When I Knew You

by Desireé Prosapio

  "What the hell!"

  Trent launched to his feet, but Antonia was already up, her previously lethargic demeanor evaporating into the cooling desert air. She climbed deftly over the seats and ducked low, pulling the backpack to her. As I figured out that she had managed to avoid taking the valium he tried to feed her, another shot rang out, and there was another ricochet behind me.

  Trent lunged over the seats and grabbed me, pulling me into a headlock. Before he could tighten his grip, I spun quickly and slammed my elbow into his face. Trent screamed and put his hands to his face, blood spraying everywhere from his nose.

  Antonia stood next to me, holding the gun I'd been carrying in the backpack. She leveled it at Trent.

  "Call off your dog, boy."

  Both Trent and I looked at her with surprise. She smiled, her thumb neatly flicking off the safety.

  "I have a few favorite movies. I think that one is from Dirty Larry," she said with a wink at me.

  "Harry," Trent and I said in unison.

  "Whatever." She cocked the hammer back. "I'm pretty sure this is how this works. Told you I liked guns. Guns and crossword puzzles."

  The glowing red dot reappeared, but it was off to one side of Antonia. Trent was blocking the shot.

  "Trent," I said, "if I see that laser sight one more time, she's going to have to shoot you."

  "Bullshit."

  Antonia adjusted her aim almost imperceptibly to the left and fired smoothly, missing him by inches. Trent's eyes bugged out and he went as pale as the yard lines on the field.

  "See, Mija? It's like typing. Some things you never forget," Antonia quipped. "Did you know I was a marksman in college, pendejo?"

  "Pendejo means idiot," I translated helpfully.

  "I know what it fucking means!" Trent pulled out his phone, shouting at whoever was on the other end. "Stand down!" Blood from his nose was still flowing.

  I took Trent's phone from him and flung it down a few rows. There was a shattering sound of glass and plastic. "Here's the new plan. We are all going a little higher. The nosebleed seats."

  "Pun intended?" Antonia asked.

  I looked down at my shirt which was covered with a spray of red from Trent's bloody nose. "Absolutely."

  We made quite a sight, climbing stairs with Trent carefully positioned between us and the mountain, Antonia held the gun on him and I led the way, keeping an eye out for red laser dots. We got to the top of the stadium and moved behind one of the large concrete bases that held a light pole. It effectively shielded us from the gunman, but to be safe and with Antonia's encouragement we had Trent wrap his arms the pole, then zip-tied his wrists together with the garbage ties I brought along in case I had trouble securing the ropes. I reached into his pants pocket.

  "Since you broke our deal, I'm taking this back." I pulled the locket out and fastened it back around my neck.

  "You know you aren't going to get away with this," he growled.

  "I was thinking the same thing about you, asshole." I patted his shoulder, then walked over to the ropes I had already set in place. Antonia flicked off the safety and put the gun back in the backpack.

  "He had two men at the entrance we walked in," Antonia said. "And I spotted two more at the other side."

  I busied myself with the extra harness, expecting Trent's muscle up here any minute.

  "Don't worry. We're not leaving that way." I fitted the harness around her chest and clipped the carabiner to it. She shouldered the backpack. I dropped down the rappelling lines, double checked the tie offs, and checked my own harness one more time. I motioned for her to join me near the edge. There were shouts and sirens in the distance.

  We both looked over the concrete ledge. "So, mom," I asked casually, "are you scared of heights?"

  She shrugged. "Not that I remember."

  "Good enough."

  I attached the line to my carabiner, clipped her into my harness and together we climbed over the ledge and made the leap.

  Chapter 28

  When we hit University Boulevard I started to breathe easier. "What do you call that?" Antonia asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "That thing we did. With the rope."

  I laughed. "Free rappel."

  She sighed. "Kati, I need to write that down in my notes. I have got to do that again," she said, with a wink. "Without the shooting."

  "Got it. No shooting."

  "Well, maybe some shooting. But just targets next time."

  "Amen," I said and made a few turns to make sure no one was following us. The grocery store where we were meeting Willie was right around the corner.

