We walked over to the door, and my mind was racing. How did he know?
"We actually see this kind of thing a lot," Nash said, leading us to the elevators. "Elder abuse —or in your case, not so elder, but vulnerable. We have had people try to con their way into depleting a person's account."
"That's terrible," Antonia said.
"We've turned several of these criminal low life over to the police. So we're more aggressive about it than most financial institutions. We protect our members." Nash peered at Antonia. "Is this Trevino a relative?"
Antonia looked over to me for an answer.
"No, he's just..." I was at a loss. "He was someone I knew. A friend, but now..." My mouth felt dry and I realized I knew nothing real about Eliah, not the Eliah I had seen at the fire, the Eliah that rampaged through the church.
Nash kept talking as she tapped the elevator button. "Most of the time these men are relatives, but other times they're just con men working a city. Fortunately, there are only three people who can access the second account: you, Ms. Perez, and Gustav Calderon." The elevator arrived, and we walked in. She hit the button for the third floor. "Of course if there's a death certificate, then ownership conveys to Katarina."
We headed out of the elevator and went down the hallway to the vault. After an efficient introduction to the clerk, Nash left. We signed the necessary documents and the clerk brought us the metal box, leaving us alone in a small room outside the vault. Antonia and I sat at a table with the long metal box between us. She reached for the box, but her hands were shaking and she dropped the small key she'd been given to unlock it. I took the key and opened it. There was another manila envelope, this time one thicker than the others.
I opened the envelope and a stack of articles spilled out along with another smaller envelope. The articles were copies from old style newspapers with headlines that read "Another Moonlight Murder Victim Found" and "Moonlight Murderer Still at Large." Among the articles were three separate photos. Two were black and white photos, the other was a color photo, all three head and shoulders shots of young men. One man had dark hair, thick and wavy and his smile was as bright as the laughing face of the man in the locket, his eyes light colored, although I couldn't tell the shade. He wore a working man's shirt, plaid with a pointed.
The second black and white photo was of a young man in a t-shirt, his head dark with close-cropped hair, his eyes were narrow, and also light colored. The two had a similar build and facial structure. They could have been related, maybe.
The third photo looked like it was taken by a professional, and the young man was wearing a tie. He had a smile that didn't extend to his blue eyes, and his hair was a dirty blonde. I flipped the photos over, but nothing was written on the back.
Antonia opened the small envelope. There were two business cards. One was for Calderon and the other was for William Alacon, a private investigator with an address in Las Cruces, New Mexico, just an hour away. There was a post-it note with a Rocking B brand drawn on it and a handwritten note on a sheet ripped haphazardly from a notepad, its ragged edge at the top uneven.
Antonia, there is still DNA evidence on file. The trail ends in Texarkana, and Det. Mora still has it open. Call me when you get these photos, do NOT contact the DA. If it's connected to Bonita, the DA is compromised. Robert might be able to help. See you on the 10th.
It was signed W.
"I don't get it," I said, exasperated. "A murder in Texarkana? Bonita and the DA? I don't understand what any of this means."
Antonia leafed through the articles and shuffled the photos. "There's one more envelope to go, right? Maybe there are answers there." She turned the business cards over in her hands over and over, then picked up the post it note with the brand.
"All of this, it feels familiar... I wish I could remember."
"I know," I said. "Let's go to UTEP. Maybe that graduate student can help us tie it all together."
"No. You don't understand." Antonia put the cards back in the small envelope with the post-it and the note and handed it back to me.
"I wish every day I could remember. I want to remember everything, not just this. I want to remember the day you were born. I want to remember working in an office. I want to remember how to make my favorite dinner because I can't even remember what it is, but there are days where I miss it." She gazed at the ceiling, her shoulders slumping. "I still have a hunger for it and I don't even know what it is."
"Green chile enchiladas," I said, stuffing the articles back in the larger envelope, and the whole thing in my backpack. "With that white cheese. And chicken. Green chicken enchiladas."
