratched her behind the ears. “It’s okay now, girl. You did a good job. You won’t ever see that evil man again,” he said in a soothing voice.
A jumbled mess of footsteps pounded up the stairs, complete with exclamations of worry from Sylvia, warnings to be careful before they all tumbled down the stairs from Jake, and above all, Abuelita's shrill voice saying, "If that dog on television, I go to. I teach her what she know."
Hugging Lady to me one more time, I stood and turned to face a crowded stairwell landing. And then the rush of arms as I got more hugs than most people receive in a lifetime.
Chapter 26
After that exhausting day and harrowing night, I made sure everyone knew my plans to sleep in the following morning. If ever an extra hour of slumber was deserved, I felt I'd earned it.
So when Adi held out her telephone to me at five o'clock the next morning, I was not in my best mood for whoever dared call me that early.
It was the mayor. "Miss James, where are you? We go live at six o'clock."
"What?" I asked, jolted out of the last of my slumber.
"Didn't they tell you? You won by one dollar! You raised the most money for the mineral pools! And I was told that you also were instrumental in the capture of Victor's murderer. You are a hero, Miss James, and it would be an honor for me to share your story with all of Ecuador."
"My dog is the real hero. She alerted the detective that I was in trouble," I said, desperate to downplay my role in last night's capture and arrest and none too happy that it had been Agent Vasquez’s dollar that had won me the special “prize.”
"Then, by all means, bring your dog. Viewers love happy animal stories. This will shoot my ratings through the roof! Hurry, Miss James! We're waiting for you."
I flung the covers off, grumbling all the way to put Adi's portable phone back on its charger. She watched my progress from her doorway, her hand over her mouth to hide a smile.
"What're you laughing about?" I mumbled.
"You're so nice during the day, it's hard to explain what a grouch you are early in the morning. Jake doesn't believe me," she said in a chipper voice. Too chipper.
"How are you so happy? You can't have slept more than a couple hours." Adi hadn't arrived until after I'd given my statement to the police. That had taken forever, and I was so exhausted by the end, I'd fallen asleep as soon as my head had hit the pillow. It would horrify Jessamyn to know I'd gone to sleep without washing off the grunge of the day first, but I hadn't cared.
Adi disappeared into her room. I looked at Lady, who quietly observed our exchange from her doggy bed, and shrugged. Adi emerged seconds later with a red toolbox. Walking out to the living room, she set the box on her coffee table and popped it open to reveal five tiers crammed full of enough cosmetics to make a make-up artist envious. "Give me ten minutes and I'll have you ready for the camera."
"I don't have anything to wear," I argued.
"I can help you with that. Just trust me and try to smile, okay?"
Plunking down on the couch, only a small pang from my tailbone ran down my legs to remind me of my injury. At least, if I was invited to sit I wouldn't have to lower myself like an old woman or a pregnant lady.
Adi scrubbed, prepped, plucked, and airbrushed my face before turning her attention to my hair. She pulled, back combed, curled, and sprayed while I sipped the coffee she'd also made to wake me up. I thought I was a decent multitasker, but I had nothing on her. As she'd promised, I was camera-ready in ten minutes. I thought I looked a bit like a contestant in a beauty pageant, not being used to false eyelashes and anything other than neutral lip gloss and eyeshadow, but I couldn’t complain after all her hard work.
She lent me a maxi dress that hugged my curves. "Oh, no," I said, shimmying it up my hips to take it off and change into my trusty jeans and t-shirt. "This makes my butt look huge."
"You look beautiful. Please, just trust me. Round hips and tiny waists are ‘in’ right now."
Adi wasn't the kind of mean girl who pretended to be your friend because she knew she'd always look better than you in pictures.
Grabbing Lady's leash and patting my leg for her to follow me, we went down the stairs where her dish was already filled with food and garnished with a meaty bone.
Lady contentedly ate her breakfast while I went into the kitchen to see if I needed to make a run to the bakery. It turned out Jake had beat me to it. His back was to me when I entered the kitchen, but he held a brown, paper bag in one hand and was moving things around in the refrigerator with the other.
Sylvia, Abuelita, and Tia Rosa were already preparing for another busy day. Abuelita wore her usual attire of button-down shirt, knee-length skirt, and polished black heels, but her hair looked particularly nice and there was a pop of pink on her cheeks that wasn't normally there.
"Good morning," I said, setting Lady's leash on the coffee station by the door.
Jake raised his hand, continuing his search without distraction.
Sylvia clapped when she turned from the stove. "You look gorgeous! Like you're ready for the Oscars."
Tia Rosa and Abuelita refrained from hugs and kisses, not wanting to mess up my makeup or hair, so they stood beside me squeezing and patting my hands.
A loud crash and the tinkle of broken glass shattering across the floor had us all looking at Jake, who fumbled the bag of bread between his hands like a klutzy football player. Globs of strawberry jam pooled at his feet.
Finally, unable to get a grip on the bag of bread, he crushed it against his chest. I guess if there was no jam to put inside the bread
rolls, it didn't matter so much if they were squished. It made me feel a bit better to witness his fumble fingers when I'd embarrassed myself too many times in front of him during the past few days to count.
Abuelita clucked her tongue. "Good thing Jake stand in front of refrigerator. He look like he too hot," she said to us out of the side of her mouth.
Tia Rosa winked at me, then took the bread away from Jake. She looked between us, wiggling her eyebrows while Jake kept his focus on the floor.
He grabbed a broom and mop and started cleaning while I tried to accept the undeniable proof that it had been his reaction to me that had caused him to dump jam all over the floor. Not just some clumsy accident. Me. I didn't know whether to jump for joy or go back to the apartment to wash my face.
Sylvia squeezed my arm. "You look lovely, Jess. Own it."
Abuelita added, "People see you on the television today and they forget about the booby show yesterday."
She had to bring that up. I felt my ears burning, but I forced myself to chuckle. "Anything to make people forget about that. I'm bringing Lady to deflect attention away from me."
"Impossible," said Jake. He finally looked up at me after shaking the last of the glass into the trash bin. Slowly, the corner of his mouth curled up into a crooked smile.
Abuelita stepped between us. "I go with you," she said, poking my collar bone with her pointy finger. "I be you translate person."
"Translator," corrected Tia Rosa, earning a snarl from her sister.
"You smarty pants. Why you no go?" Abuelita jutted her chin up and crossed her arms.
"So the people say I go with Jessica just to be on the television? No. You go."
Pinching her lips together, Abuelita said, "She need translator. I help."
My cell phone rang and I glanced down at the screen. "It's the mayor. We should get going."
Jake looked at his watch. "I'll go with you."
"But don't you have a tour group scheduled for the Pailón del Diablo?" asked Sylvia.