  "So, you remembered Pilot?" I asked.

  "I've never forgotten Pilot. Isn't it funny? He was a sweet cat. He'd always sneak out, but he always made back in time for dinner." She rubbed her arm. "Might have been more useful to remember my times tables."

  "Did you hurt your arm?" I asked, concerned.

  "No, no. Not at all. It just itches." She pulled up her sleeve. Her arm was covered in letters. "These are my notes. I wasn't sure how long it would take. I didn't want to forget anything important until we got back together."

  I pulled into a parking space at the grocery store and she showed me the notes on her right arm, precise letters that looked more like hieroglyphics than words. They started midway on her forearm and went all the way to her bicep. She had written down things like "Trust the Lady" and "Bad = Tall man with large hands & blue-eyed man" and "Don't take any medicine."

  I turned her arm to re-read it all again. Something was missing. She hadn't written down anything about me, about who I was.

  "Where did you write about me?" I asked, releasing her arm.

  "You?" She looked confused. "I don't have to write anything down about you Kati." She pulled me close. "I never forget about you. I might forget your birthday or your favorite color, but I never ever forget about you. About who you are to me."

  "But you didn't know me after the accident, and your other notes, the tape—"

  "Oh no," she said, her brows knitting together. "All this time, did you think...?" She brushed my hair back and cupped my cheek. "No, no, no, Kati. I talked about you on the tape because I love you and it made me feel connected with you to hear your name on the tape. But I don't need it to help me remember you. With those men I knew they'd try to confuse me. Use my weakness." She held up her arm. "But I'm not an idiot. Just forgetful about things."

  She pulled her sleeve back down. "At first I didn't know my name, or how to eat, even. But that didn't last. I need notes to remember about the accident, about how to save money from Abuela. But never about you, Kati. You are my light, my life. You are my daughter and I could never forget you."

  Her eyes searched mine, and must have spotted the doubt.

  "Fine. Don't believe me. Just ask Margie. She'll tell you."

  "I believe you," I said, wiping away the tears on my face.

  "No, you don't." She shrugged. "When this is over, Mija, we are going to see Margie. Then you'll see."

  She mumbled something about her own daughter not trusting her all this time and not believing her after she jumped off a stadium like a crazy woman. I chuckled, relieved to have her back, no matter what she did or didn't remember.

  Through Antonia's passenger side window, I spotted a car flashing it's lights at us. Willie.

  I reached over in the seat for the bag with extra clothes I'd picked up, along with a box of Ziploc bags. I slipped my blood covered shirt off and carefully sealed it in a bag, then pulled on a fresh T-shirt. "Come on, Mom. Time to go."

  Antonia smiled. "What's your name, honey?"

  I looked at her, horror hitting me for a moment. Then she elbowed me and we both burst out laughing.

  A few days later we were driving to meet William Alacon, Sr. at the retirement home along with his daughter, Willie, and a Texas Ranger Sargent Robert Mora. When Willie called, she said Mora was a Texas Ranger who had a special interest in the case. I asked if he
ever went by Roberto, but she refused to say anything else until we saw her.

  As I was driving to the west side, I thought over the last few days. We'd stayed with Margie in her little house near the mountain and El Paso High School while Abuela stayed with our family in Chicago. At Antonia's insistence that first day, Margie confirmed what Antonia had told me in the parking lot, where she showed me her notes on her arm. Antonia hadn't had any trouble remembering me for years.

  Antonia—Mom, I mentally corrected—and I spent the next few days talking, working through everything that happened. We were still within the critical week her memory span, but even so, I sensed something had changed. Antonia's southern accent was barely a whisper. I shared the article from Doctor Valencia with her, about the TBI patients that had recovered some element of their lucidity after years. When we finished reviewing it, her eyes sparkled with tears and we held each other close.

  I knew that both Antonia and my Mom were struggling to stay present. This new Antonia didn't seem angry or resentful anymore; it was almost as if parts of my mother were working together to stitch something stronger than the ripped curtain that had been in place for so long. I wondered if this would be the new normal or if this fragile peace between the two sides of Antonia, my two mothers, would evaporate in time.