Antonia looked doubtful. "Is that what it is? I thought it was something more exotic."
"You used Hatch green chilis. You roasted them yourself. That's what made it special." I swung my bag over my shoulder. "My eyes would water when I walked in the kitchen. But you said it was your favorite."
"Maybe that is it." A slow smile spread on her face as she gathered her purse and rose. "Maybe when this is over we can make it together. And a guacamole salad."
"Sure," I said as we headed for the door of the safe deposit room. I decided not to tell her I have been allergic to avocados since I was twelve.
As we walked we basked in the light that poured in from the windows of the multistory atrium near the elevator bay. Long open walkways led from one section of the building to another meeting in the middle. It was a beautiful view from the third floor.
A shrill ring filled the air. It came from my cell phone in my bag, and I dug through it quickly. I felt Antonia squeeze my arm sharply, just as I found the phone and silenced it.
"It's okay, I got ..." The words died in my throat when I looked at her. She had gone pale and was staring down toward the lobby two floors below.
Eliah rose from a dark blue chair in the sun filled area off to one side of the lobby, smiling broadly at us both. He straightened to his full height and all I could think of was how fast someone that tall could run. A hell of a lot faster than either of us.
"You go," Antonia said, pushing me away. "I'll stall him."
"Not a chance," I said, grabbing her arm again and rushing for the elevator bay.
Down below, a young man holding a tablet came out from behind the lobby reception desk towards Eliah, but Eliah side-stepped him and rushed towards the elevators on the first floor.
Our elevator arrived and we ran in. I hit the top floor button. My phone buzzed in my bag again. My hands were shaking as the floors clicked away.
Antonia leaned on the wall. She looked angry. I touched her shoulder. "Antonia, you can't do that again. You can't say you're going to leave. We have to stay together. We have to stay together."
She was silent but nodded. The elevator opened on the top floor, but I held her arm, keeping her from exiting. We stayed in the elevator and I hit the button for the second floor. The door slid shut.
"We'll get out on the second-floor cafeteria. Where there's a cafeteria, there's a service elevator." I exhaled, trying to slow my breathing. "Hopefully he went up to the top floor to find us, or he's waiting in the lobby. But I doubt he'll be at the appreciation waffle brunch."
The crowd was thick and chatty on the second floor, mostly older men and women, with a smattering of young people here and there. The young people were staff, I figured, based on their business casual attire.
Antonia spotted the kitchen and we hurried to the door. We were just through the threshold when I heard a crash and shouting behind us. We ran, weaving between a handful of cooks and waiters. There was a stairwell next to the service elevator and I slammed through the door. We could hear more crashes and rapid fire cussing in Spanish. We practically flew down the stairs.
The stairwell let out to the far side of the lobby. A security guard was running toward us, his radio blaring out numbers in quick succession. He passed us and headed into the stairwell.
A dozen options flooded through my brain—we could hide in an office, duck
into the bathroom, go back upstairs, get help from a security guard—but all I could think of was getting away. I looked around, there was no sign of Eliah. I grabbed Antonia's arm and we ran out of the lobby just as more guards were gathering near the doors. We slipped out in time and headed for the truck.
We sat in the cab of the truck, panting as we caught our breath. "I don't think he knows what we're driving," I said, peering in the rearview mirror. I couldn't see past the glare on the glass doors of the lobby. It seemed perfectly quiet.
Antonia nodded. "So you don't want to draw attention by peeling out of here, right?" Her southern drawl was thicker, but the flush in her cheeks was starting to fade even as she looked in the side view mirror.
We sat there for a minute, then, when I saw another car leaving, I pulled a ball cap from the back seat and put it on. "Duck down. That way it looks like there's just one person." Antonia slouched down in the seat while I eased out of the lot, hoping I looked like just another senior citizen who scored free waffles.
Chapter 18
Antonia inched up after we got on the freeway. She reached over and squeezed my leg affectionately, relief on her face. She looked out the side window. "Where are we going?"
