“Yeah?”
“Who’s that?” She pointed to the doll she was holding.
“That’s my doll.”
“Does she have a name?”
“Her name’s Angela. She’s my doll.”
“Can I ask you a different question, María?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you see anyone on the island yesterday?”
She stared blankly.
“A man and a woman?” Elizaveta pressed. “Did you see a man and woman?”
“Yeah.”
“You saw them?”
“Yeah.”
“And the little girl who was just here. Did you see her too?”
“She was singing a song.”
“A lullaby.”
“Yeah.”
“Were you watching her through that hole in the wall earlier?”
“She was singing a song. My mom sings me songs.”
“She was singing the song today,” Elizaveta agreed. “But did you see her yesterday—the little girl, Rosa?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s simply agreeing with you,” Pita said in English.
“No, I think she understands,” Jesus said.
“She said she saw Miguel and Lucinda?” Jack asked.
Elizaveta nodded. “But she just keeps saying si, si, si.”
“Avoid yes/no questions then,” Jack said.
“María,” she said. “The man and woman you saw, what did they look like?”
“They were fighting.”
“Why were they fighting?”
“I don’t know what happened. They were fighting. The boy was hurting the girl. I stopped him.”
“How did you stop him?”
Her eyes hardened. “I just stopped him.”
“With that?” She pointed at the knife.
“Yeah.”
“You stabbed him?”
“I stopped him.”
“What happened to the woman?”
María stared blankly.
“María?”
“I stopped him with the knife.”
“Did you stop the woman too?”
“I’m going to the city.”
“María, the woman, she’s hurt. She’s in that room there.” She motioned toward Lucinda’s bedroom.
“That’s my dad’s room,” she said.
“What about that one?” She indicated Pepper’s bedroom.
“That’s my room.”
“Where’s your dad, María?”
“He went to the city. He’s going to bring me back a doll. He always brings me a doll.”
“What’s his name, María?”
“He’s my dad.”
Elizaveta gave up and explained to Jack: “She said Miguel was hurting Lucinda so she attacked him. I think. She won’t say what happened to Lucinda. It’s—I don’t know.”
“Can we agree this is a massive waste of time and go now?” Jesus said. “She’s a fucking retard and a spaz. She stabbed Miguel and Lucinda, and she slit Nitro’s throat. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“You’re not getting out of this so easily, Jesus,” Jack said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe she killed Miguel, and maybe she stabbed Lucinda, but Nitro’s blood was on your jacket. You had a bloody knife hidden on you.”
“Give it a fucking rest, Jack—”
“You’re telling me this woman sneaked up on Nitro without him any the wiser and slit his throat?”
“Ask her about Miguel’s eyes,” Jesus said. “Do it!”
Elizaveta said, “María, the man you ‘stopped’ yesterday, he’s missing his eyes.” She pointed to her own eyes for emphasis. “Eyes. Do you know what happened to them?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“I took them.”
Elizaveta swallowed. Jesus crowed triumphantly.
“You took them?”
“I took them,” she said. “My dad showed me how.”
“Your dad showed you how?”
“With fish. He showed me how to eat them.”
“Oh my God,” Pita moaned.
“See!” Jesus said. “She killed Miguel and Nitro for their eyes! She just admitted it. Now would you fucking untie me, please?”
“What did she admit?” Jack demanded.
Before Elizaveta could explain, María dropped the half-eaten carrot on the floor and reached into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled her hand out. It was balled into a fist. She uncurled her fingers.
Resting in the center of her palm was a white eyeball, the iris and pupil gazing sightlessly at the ceiling.
Elizaveta
1
Elizaveta gagged. Her stomach slid up her throat, and she dry heaved twice before uploading a mess of watery yellow gunk. She rode a hot wave of relief before her stomach revolted a second time and more gunk splashed to the floor.
“Hey,” Jack said, kneeling beside her. He pulled back her hair so she didn’t get sick on it. “You okay?”