  We had to lay low, but sometime soon we could see Valencia together, and see if something had actually changed. I watched her carefully, noting that Mom's memory flickered in more than out, the veil of time and mind thinning for only moments. Hope hammered my heart, but I quieted it with reason. It could be that she was reconnecting with elements of her former self, or it could be that I just saw her differently after all we'd been through.

  We'd been waiting to hear from Willie about the file I sent, along with my shirt covered in Trent's blood and the scraping of evidence she'd had a friend from CSI department gather. When she called I felt a flash of terror as Mom and I stepped out of the house for the first time.

  I pulled into the nearly empty visitors lot of the retirement home. She reached over to my arm, rubbing it lightly. "We'll be fine, Mija."

  The rooms in the nursing home were more like apartments, designed for retirees who could still manage a bit of their day to day life. When we entered the room a man I had to assume was Sargent Robert Mora rose to meet us. He looked like he could crush beer cans on his forehead, but his voice had a crisp accent that sounded like it belonged in Harvard Square, not Texas. A gray stetson was on a dresser behind him.

  His greeting to me was brief; he honed in on Antonia. He was as big and solid as a cypress tree, wearing a guayabera shirt with delicate embroidery, a huge silver bracelet cuff with inlaid turquoise on his thick wrist. He reached for Antonia's hand. "Antonia? Do you remember me? It's Roberto."

  Antonia looked at him for a long time."I remember a Roberto, sort of," she said uncertainly, the vanishing trace of her Southern accent elongating her words. "But were you always this big?"

  We all laughed.

  He pulled her into an embrace, which she returned. Willie and I stood by awkwardly for a few moments.

  "Touching reunion, Mora." Another man quipped.

  By the window, William Alarcon sat in a tan lounger, a few papers on a table in front of him. He was hunched over, wisps of gray hair carefully smoothed over his thinning scalp. A spray of freckles crossed his nose and his hazel eyes were milky with cataracts.

  "We have work to do," William said impatiently. "And you know I could keel over at any moment, I'm not exactly a spring chicken, here. I'll be damned if I'm not here for the finish of this business."

  Willie rolled her eyes. "Dad. Seriously. You are not at death's door."

  "Ha! I'm easily on the same block," he insisted.

  Willie and I pulled some chairs around the table while Robert pulled out a file out of what looked like a small tackle box. "Right, Mr. Alarcon's got a point there. Let's get started."

  We sat around the table, but Willie stood by her father's lounger.

  "When last we spoke," Robert nodded to Antonia, "I told you to leave this alone. To leave it to the experts."

  "And I didn't?" she asked.

  "You didn't," he said, meeting her eyes.

  They gazed at each other for a moment. Willie and I shrugged.

  "Ahem," William cleared his throat gruffly.

  Robert and Antonia both looked away from one another like teenagers busted in class. Robert straightened in his seat. "Yes. Well, unfortunately after Antonia's accident, the investigators lost interest for some unknown reason."

  William scoffed. "We all know the reason. Cash is king in Texas."

  "It is in most places. I was reassigned at the time, taken off the case, sent off to handle a different region." Robert glanced back at Antonia. "And without the evidence you'd gathered I didn't have much to go on. But between this evidence and the skeleton on the land..."

  I thought of the scene on the news with Trent at the controls of the track hoe, the bones falling down the pile of dirt. "So, was the body Javier's?" I asked. "The real Javier?"

  Robert nodded. "Kati, if you hadn't alerted the family in Chicago, we never would have been able to ID him. They got in touch with the university who handled the recovery of the body on the Rocking B Ranch," Robert said. "The remains are a match for the Chicago Bonita family." He flipped open the file and pulled out a single sheet of paper. "And this is a charge from the grand jury, based on the blood on the shirt and the evidence you gathered from the water company to reopen the case of your mother's accident. They still had a sample of blood from the accident scene that didn't match yours, Antonia."

  "It was Trent's," I said.