"The university."
"Good," she said. "I think I've been there before."
She'd been there a lot. She was part of a study on traumatic brain injuries. Every month she'd go in and meet with a new set of graduate students. She'd go through a series of tests. I used to go with her, fill out a sheet with little bubbles next to multiple choice questions. The answers always looked like a straight line down the form: "no change."
It was a twenty-minute drive to UTEP and I finally stopped checking the rear view mirror obsessively when we hit downtown. We'd driven in silence as if Eliah could hear us inside the truck as if by being quiet we were less visible, less vulnerable.
I'd driven this route to the University hundreds of times, so much that lane changing felt automatic. When I started college, UTEP was my first step to forming my own life. Margie helped me select some of my courses and had insisted I take self-defense courses in my extra curriculum. Initially, I had scoffed, but after a month of learning how to slip out of holds and put someone in a hand lock, I felt something I hadn't ever since my mother's accident. I felt safe. I took a more advanced class, and soon was helping out giving volunteer classes off campus that my instructor had set up as his "pay it forward" gift.
As we exited the freeway the campus rose from the foothills. The red tile roofs and squared off buildings were eye-catching from miles away. Designed to mimic Bhutanese architecture, the buildings on campus looked more like a hybrid of pueblos and haciendas, albeit on a giant scale. The creamy stucco blended into the desert surroundings seamlessly. Somehow the monastic style created for the sides of the Himalayans looked right at home on the desert rock that formed the Franklins.
"Why are we coming here?" Antonia asked as we turned into the parking lot. We'd talked earlier about coming to the library, to meet with the graduate student maybe get some time on the internet.
"To see if we can find Theresa, remember?" I bit down on my impatience. Still it was strange she'd forget from this morning when we'd discussed it. Her memory was usually better than that. Not a whole lot, granted.
"Right, right," she said. "And computers, right? We need a computer?" Her brow furrowed in concentration and she suddenly looked very fragile.
"Right. Do you have your ID?" I asked. Since she came in for memory work with students, the University gave her a student ID. It would let us access the library's computers. I'd been cut off from computers ever since the accident since the cell phone I had was just a cheap flip phone.
I hoped some research would help me get some sort of handle on what we were dealing with. Besides the campus library sounded safe. If nothing else we could research escape routes, phone numbers, names, anything that might help.
Antonia dug through her purse, found her wallet and pulled out an orange ID. "Got it," she grinned, looking at me earnestly.
I felt the old exhaustion that had been gone for a few months. It was exhausting praising her tiny victories, the little things she'd remember, the small, infinitely small steps she'd make in her memory only to slip back two days later to having to be reminded where her hairbrushes were or how to activate her toothbrush.
There were days I couldn't do it and I'd slip out before her day began, driving to the University while the stars still lingered on the far horizon. I'd forget about her for a while.
It never seemed ironic until now.
I took the card. "Perfect. Let's go."
The last person on my mother's list was the graduate student, Theresa. I hoped she had in her possession some sort of Rosetta Stone that would decipher all of these envelopes, or give us something to link them together. My mother was smart; it didn't make sense that she'd have left all of this for safe keeping, and not give anyone a key to understanding it.
As we walked toward the library I thought of the note and the business card for someone named Robert. I needed to find out who he was and what he knew about all of this.
As for the graduate student, Theresa, we hadn't been able to reach her. I'd left messages but never heard back. I finally texted her, hoping maybe she'd answer. I could only hope that Eliah hadn't gotten to her first.
We'd just sat down to a computer when my phone vibrated in my pocket indicating a new text message. It was from Theresa. She apologized, she had been busy, but could meet us in the next five minutes at the student union.
Antonia sighed. "Maybe we should meet her later."
I knew all this jumping from one thing to another was disruptive for her. But I couldn't risk us losing this last envelope. "It'll only take a minute, I'm sure."
She hesitated, her brows knitting together as she got up from her chair.
