by Elise Noble
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Cora
Chapter 2 - Cora
Chapter 3 - Cora
Chapter 4 - Cora
Chapter 5 - Cora
Chapter 6 - Cora
Chapter 7 - Cora
Chapter 8 - Cora
Chapter 9 - Cora
Chapter 10 - Cora
Chapter 11 - Black
Chapter 12 - Emmy
Chapter 13 - Black
Chapter 14 - Black
Chapter 15 - Cora
Chapter 16 - Cora
Chapter 17 - Black
Chapter 18 - Black
Chapter 19 - Black
Chapter 20 - Emmy
Chapter 21 - Emmy
Chapter 22 - Emmy
Chapter 23 - Black
Chapter 24 - Cora
Chapter 25 - Black
Chapter 26 - Cora
Chapter 27 - Black
Chapter 28 - Cora
Chapter 29 - Cora
Chapter 30 - Black
Chapter 31 - Cora
Chapter 32 - Cora
Chapter 33 - Black
Chapter 34 - Black
Chapter 35 - Cora
Chapter 36 - Cora
Chapter 37 - Black
Chapter 38 - Cora
Chapter 39 - Cora
Chapter 40 - Black
Chapter 41 - Cora
Chapter 42 - Cora
Chapter 43 - Black
Chapter 44 - Cora
Chapter 45 - Black
Chapter 46 - Cora
Chapter 47 - Black
Chapter 48 - Cora
Chapter 49 - Cora
Chapter 50 - Emmy
Chapter 51 - Cora
Chapter 52 - Emmy
What's next?
What's next?
What's next?
Want to stalk me?
End of book stuff
Other books by Elise Noble
QUICKSILVER
Elise Noble
Published by Undercover Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019 Elise Noble
v5
ISBN: 978-1-910954-93-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Edited by Nikki Menges, NAM Editorial
Cover design by Abigail Sins
www.undercover-publishing.com
www.elise-noble.com
Who wants to live forever?
- Freddie Mercury
CHAPTER 1 - CORA
HELP ME.
TWO little words spoken in a breathless whisper before the line went dead.
Two little words from beyond the grave.
Two little words that would lead me to hell.
If only I’d known how things would turn out, perhaps I’d have acted differently. Walked a little slower from the kitchen to the living room so I missed the call. Chalked it up to a wrong number. Convinced myself that I’d misheard.
But I didn’t. I knew who’d called, not so much from the words themselves but from the tiny squeak that came afterwards, right before she hung up.
Isabella.
I’d heard her make that sound a hundred times before, every time she got caught doing something she shouldn’t. Taking mecatos from the kitchen as a seven-year-old. Borrowing my make-up when she hit her teens. And later, in her difficult phase, stealing from her mama’s purse.
The problem now?
I’d attended Isabella’s funeral three weeks ago.
And now her mama walked into the living room.
“Cora, are you okay? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Not seen one; heard one. But I couldn’t tell Dores Morales that. No way. She’d always been nervy, highly strung, much like Izzy herself, and it only got worse after Izzy’s father died. After losing Izzy as well, Dores had barely kept herself together, and the last thing I wanted to do was give her false hope that her daughter was still alive. Or worse, send her further into the pit of despair by suggesting Izzy was in trouble.
“I’m fine. Is it five o’clock already? I’ll be late for work.”
“What time will you be back?”
She never used to ask, not when Izzy was alive. But now she called, worried, if I was more than five minutes late.
“My lesson ends at eight, so maybe half past? I’ll message you when I leave; I promise.”
“You’re coming straight home? Your grandma’s making bandeja paisa.”
Grandma always made bandeja paisa. A huge platter of food with beans, rice, pork, chorizo, fried egg, avocado, arepa… The list went on. Usually, I ran every day, or went to the gym at least, but since Izzy died, I’d spent all my spare time at home and now half of my clothes didn’t fit anymore.
I gave Dores a quick hug. “Yes, I’m coming straight home.”
In my bedroom, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a pale pink top. Pumps or ballet flats? Flats were more comfortable, but after dating a guy who spent six months complaining I was too tall, I’d bought three new pairs of high heels when we split up. I’d bumped into him on the odd occasion since, and each time, I’d looked down on him from four inches above. Screw you. I picked the pumps.
As usual, traffic in Medellín was at a standstill, and I choked on the thick cloud of exhaust fumes that hung in the air as I hurried along the street towards the Metro. And as I walked, I began to second-guess myself. What if I had been mistaken? Or could one of the neighbourhood kids have been playing a sick joke?
I quickly discounted that idea. The call had come on the house phone, and it was only by luck that I’d picked up rather than my grandma. The local children loved Marisol da Silva. She’d babysat most of them over the years, and none of them would want to hurt her.