She wasn’t sure. She waited, her eyes tearing, her throat stinging.
Several seconds passed. Jack stroked her back. She started feeling better and raised her head, pushing her hair from her face—and saw Jesus sneaking up behind Jack. He held the post-hole digger with his bound hands like a baseball bat.
“Jack—!”
That’s all she got out before Jesus swung the makeshift weapon. Jack turned, tried to duck. The long tube of iron caught him on the side of his head. He dropped to the floor. The pistol clattered out of his hand.
Elizaveta stared at it. She knew she should grab it, but she couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t move.
Then Jesus tossed the post-hole digger away and snatched up the pistol. He stepped backward and started using his teeth to free the belt securing his wrists.
Elizaveta snapped out of whatever had gripped her. She scooted next to Jack. She bent over him, examining his head. A massive, bleeding bump had already formed on the side of his skull. “Jack?” she said. “Jack?”
He didn’t respond.
She checked the pulse in his neck. It was beating.
She whirled on Jesus, eyes raging. The belt lay next to his feet, coiled liked a snake. He was now aiming the pistol at Jack’s limp body.
Pita was yelling at him: “Put the gun down, Jesus!”
“You don’t understand!” he said.
“Put the gun down!”
“Shut up, Pita!”
“You can’t shoot him!”
“There’s no choice!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eliza,” Jesus said. “Get out of the way.” His face was feverish. The pistol trembled in his grip.
“Stop this, Jesus!” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Eliza, move!”
“Jesus!” Pita shouted.
“He’s going to rat me to the police!” Jesus snapped, glaring at her.
“So what! You didn’t do anything. You didn’t kill—” She bit off the rest of the sentence.
“You killed him,” Elizaveta stated. “You really did kill him.”
“Nitro?” Pita said.
“You don’t understand.” Jesus ran the back of his hand across his lips. He took aim at Jack again. “He was a cop.”
“Nitro was a cop?” Elizaveta said, dumbstruck.
“Nitro was not a cop, Jesus,” Pita said.
Jesus flourished the pistol in a declamatory way. “This gun! It’s a Beretta 92. Marco has the same one. He told me it’s his service gun from when he was a cop. They let him keep it.”
Marco was one of Jesus’s bodyguards: big, overweight, greased hair and a goatee.
Pita said, “That doesn’t mean—”
“No, it doesn’t, Pita,” Jesus said. “But it got me thinking. What does Nitro actually do?”
She frowned. “He has his father’s money—”
“His father who builds highways in Spain. Right. Convenient he’s a
cross the ocean. No way to run into someone in the Mexican construction industry who might know, or not know, of him. And did you ever see Nitro spend much of this money he supposedly had? He gets around on a fucking Honda motorcycle. Does he even have a car? Have you ever seen his car? And what about his place? Where does he live? Napoles? Conveniently across the city from me. Did you ever go to his place? All that time you were fucking him, did he ever invite you over?”
Pita glanced at Jack. He remained out cold. “No…” she said quietly.
Jesus shook his head. “It was a lie. Everything, a lie, so he would fit in with our crowd. Think about it, Pita—when did Nitro and I meet?”
“At Ana’s birthday party,” Elizaveta said.
“Ana’s birthday, correct. Nitro came up to me. Said he was a friend of a friend. I figured he wanted something and brushed him off. He tried a few more times—and then that whole screen door episode with Jack. Everyone knows Jack and I don’t get along. So what does Nitro do to get my attention?”
“Picks a fight with Jack…” Elizaveta said.
“And it worked,” Jesus continued. “After you took him home, Pita, Nitro and I spent the rest of the night laughing about Jack. We hit it off because of our mutual dislike for Jack. I gave him my number, told him to ring me some time.”
