Just before leaving the hospital I asked Lisa if she would show me her lower left side. Without hesitation, she pulled her T-shirt away from her body and pulled her jeans lower. The sailboat was still sailing the downy seas of my precious Lisa's low back. Now I had no doubts.
My baby was back with me. I remember thinking, It would scare you to hear how much I love you. It would probably scare me to say it out loud. I would’ve killed for you. I would’ve moved mountains. I cannot tell you these things yet, but I will at some point.
My phone wasn’t in my pocket. I had to run back inside the hospital and grab my phone, which I'd left charging in the waiting room. The ER doctor came strolling through and stopped beside me.
"She's very young," he said, "but that's no reason she can't be an excellent mother just like you."
I looked at him, astonished. "What's that mean?"
"You know, your granddaughter. Lisa's baby."
I was stunned. I couldn't speak. He walked on past and disappeared through a door on the opposite wall.
Just like that. I was a grandmother. My heart raced; my eyes clouded over. Then I fainted.
Twenty minutes later I was lying in an ER room, shoes removed and a damp cloth on my forehead.
A pretty young nurse was sitting in the chair beside me. "How long since you've eaten anything, Mrs. Sellars?"
My mind worked back over the past few days. "Probably just hours.”
"We're giving you an IV. When you feel ready, you can stand up. Shall I call your husband?"
"Yes."
Mark came inside the curtained room, followed by Lisa. Tears rushed into my eyes when I saw her. It was the last thing I could have expected.
"Where's your daughter?" I asked her.
Mark looked at me, incredulous. "Wait, what?"
"She's dead."
Which is when I lapsed into unconsciousness again.
IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH after all I'd been through. I was a grandmother, Lisa had given birth, and Mark was a grandfather.
The next morning, I came awake in my hospital room. In a panic, I realized Lisa wasn't in the room, though I don't know why I thought she would be. I plunged the CALL button, and a nurse came. "You're awake!" she said in a bouncy voice. "Let's get you into the bathroom."
We did that. Then she sent for breakfast. It arrived thirty minutes later, heavy on the protein: eggs and bacon. Plus orange juice and toast. They even brought a cup of decaf.
Mark and Lisa arrived and arranged themselves around my bed.
“How did she die?” was the first thing I asked.
“She got sick and we had no medicine. It was quick.”
“How old was she?”
“Three years old. She looked liked me.”
She started crying then, and took the chair beside my bed. She drew her legs up under her and turned her head to the side. I reached out and touched her ankle. “Hey, we can talk about it some other time. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
"I'm being discharged," I said. "We can go home in about an hour."
Mark said, “I have us booked for O'Hare on a three o'clock flight. Can we make it?"
"Easy," I said.
Lisa stood and leaned over. She reached and took my hand in hers.
I could have died right then and there and been totally at peace.
"I'm glad you're okay," she said. She then bent and kissed my forehead.
"Thank you, beautiful Lisa."
Then we flew home to Chicago.
29
Lisa chose the bedroom at the end of our upstairs hall. It had previously done service as a second guest room and was very Country French in furniture and wall hangings. I could see why she liked it there; the place had a strong, substantial feel. So we moved her in there and began shopping for clothes. And books. And videos. Add to that computer lessons from Geek Fleet.
Her third week back with us, I came home early with a headache. James was in trial and Gladys was still in school as it was just after midday. Upstairs I plodded to my bedroom, where I slipped into sweatpants and a T-shirt. Usually, I'll go downstairs to the workout room when I'm headachy and sweat it out. Just as I was leaving my room, I heard a small cry from Lisa's room.
I wasn't snooping--I walked toward her room in my bare feet, and I suppose my footsteps were muted.
Outside her bedroom, I stopped, as she was obviously on her new phone.
But with who? It must be Mark, I finally decided. Mark was living in Glencoe with his parents and saw Lisa nearly every day. I didn't want to interrupt. As it turned out, I heard her end of the conversation.
"Just tell me she's okay." Lisa sounded like she was pleading. "Don't make jokes."
Long pause.
Then she said, “I don't know what they have. Nobody has told me."
Another pause.
"Now that would be stupid. They'd be all over me."
At that point, I rustled my feet on the carpet and knocked on her door frame.
"Lisa?" I called. "Can I come in?"
"Just a minute!" Then, "Okay."
The phone was nowhere to be seen. She was sitting at her small desk, casually leafing through Seventeen. I had asked her to snip out pages with cute outfits she'd like. She had; there were a few off to the side.
"Friends?" I asked.
"I don't have any. I've only been here three weeks."
"Oh, I just thought I heard you on the phone."
"You did? What was I saying?"
"You seemed to be asking how one of your girlfriends was doing. Who was it? No, I'm not going to pry. Yes, I am. You've only been here three weeks. I'm asking myself, who could she possibly know? Would you set your old mom's mind at ease and tell me if you've found some buddies to pal around with? That would make me very happy." There it was; I was prying and couldn't help myself. Screw it.
"No, it wasn't that. I was talking to someone in Mexico."
"Mexico isn't on your cell phone plan."