Could it really be possible? Was Izzy still alive? All they’d found of her was a single hand, too decomposed for fingerprints, but Izzy’s favourite ring had been on the middle finger. I’d identified it myself. A created white sapphire I’d given her on her eighteenth birthday—diamonds were a little out of my price range—flanked by amethysts and inscribed on the inside with two joined hands and our initials to show we’d always be friends, no matter how much she tested me. And back then, she had tested me. Isabella Morales had gone wild between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, but over the last year, she’d settled down and followed in her mother’s footsteps by going to nursing school.
I’d never given up on her then, and with a sinking feeling, I realised I couldn’t give up on her now. Not if there was the slightest chance she was still alive, no matter how crazy that may seem.
But first, I needed to earn some money. Izzy had worked part-time as a waitress, so we were already one income down in our little household, and although my brother would send cash if we needed it, I hated to ask. Rafael had his own life, one he didn’t share with us anymore, and he was as reliable as a politician’s promise when it came to visiting.
Did I sound bitter? Perhaps that’s because I was. When my brother split aged sixteen, I lost a quarter of my tiny family, and although I knew that deep down he still cared, pesos made a poor substitute for his presence.
You’re probably wondering about my strange living arrangements, aren’t you? What slammed the da Silva and Morales families together eleven years ago? Tragedy. It was tragedy. None of us had anybody else left, so together, we’d mo
ved from the wilds of the Amazonian region to Medellín for a fresh start in the tiny three-room home we were able to afford at the time.
Which was another reason I had to get to the bottom of what happened to Izzy. My grandma may have always been the strong, level-headed one, but when we came to the city, she was already in her sixties and confined to a wheelchair. Dores had worked like an ox to feed us all. If Izzy was out there, I owed it to Dores to find her daughter.
With that daunting thought, I boarded the Metro. I’d worked as an English tutor for five years now, with some translation work on the side. More and more US ex-pats were moving to Medellín, attracted by the good weather and low cost of living, and not all of them spoke Spanish. My boss, Juan, had started his language school to take advantage of the influx of US dollars, and I’d been one of his first recruits.
Occasionally, I ended up with a client who mistakenly thought he could buy my affections as well as my linguistic expertise, but Juan was always quick to reassign me when that happened. He passed those assholes to Rodrigo, who weighed two hundred pounds and spent his spare time wrestling. Other than those rare cases, I enjoyed my job.
Take this evening’s clients, for example. Stefan and Esther. I’d been teaching them for over a year, starting off with an intensive six-week course when they first arrived in the city, and although they still insisted on paying me, our sessions had turned into more of a social event than work. Esther made snacks or occasionally dinner, something else that didn’t help my expanding waistline one little bit. Now that Izzy was gone, Stefan and Esther were the closest thing to friends I had.
“Hey! Come on in.”
Esther gave me a hug before I could walk through the door. Stefan followed up with a kiss on each cheek, and I trailed them into the dining room, where Esther had already set out banana bread and sweet-potato cake. She loved to cook dishes from Haiti, where she was born, and she’d even started teaching me basic French Creole. Stefan, on the other hand, preferred Key lime pie and sweet tea from his home state of Florida, although Esther had once confided that his favourite recipe for pie took ages to make, so he had to earn it.
“How have you been?” Esther asked in Spanish.
Terrible. Awful. And things had only gotten worse with that phone call. But I didn’t want to cast a shadow over tonight’s lesson. As Juan always said, happy clients were repeat clients.
“Things have been okay. How was your vacation?”
They’d just got back from a month-long tour of Europe, a trip they’d been looking forward to for as long as I’d known them. A late honeymoon, Esther said. Two years late.
“Amazing! We saw Buckingham Palace and climbed the Eiffel Tower and visited the Colosseum and drank far too much schnapps in Germany.” She held out a shiny paper bag. “Here, we got you a gift.”
I unwrapped the layers of pink tissue paper and found a hair clip, silver studded with colourful gems. I’d always worn my hair long, so it was a perfect choice, and one that necessitated another hug.
“Thank you so much. Is there anything in particular you want to work on today?”
“When we were in Spain, I picked up a pile of brochures, but I’m not sure of some of the words. Can we look through them?”
“Tell her about the movie,” Stefan said.
“We watched El Secreto de sus Ojos while we were in Seville. Have you seen it?”
“I loved that movie!”
And so did Izzy. We’d watched it together a few years ago, complete with a giant platter of empanadas and Grandma’s sweet corn arepas.
“There were some parts I didn’t understand. Could we watch them together so you can help translate?”
“Of course.”
But as with so many things in life, our plans got derailed, and it was entirely my fault.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Esther asked as I sniffled for the tenth time. “Do you want a tissue?”
“I’m f-f-fine.”
What was wrong with me? I didn’t cry at movies. I barely cried at all. Even at Izzy’s funeral, I’d stayed dry-eyed while Dores wept.
Stefan looked away while Esther squashed next to me on the couch and handed me a wad of tissues.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s a sad movie.”