  "Right," Robert said. "He was managing Beautiful Living Waters at the time."

  William's eyes glinted with recognition. "Beautiful Living Waters. That was the name of the water company, right? Their truck was stolen right across the street from the accident."

  "Yes," I flipped open my phone and opened the photos I took off the picture from the wall of Beautiful Living Waters warehouse. I enlarged the photo which showed Trent Bonita standing next to one of the delivery trucks, his smile broad and one hand on the driver's door as if he was about to get in. I showed it to William. "The company was part of the holdings of the Bonita family."

  He handed the phone to Willie, who shook her head. "That asshole had some balls. Why didn't anyone see the connection?"

  William scoffed. "That family could cut off any investigation they wanted in this town. At least back then they could."

  "The blood from both Antonia's accident twelve years ago and from your encounter with Trent matched," Robert said. He pulled a second sheet out. "And this is a copy of the warrant to collect DNA on Javier Bonita—that is, Trent's father. Based on the second test we ran, the blood you..., well, let's call it 'gathered,' shows he's a potential descendant match to the DNA on record for the Texarkana serial killer."

  "I knew it!" William shouted, pounding the table. "That guy was nothing like the Javier the family in Chicago talked about. I mean, he fit the description and the timeline, but I left that ranch feeling like I'd met the devil himself. I figured that woman in Chicago was better off without him."

  Robert continued, flipping through a few other sheets of paper. "The main suspect in the Texarkana Moonlight Murders was a Caleb Mayhan." He pulled out a photo of a young man and slid it across the table to Mom and me. This photo was considerably larger than the ones I'd seen in Mom's files and looked like a police booking photo. The man looked similar to the photo I'd seen of the real Javier, with a similar build and dark sunburned skin. His eyes, though, had that flat look I'd seen on Trent and Eliah.

  "Mayhan left Texarkana after they didn't have enough evidence to hold him. This was before DNA was being used. The case went cold. But in the late 90s there were grants that gave us the money to test cold cases, to see if any matches came up on the DNA database. I was part of that effort in Texas and the Moonlight Murder serial killer case was o
ne of a dozen I had submitted for review. That's how I met your mother initially." He smiled at her, then continued. "Antonia, if you hadn't been so curious about cold cases—and that one in particular because of the dates involved—we never would have investigated it further. I was never a fan of civilians getting involved in these kinds of situations. I told her that and she was ... " he shrugged.

  "Unimpressed?" I offered.

  "That's a kind way of putting it," he said, squeezing Antonia's hand. "Anyway, the DNA testing took another year after her accident. At the time, there was no match in the database. Our main suspect, Mayhan, had disappeared off the face of the earth."

  "To become Javier Bonita," Willie said quietly. She rubbed her father's shoulder. William reached up and patted her hand, his hand shaking.

  "Would appear so," Robert agreed. "They are still looking for cause of death on the remains of Javier. It certainly appears that Mayhan took over Javier's life. Or at least the part where he inherited all that property."

  I stared at the paper in front of me in silence for a minute, then looked at Robert. "So, it's over?"

  "It'll take a while, Kati. We have to get DNA from old-man Bonita to prove it's a DNA match with the serial killer case. That's likely to be a tall order, but his son's DNA is a good start. That should give us cause."

  "Could he get away with this? I asked incredulously. "Even with the real Javier Bonita's body on his land?"

  "There are enough lawyers between him and the law right now. Add to that the fact that he owns most of the judges in the county, both here and in South Texas. So we've got some work ahead of us." He shook his head. "But you got Trent Bonita, Kati. Not only for your Mom's accident twelve years ago, but for felony kidnapping, car bombing, murder of his brother, and attempted murder of you and Antonia in the stadium." He leaned back in his chair. "Plus that jerk will never be governor, which is possibly the biggest win of them all."

  "But the imposter?" Mom asked quietly.

  "Toni," he said gently touching her hand. "We have Caleb dead to rights. The facts are irrefutable. The evidence is mounting. It'll take a while, maybe a couple months, but it is over."