"I added it," she said. "I had to call someone."
"Now that worries me. What would you be calling someone about?"
"This and that. Just asking how my friends are doing. Nothing else."
"Everyone okay?"
"Yes, everyone's okay."
I sat down on her bed and put my arms behind to support me. It felt fantastic to be in my daughter's room with my daughter there actually talking to me. Instead of the dreams and fantasies, I'd harbored all those years about having times like this with my daughter, it was real. No fantasy, no dream.
"Lisa, please tell me about your baby. How long was delivery?”
"Three days."
“Wow. Who was the father?"
"Javier Menendez. He's the one who was always with me."
Javier, Javier, Javier. I was running it through my mind. It was a man named Javier that Velasquez had sent to bring me, Lisa. He had returned with Susannah instead. Of course; he didn't want to give up Lisa, who he was having sex with. It was beginning to come together in my mind.
"Was that Javier on the phone?"
Her face fell. "Yes."
"Did you call him?"
"He called me. He's lonesome and misses me."
"Do you miss him?"
"Good God, no way!"
"Good. Are you done with him?"
"I hope the ground opens up and he falls in. I hate that man!"
I brought my hands around and leaned forward, forearms on my knees. She was still bent over her desk, casually turning magazine pages without really looking. There was more here than I knew. But I decided not to push it. The last thing I wanted on God's earth was to alienate my daughter. The very last thing. So I changed the subject.
"We're going out of town next weekend. To Chicago, actually, where we're going to stay overnight and see a play. The Curtises are going with us. Would you like to stay with your dad and grandparents while we're gone?"
"I'd like that, yes."
"Good. I'll tell your dad, and
he can work it out with you. I hate the idea of being away from you, but we both need to learn to be apart without being overly anxious, you and I. At least I do."
"Oh. Okay."
"What, you don't want me to go?"
"No, it's okay. I'm just going to miss you guys is all."
"We'll miss you, sweetie. But we'll be back bright and early Sunday morning. We can all get brunch or something."
"Okay."
She was still absently turning pages. Her back was to me, and her T-shirt hung away from her jeans, so I had a view of the lower left kidney.
I could see her sailboat. It had come home to port.
My God, I was getting maudlin. I guess that's what a kidnapping does to a mother.
30
Ignacio Velasquez hated getting undressed for bed. So he let others do that for him--the twelve-year-olds, the fifteens, the seventeens. They would then spend the night with him. When he was done with each one, he would pass her along to his lieutenants. Which is how Lisa Sellars fell into the hands of Javier Menendez, the next-in-line who was given the young girl when Velasquez had had his fill of her youth and innocence and beauty.
Javier didn't wait long. She was pregnant two months after falling into his clutches when she was thirteen-years-old. She gave birth to a daughter, a beautiful brown baby named Elena Sellars by her mother. Javier surprisingly allowed the girl to keep her baby. Ordinarily, the putas' fetuses were aborted; Lisa was allowed to carry to term. The mother and her baby were kept close by Javier and, when the baby was three, the mother celebrated her sixteenth birthday. Two months later, Lisa was bought and paid for with a bribe from her mother Melissa, delivered to Ignacio Velasquez by the chief of the Federal Police in Tijuana.
Velasquez got the million. But Javier wanted more than the ten thousand dollars he received out of the bribe. He was hungry, and the easy money--especially the ten-thousand that was all but tossed at him--only whetted his appetite. So he made a plan, a plan that he took first to Velasquez himself.
"You gave my wife away for ten thousand dollars," Javier began. He wasn't at all afraid of Velasquez; they were cousins and had played cowboys and Indians together since they were just into long pants.
"But I got much more than that for the puta," Velasquez smirked. "She almost earned what she cheated me out of in Riyadh."
"I want more for her. I want those people to pay me one million dollars for my puta."
"So what will you do?" Velasquez asked. He knew Javier had a good mind and that he--Velasquez--would take the larger portion of any other money Javier managed to drag home.
"I have her baby, Elena. She lives with me, and she is a good baby. But I would snap her neck in an instant and throw her to the pigs if someone doesn't pay me."
"Of course."
"I have spoken to Lisa in Chicago. She told me the people who purchased her are quite wealthy. She can get their money to buy her baby."
"Do Lisa's parents know about the baby?"
"Lisa told them the baby was dead."
"Why do that?"
"So they wouldn't try to steal her back. That would get her baby killed. She is looking for assets of her parents to buy the baby from me."
"And from me. Don't forget my first bite."
The men laughed, Velasquez more raucously than Menendez.
"So what do you want from me?" Velasquez asked.
"I need some person to go to Chicago."
"For what?"
"To kill Melissa Sellars. She is Lisa's mother."
"Why her?"
"Because then Lisa's father will pay up."
"To protect his grandchild."
"Exactly."
"Who do you want?"
"I remember the man who killed the Tijuana police. He cut off their heads and rolled them in the door at the police station. That man knows what I need."
"You have talked to him?"
"I have. His name is Ishmael Montague. He is from Argentina."