“But we’ve barely started watching it.” She leaned back to study me for a moment. “Cora, did something happen while we were away? Man trouble? Is your grandma okay?”
“Isabella. Izzy…died.”
Now the tears came thick and fast, and I’d never been so embarrassed in my life. Get a grip, Corazon.
“The Isabella? The girl who’s practically your sister?”
I managed to nod. They’d met Izzy when she threw me a twenty-second birthday party six months ago, and since it was a surprise, she’d just scrolled through my phone and invited everyone in my contacts list. All forty-seven people. About half turned up, although the plumber I’d hired to replace the kitchen tap last year looked kind of confused to be there.
“Ohmigosh. We only bumped into her a week before we left, didn’t we, Stefan?”
He nodded.
“What happened? I mean, sorry, you don’t have to talk about it, but sometimes it’s good to get things off your chest. When my brother died, I bottled my feelings up for ages, and looking back, it poisoned me inside.”
“If you want to talk, we’re here to listen,” Stefan said. “I think we need a bottle of wine.”
“But your lesson…”
Esther threw her arms around me. “Forget the lesson. You’re more important.”
Who else could I talk to? Not Dores, that was for sure, and I didn’t want to upset Grandma either. My brother? No way. I might have known him my whole life, but I still didn’t understand the man. Rafael was a black hole.
“She drowned,” I said. “Izzy drowned. Or so the police said.”
Today’s phone call had turned everything I thought I knew on its head.
“Where? In the Medellín River? Or a swimming pool?”
“No, in the sea. She went swimming in the sea in Puerto Velero, near Barranquilla. I don’t even know why she did that—Izzy always hated swimming because it messed with her hair and make-up.”
“People sometimes do crazy things on vacation. I hate heights, but I still climbed the Eiffel Tower.”
“But what was she even doing there? She told me she was visiting a friend in Cali, and the next thing I knew, the police were on the phone saying she was missing. A man called 123 to say he’d seen a woman in trouble in the water, and they found her clothes and purse on the beach…”
“She left her purse on the beach? What girl does that?”
“Exactly what I asked, but that’s where they found it. One of the investigators said she might have been suicidal, that it wasn’t the first time a girl had done that, but I don’t believe it. She’d been so happy during those last few weeks.”
Depression had plagued Izzy for years, a shadow that crept over her in the dark times, usually triggered by the anniversary of her father’s death or a reminder of his life. I’d encouraged—no, begged—her to get help, but as a medical professional, she always insisted she knew better and refused. I’d breathed a quiet sigh of relief this year when the anniversary passed without her sinking into her usual murky depths, only for the true horror to hit weeks later.
“She looked happy when we saw her too,” Esther said. “I figured it was down to her new boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend? What boyfriend?”
Esther and Stefan looked at each other. “The guy we saw her with. She didn’t tell you?”
No, she didn’t tell me. Not a word, and hurt pinched at my insides because Izzy had always said she could tell me anything. Last year, she’d been dating a law student from Universidad EAFIT who, let’s be honest, was a bit of a dick. She’d talked about him endlessly, and although we’d had the occasional disagreement over my assessment of his character, she’d come around to my way of thinking in the en
d. After she finally got sick of his shit, we’d spent an evening and a bottle of wine cutting every gift he’d ever given her into little pieces, then installed the whole lot in the tailpipe of his car late one evening. The blown exhaust valve served him right. He needed to learn that kissing girls who weren’t your girlfriend had consequences.
And after that episode, Izzy had sworn off men for life, which was why news of a mystery boyfriend surprised me even more.
“She never mentioned him. Are you sure he was her boyfriend?”
“That’s what she introduced him as. What was his name, Stefan? Can you remember?”
“Robert? Roger? Something like that. He was American.”
My tears receded, replaced by curiosity and confusion.
“Are you sure?” Usually, I heard about every date Izzy went on in excruciating detail.
They both nodded.
“He was definitely foreign,” Esther said. “How many Colombians have blond hair?”
“Maybe they went to Barranquilla together?” Stefan suggested. “If she didn’t want to tell you about the man for whatever reason, perhaps that’s why she said she was visiting an old friend instead?”
“I guess, but where was he when she walked into the sea?” The phone call replayed in my head again. “If she walked into the sea.”
“You don’t think she did?”
“Truthfully? I don’t know what to believe anymore.” I took a deep breath. “I swear she called me earlier.”
“Izzy?”
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
The more time passed since the phone call, the more I began to doubt myself. Right afterwards, I’d been so sure it was Izzy, but now…
“Did they find her body?”
“Part of it. Just a hand. They said…” Dammit, the tears were back. “They said it had been bitten off by something.”
“Did they take fingerprints? Do a DNA test?”
I shook my head.
“Then maybe it wasn’t her hand.”
“Her ring was definitely on one of the fingers.”
“What did she say on the phone?”