Elizaveta’s mind was spinning in overdrive. She remembered perfectly well the next time Nitro called Jesus. It had been the following Saturday morning. He had tickets to a bullfight in the Plaza México and invited Jesus and Elizaveta to join him. Jesus, a huge bullfighting fan (this was no secret to anybody that knew him), promptly accepted the offer. “But why?” she said. “What was the big act for? What did he want?”
Jesus hesitated. Then: “He was investigating the company.”
“What!” Pita said.
Jesus shrugged. “Some stuff’s been going on—”
“What ‘stuff,’ Jesus? That bribery probe? Is that still going on? You said—”
“It doesn’t matter, Pita. Everything’s fine. Everything’s taken care of. It will all work itself out—”
“So you killed him? You killed Nitro because he was investigating you? Oh my God, Jesus! Oh my God—”
Jesus’s face transformed. “He used me!”
“You killed him!”
“He was a piece of shit, Pita! He used you too! Yeah, he did. Come on, why do you think he put the moves on you? He was undercover. He was going to start something up with the sister of the guy he’s investigating because he’s in love with her?”
Pita blinked, as if she had been slapped.
Elizaveta felt dizzy, surreal. The scope of the deception! And she’d never suspected a thing. “Okay, Jesus,” she said quickly. “Maybe you are right. But we can work this out. We’ll figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. Jack’s going to tell the cops I killed Nitro. Proof or not, if they suspect me, they’ll put it together.”
“Shooting him won’t make situation better.”
“Of course it will,” he snapped. “There’s a bona fide killer on this island.” He glanced over his shoulder at María, who stood statute still, watching them in silence. “She killed Miguel. She killed Nitro. She killed Jack—”
“I’ll tell them, Jesus,” Elizaveta said defiantly. “I’ll tell the police everything.”
“No you won’t, cariño,” he said. “Because she’s going to kill you too.”
2
The words flattened Elizaveta like a truck. She had been dating Jesus for twelve months. She had loved him—or thought she had. And he was not only a killer, he was a cold-blooded sociopath.
“Move away from him,” Jesus told her. “Unless you want to die first.”
“Jesus, please…”
“Move!”
“You can’t do this, Jesus!” Pita said. “It’s insane. You can’t kill everybody—”
“It’s either them or me, Pita.”
“And Pepper, and Lucinda?”
“They don’t know what’s happened. They’ll believe what I tell them.”
Pita began wandering in a circle, mumbling, a hand to her head as if she might faint.
“Pita!” Jesus barked. “You have to be in this with me.”
“I…” She shook her head. Her eyes were filled with questioning fear. “Jesus, you can’t do this.”
“There’s no other way. If I go to prison, I can’t fix what’s happened at the company. It will all come out. We’ll lose everything. You’ll have nothing. You’ll be poor.”
“I’m not feeling very well.”
“Pita, I need to hear you’re in this with me.”
“I can’t—”
“Pita!”
“Fine,” she said so softly it was barely audible.
“Fine what?”
“Fine! Just do it! Hurry up!”
Jesus returned his attention to Elizaveta. He did not smile or revel in his victory; he displayed no emotion at all, which terrified Elizaveta all the more. Her heart slammed inside her chest, and she found it difficult to breath. It seemed impossible she was about to die. She had to teach the twins on Monday. She had a hair appointment Tuesday evening—
“Last warning, cariño,” Jesus said. “Move away from Jack.”
She almost asked him why he wanted her to move, but she knew the answer. He didn’t want her and Jack’s deaths to look like summary executions.
“Screw you, Jesus,” she said.
Now his face filled with cold malevolence. With a brutish grunt, he stormed over and grabbed Elizaveta by the hair, yanking her away from Jack. She yelped, clawing and kicking him. He drove his knee into her face, stunning her. Light flowered across her vision. She tasted the calcified bits of a cracked tooth on her tongue.
Then he was hitting her over and over and over.
