‘I need to talk to my friend.’ Kendra’s voice overcame every doubt in her mind. ‘Please let me talk to her. Where is Kendra?’ Rena asked, looking to Leighton for the answer. In the time she’d closed her eyes, he’d aged back into himself. He was right, though. Her body was beginning to free itself from the venom’s hold.
His gaze had shifted from her to the still-shadowed space where she thought Kendra’s voice was coming from. He shook his head, and Rena imagined something secret in his eyes. The look on his face made her want to cry. In fact, she was crying. She hadn’t even known it. In fact, she didn’t know how long the tears had been running down her face. All she knew was that something horrible had happened, and she was never ever going to be the same.
Rena drifted in and out of consciousness, opening her eyes when they helped her from the wheelchair into the car, then sliding down in the back seat, barely aware of movement. She heard music as they drove, the music of voices, full of the word her, the word she. People were talking about her, whispering about her in the front seat. Leighton’s voice floated back. ‘I’m glad you had the courage to return,’ he said.
Who was he talking to? Who returned? Slow laughter followed his words. Rena forced her eyes open. There, above the back of the passenger seat, was a shiny gray-streaked ponytail. ‘Kendra?’
The laughter stopped, as if someone had snapped off a radio.
‘We’re almost there, Rena. You rest.’
The car went strangely silent, which helped her wake up and clear her head. She looked down at her foot, the small black mark the doctor had made around the red bite. Yes, she remembered the doctor with his white coat and his marking pen. She put her hands over her face. No, please don’t let her crumble. Don’t let Dale win. She could not survive another breakdown.
‘How are you feeling?’ It was Kendra’s voice now, a different voice than she’d used with Leighton, lilting and friendly.
‘I’m going to be fine.’ Rena forced herself to sit upright. ‘I’m going to be myself again, Kendra.’
The landscape around them slowly turned from black and white back into color. Mustard yellow, deep, dusky greens, brown. Snake colors. Snake country. She hadn’t been thinking right to walk through that brush with sandals on.
She could feel her strength returning. She saw Kendra and Leighton clearly now. They seemed to be sitting close together on the seats, but that was crazy. The seats were where they always were. It was just that her vision was different, watching from behind them like this. It reminded her of study hall her freshman year, how Kendra and Leighton, both seniors, sat side by side like that ahead of her, heads always close.
That was before that night she had stopped in her daddy’s pickup for Kendra. It was before she’d known them, even before she’d known Dale.
‘Dale?’ She hadn’t meant to shout, but it came out that way. ‘Does he know what happened?’
‘I called,’ Leighton said. ‘Bryn told me he got that job out of town. She doesn’t know how to reach him, so no, he has no idea what happened to you.’
‘Good. That means he’ll be gone a week.’ She looked into the rear-view mirror and caught Leighton’s solemn gaze with her own. For a moment, she thought he was judging her, but that wasn’t what his eyes reflected. He just looked sad. ‘I mean, it’s good he won’t be there to worry,’ she said.
‘And it’s good for you, too,’ Kendra cut in, with the same firm voice she had used on the doctors in the hospital. ‘You just need time to heal.’
Yes, she did. She needed lots of healing, all right.
They pulled into the drive, and Rena’s vision returned as if it had never left. There it was: her life until now, her property, thanks to her parents. It always made her think of that folk song, ‘A Penny to My Name’. Had it been five years since her mama died? A rare kind of cancer, they said, until a year ago when her daddy died of the same rare type, and the doctors stopped guessing. Much as she missed them, she knew there was nothing for her daddy here without her mama. She used to dream of a marriage like that back when she still had dreams. She used to dream of Leighton and her together.
Her parents left her the gas and convenience store, just like in the song. Like that song, she often wished she was alone with a penny to her name. The older she got, the better alone sounded, especially now, with Dale off on that job, with her life handed back to her like a gift.
Leighton and Kendra were scary silent in the front seat. As she looked out on the only thing she owned, Rena realized she didn’t really know either of these people entrusted with her care. No, that wasn’t right. Of course she knew them. They had grown up together. They had shared the best and worst of their pasts.
‘What is it?’ Kendra’s voice was high-pitched. When she swished that ponytail around to look at Rena, her eyes had an odd cast to them. Maybe it was the moonlight and its eerie glow that seemed chilling, even on this parched, hot night.
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you feeling better, Rena? Can you get out of the car if I help you?’
For a moment, she was afraid – scared to stay in the car, scared to leave it and go into that place that was hers. It didn’t look like much, with just the one little sign and the stucco front painted that fake adobe color that, in the moonlight, looked like dried blood. Her daddy had built it up, though. He’d been able to make a good life there after the cotton went bad, and she could make a good life too if Dale could help out a little more when he wasn’t on the construction jobs, and if they could just get some reliable workers.
‘Rena?’ Kendra said again.
‘Give me a minute.’
Rena felt sick. Maybe it was the medication they’d given her, although she couldn’t remember any medication, couldn’t remember anything. No, the doctor, she remembered the doctor with the black marking pen and the white jacket, the way he’d drawn on her ankle around the area where the bite was. So that they could locate it, he had said to someone, as if they needed any help locating the hideous wound the snake had left. Rena looked back at the store. It was just the way it always was this time of night, huge bugs silhouetted by the lights in front. In back, her house would still be the same, and she’d be safe there, even without Dale, maybe safer.
‘I’m ready,’ she said, to Kendra’s unreadable eyes.
‘If you’re sure. You’re not supposed to walk on that foot, so Leighton’s going to take one side, and I’ll take the other. Just keep your left leg from touching anything.’