"Is everything okay?" I asked, pulling my backpack onto my shoulder.
She glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged. "I'm probably still shook up from the credit union, I guess. Let's go."
We walked over to the union, and I pointed out all the buildings where I'd taken classes. She pointed out the building that had a small gun range in it.
"I was a marksman in college, did you know that? It's in my notes." She looked wistful. "I have trouble getting your Abuela to take me to the range, even though I ask. I think she's scared I'll shoot her."
"Really?" I said, surprised. "I took marksmanship too."
"No kidding?" She laughed and her face brightening. "Wow! Like mother, like daughter."
I had to admit, we looked like the typical mother-daughter touring campus, and for a second I wondered what it would have been like to have the other Antonia, my mom, here. Sure, she wasn't always the nicest of people, but she was the woman who could run circles around plenty of professors here. Would she have been teaching classes here once she finished her thesis? If it weren't for the story I was trying to unravel, would she still have her mind, her memories?
Did someone try to kill her that day? Or was it an accident all along and Antonia was looking for a reason for all of this. I could have believed she was paranoid about her accident, that it was a symptomatic echo of her long absence from the present.
Except for the fire. Except for the attack in San Elizario. Except for Eliah. My stomach tightened.
Theresa was sitting in the corner of the union, glancing around the crowd. She had mentioned she'd be wearing a maroon top, and she was easy to spot. She had blonde highlights growing out of a dark crown of wavy hair and was as thin as a coffee straw. We waved and headed over.
"I'm sorry I was so hard to reach," she said, pulling a bulging navy messenger bag onto her lap. She smiled, chatty and bubbly. "My phone broke, and I got it back today. Cost almost a hundred bucks to fix. Then they wiped out everything and I didn't even have my messages. If you hadn't texted me, I would never have even known you'd called."
The words poured out of her in a torrent and h
er smile was thin. "It's fine, we really appreciate this," I said.
Antonia touched my arm. "I'm going to stop at the ladies room, Kati. I'll be right back."
"What?" I was about to ask her to wait, but it seemed silly. The sick feeling in my stomach came back. "Um, okay, I guess. I'll be right here. Come right back, okay?"
She nodded then walked off. When I turned back to Theresa, she looked at me like I was a lunatic. Whatever.
"So you need the envelope Professor Gray left for your mom?" Theresa flipped open her navy bag.
I nodded and fighting the urge to watch Antonia head for the back of the student union where the restrooms were.
"Right," I said. "The envelope. Did you bring it?"
"Sure did," she said, looking through her bag. "It must be pretty important. He left me a note about it and everything." She pulled out a white padded envelope, silver bangles clinked on her tiny wrist as she handed it to me. "Do you know what's in there?"
"No." I took the envelope from her and shoved it in my bag. She looked disappointed. "Is the professor still around?" I asked.
She shook her head. "He's been gone ever since he left the note. Some conference in Guadalajara. Should be back this Friday. It's finals in three weeks. I can do most of the class, but he likes to do the wrap-up." She stood up. "Sorry to run, I have to prep for my 1:00."
"No problem," I said. I got up, feeling uneasy. Glancing around, there was no sign of Antonia. I decided to head to the restroom to find her, my anxiety rising like a rocket. Damn it. I shouldn't have let her go without me. But it was just the restroom.
I burst through the door, nearly running into two girls in matching t-shirts that said Club Zero. "Antonia?" I called out. There was no answer. I checked each stall. Nothing.
The sick feeling in my stomach grew, my throat felt as if I was breathing through wool. "Antonia!" I called louder, pushing out of the bathroom and into the crowd. "Antonia!"
I searched the student union for over two hours. I'd climbed the stairs a half dozen times and even searched the aisles of the bookstore across the street. I'd been back and forth to the parking lot twice, had even left a note for her on the truck in case I missed her. By the time I sat down in the truck, my hands were shaking.
When I Knew You Page 11