Jack
A commotion was happening around me, a sonic orgy of shouting and struggling, a million miles away. Pain flared in my head, and I remembered Jesus swinging the post-hole digger. Wondering whether a chunk of my skull and brain were missing—that’s what it felt like—I raised my hand, touched the fiery spot above my ear. It was numb, pins and needles. But everything seemed intact.
Groaning, I sat up. The room focused though remained soaked in an underwater slow-motion quality. Jesus stood several feet away, bending over Elizaveta. For a moment I thought he was speaking to her, but in fact he was striking her with short, straight jabs.
And then, behind him, María was raising the knife she gripped in her hand. Her eyes flamed, her lips curled back to reveal her gums and teeth. She brought the blade down into his back.
Jesus went rigid, his arms shooting out to his sides, as if he had been electrocuted. He issued an unholy noise, more roar than shriek.
María plucked the knife free and stabbed him again.
Turning, Jesus swung the pistol toward her.
Juiced with adrenaline, I found my feet and sprang at him, slamming into his midsection, sending us both careening through the air.
Elizaveta
When Jack and Jesus crashed to the floor, Jesus released the pistol, which skidded across the floorboards. Although Elizaveta felt nauseous with pain from the whooping Jesus had delivered to her, this time she didn’t hesitate. She scrambled toward the gun.
Her head snapped backward.
Pita had her hair!
The bitch shook Elizaveta’s head from side to side, and Elizaveta felt déjà vu from their earlier fight. “Let go!” she said, kicking out blindly behind her.
The kick made contact. Pita, however, was too close for it to have much effect.
Elizaveta flipped onto her back. She raked her fingernails down Pita’s furious face. Three parallel lines of blood appeared.
Pita yowled but didn’t release her hair. Elizaveta grabbed Pita’s right breast through her open shirt and squeezed as hard as she could. The yowl jumped an octave and she finally let go.
Still turtled on her back, Elizaveta brought
her knee to her chest and kicked. Her foot sailed past Pita, who dodged left. Then Pita was on her feet, standing above Elizaveta. She produced the sickle, which had been tucked into the waistband of her jean shorts.
The curved blade grinned wickedly.
Jack
1
I landed on top of Jesus. He went for my throat, strangling me, inadvertently tilting my chin so I was looking at the ceiling. I shoved my right hand against his face, pressing it into the floor. My palm covered his nose and mouth. His lips were wet with saliva. Then a sharp bite.
The fucker bit me!
One of my legs was between his. I drove my knee into his groin. His teeth released their pinch. He bellowed. I kneed him again.
The pistol was a few feet away. I twisted off Jesus and grabbed it just as Elizaveta cried out. I’d been peripherally aware of Pita and Elizaveta fighting, but I’d been so focused in my struggle with Jesus I hadn’t paid any attention.
Now I saw Pita standing above Elizaveta, the sickle raised.
“Pita!” I shouted, leveling the pistol at her. “Don’t!”
She swung the curved blade.
I squeezed the trigger.
2
The shot struck Pita in the center of her chest, stopping her mid-swing. Her eyes widened, confused. They met mine. Then her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor.
For a long moment I couldn’t move. There was dead silence, but at the same time my ears rang with the gunshot. All I was thinking was: I shot Pita I shot Pita I shot Pita…
Elizaveta elbowed backward, away from Pita’s body.
“Pita!” I said, scrambling forward. I tried not to look at the wound in her chest but couldn’t help it. A small hole marked her skin directly between her breasts, an inch above the center gore of her bra. It was gushing blood.
Her eyes stared at me, accusing.
“Pita…?” I said, hearing my voice in stereo, the thickness of it. Time seemed to have slowed down, as if by some quirk of relativity.
“You shot me…” she said, a rill of blood trickling down her chin.
“Pita!” It was Jesus, rolling onto his knees. He crawled frantically toward her, shoving past me to take my place. He lowered his forehead to his sister’s. He mumbled something in Spanish, his lips inches from hers.
World's Scariest Places: Volume Two Page 50