Velasquez smiled and held up one hand. "Who do you believe hired him for Tijuana?"
"Hired him to kill those policemen? You?"
"Aiiiee, Javier. You forget so fast. Of course me! I will give him to you for Chicago. He will find your wife's mother."
"She is not my wife. She is my whore."
"Whatever," Velasquez sighed heavily. "The whore who had your baby. That's a wife, Javier."
"She is not my wife."
"All right, Javier. We are done here. I will make some calls, and you will meet this Montague in Tijuana at our cantina."
"All right. Thank you, Iggy."
Velasquez brushed Javier's words away with a wave of his hand. "Forget about it. You my cousin. You get the best I have. You always did."
One week later, Javier met the man in the dark hat in the Tijuana cantina. The man was waiting at the last table. He was alone, smoking cigarettes from a red box, and where his jacket slumped open, Javier could plainly see the man's huge gun. It looked like a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum, the gun of Dirty Harry. So pretentious, Javier thought to himself, but so powerful. The man was evil incarnate--exactly what Javier needed.
Before Javier could join his man and sit at the table, Montague raised a hand and stopped him. "Wait. Before you sit down, do you have my money?"
Javier reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat envelope. "A hundred now, a hundred after."
Montague counted the money, arranging it in stacks of ten thousand dollars each. When he had assembled ten such stacks, he swept the bills together and stuffed them back into the envelope. That was worked inside his coat pocket, all the while Montague keeping eye contact with Javier.
"Just give me her name and address. You promised a picture as well."
Menendez snaked his phone loose from his pocket and held the screen up to Montague's face.
"This is the woman. I received this picture last night. My puta took it of her mother over dinner."
"Not bad. How dead do you want her?"
"Dead enough to frighten her ex-husband into paying."
"What about your puta? What do you want with her?"
"Leave her alone. Unless she gets in the way."
"What about anybody else?"
"Kill anybody who gets in your way. But don't miss the mother."
Montague took a swallow of his beer. "What of the mother's husband? Will he be a problem?"
"This pinche is an abogado. He's useless and he's weak. Just avoid him."
"When do I do this?"
"Immediately. Iggy wants his money."
"Done. Leave me now."
"Thank you, Montague."
Javier disappeared back outside in the bright sunlight, climbed into his pickup truck, and headed back to the finca.
The mother was already dead.
She only needed to hear about it now.
31
The killer had been to Chicago before, and he had killed people there. As his Los Angeles-Chicago flight circled O'Hare airspace, he looked down at the vast spread of city lights. "Somewhere you are waiting," he muttered. "We have a meeting, you and me."
The 757 landed and taxied up to the jetway. During the offloading of passengers, Montague remained in his seat with his face averted. He was wearing his dark hat and fake sideburns and mustache. Anyone who did pay any attention to him would give the police the wrong description if it ever came to that--which was highly doubtful.
He had decided to choke her with piano wire. That was the easiest and most efficient way without the necessity of purchasing a gun, which might be traced. The plan was to take her in her parking garage at work.
With his false driver's license and prepaid Visa, he rented a black Accord and headed downtown. It was almost seven o'clock; still, he wished to stake out her house that night. He wanted to do this because he meant to kill her the next day. He'd already purchased his return flight ticket and didn't want a delay.
From Chicago, he drove north past Evanston, past Winnetka, and into Glencoe.
There was no GPS being used. GPS could later be traced by the police, and rental cars that had followed a GPS signal were a common search item for homicide dicks. Montague knew this and left the in-dash unit switched off.
Montague had done his research. He knew the town was one of the wealthiest in America. Driving past the lakefront houses toward Melissa Sellars's home, Montague whistled and shook his head. Such blatant displays of wealth by the town's inhabitants. People like Montague would never display their wealth--and he was very wealthy. It attracted missions such as the one he was on that night. Wealth brought out not just the curious but also the evil ones. No, Montague lived in the shadows, far from the pretty homes and lakeside neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It was nothing like what he saw as he drove down street after street.
Three miles inside the city limits he located her address several streets inland from Glencoe Beach. He drove on down to the end of her street and drove past her home a second time.
There was no doubt. He had found her.
32
Lisa called Mark the night before Montague came to Chicago. She had something important to tell him. So, Mark drove over to his ex-wife's house and rang the bell. Lisa answered and asked if they could go somewhere to talk.
They climbed into Mark's pickup and headed to the Leather Cheshire, a restaurant-club downtown. Inside, Mark told the hostess they needed someplace quiet, and she led them to a table all alone in a dark alcove. She plopped down menus and said she'd be back. Mark said no, they were ready to order, and he ordered two coffees just to get the waitress to leave them alone for awhile. He told the frowning woman they'd probably want dinner in about twenty minutes, to check back.
"So," he said, leaning back on his side of the booth. "What brings my daughter out to talk to me tonight?"
Lisa was fighting back the tears. She wiped at her eyes with both hands and then broke down. "I talked to Javier."
"Okay, which one is Javier?"
"He's the one who got me pregnant."
The Empty Place at the Table Page 16