Almost before Kendra finished speaking, Leighton had opened the car door. ‘Here,’ he said, reaching in for her. ‘Be really careful, Rena. Usually, people with bites like yours have to be hospitalized overnight. You were lucky, and we have to keep you that way.’
Rena told herself to reach up to him. If she couldn’t trust Leighton, even with these weird effects from the drugs, she couldn’t trust anyone in the world. She reminded herself that she and Leighton had loved each other once. Lately, when she caught his eye, she wondered if they still did.
But that was before today, before all of that whispering in the front seat. Maybe the anti-venom had made her paranoid, but she didn’t think so. Even now, with Leighton reaching out for her, and Kendra’s shadow behind him in the moonlight, she knew she didn’t know either one of them. Maybe they were saying the same things Dale did. Maybe they believed she had lost her mind again. Tears filled her eyes. That was ridiculous. Something to do with the venom. She had to believe in these two. If she didn’t, they’d all be lost.
‘Come on,’ Leighton said. ‘Just slide across the seat. We’ll help you the rest of the way.’
‘I’ll make some chicken noodle soup,’ Kendra said, still in shadow. ‘That’s what you need now. That and lots and lots of water. You’ve got to flush out those toxins.’
Kendra made sense. It was probably the right thing to do to just slide out of this sweltering car and get to her own bed, with or without help. She had to be careful this time. It was a sudden movemen
t that got her bit on that hill out there.
That hill.
That sparkle. That watch.
‘Wait.’ She perched on the edge of the car seat, ready to let Leighton lift her out.
‘What is it?’ Kendra answering again, not Leighton.
‘Kendra? Where are you?’
‘Right here, Rena. You know where I am.’ Warm hands folded over her cold, numb ones, and, yes, Kendra’s face appeared right beside Leighton’s. ‘Are you ready to go inside now? Do you want us to stay?’
Us?
Kendra’s widow’s peak looked like a dark arrow against her forehead. Rena turned away from it.
‘I just want to go inside, go to sleep. I don’t need either one of you.’
‘Are you sure?’ Leighton’s voice now.
‘Very sure.’ She was angry. Why was she so angry? It didn’t matter. She had to ask the question that had been burning through her since she regained consciousness. ‘Kendra?’ she began. Better to start with Kendra. She didn’t dare take on Leighton.
‘Come out first,’ Kendra coaxed. ‘Let me help you get out of here.’
She didn’t budge. ‘I’m not doing anything, not going anywhere, until you tell me the truth, Kendra. I have to ask you something, and I want you to know that I can take the answer.’
‘I’ll tell you anything, but just come on out. At least get some fresh air.’
Rena let them help her then, and Kendra was right. Rena didn’t realize how much she needed the fresh air until she stood outside the car and began gulping it in. They balanced her one on each side, human crutches, each with an arm around her.
‘That woman with the watch,’ Rena said, looking up at Kendra. ‘Right before the snake got me. Is she alive or dead?’
‘Oh, Rena,’ Kendra whispered.
And to Leighton, ‘Did you call that guy at the Sacramento radio station?’
‘I haven’t been able to reach him,’ Leighton said. ‘I gave the police his contact information, though.’
‘Police?’ Rena asked. ‘No!’ But of course she had known all along that the woman was dead. Then she stumbled, fell into the darkness. And she couldn’t be sure which one of them, if either, blocked her fall.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I couldn’t get Jerry’s tortured face out of my mind. Worse, I continued to hear his voice, twisted with guilt. The answer had been clear all along, and I would have seen it sooner if I had only known where to look. Now I had to act before I lost my courage. Before leaving for Luis Vang’s, I tried to phone Tamera again, but my call went straight to voicemail. If I didn’t reach her soon, I would book a flight to Arizona immediately.
Luis answered the doorbell moments after I rang it, as if he had been waiting for me. Maybe he had been. Perhaps he knew as well as I did that the partial truth is still a lie.
‘What a surprise,’ he said. ‘I was just leaving for work.’ His T-shirt and shorts were as immaculate as his glasses, but he looked dressed more for the tennis court than the classroom.
A racquet leaned against the wall as if confirming my suspicion.
‘School’s out today, Luis.’
‘Student teaching is different,’ he said. ‘I have some administrative work to take care of.’
‘Even if you leave, I’ll just come back.’
‘You have no right to do that,’ he said.
‘I have a right to the truth.’
‘Meaning?’ He glanced at his wrist, but I saw no watch there. ‘Come on. I have things to do.’
‘I know why Frank Vera didn’t kill Alex,’ I said.
‘You don’t know anything for sure.’
‘Alex killed himself, didn’t he?’
His sigh was as much an admission as anything he could have said. ‘Come in.’ He didn’t attempt to hide the sudden tears.
We sat at a breakfast nook that looked like a booth in a retro diner. Luis, no longer the thoughtful host, put his head in his hands. Finally, he wiped his eyes. ‘There is no point in lying.’
‘No, there’s not,’ I said. ‘My partner Farley and I have been interviewing people who went to that camp. So far, only one claimed that the cure worked, and his reason is that he doesn’t want to lose his family.’
‘Sounds like Alex,’ he said. ‘That’s why you can’t let his parents know the truth.’
‘I have to,’ I told him.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘What happened, Luis?’
‘I thought we were broken up, but once he came back, we got together again.’ He turned away from me and stared out the window. ‘That’s when he … when it happened. His sister.’
‘Carla found you together again?’
He nodded. ‘She must have been following us or had us followed. She told Alex he was sick, a pervert, and that she would make sure he got sent back to that place. They would try every cure, she said, as many times as it took.’
I stood up and looked out the window of this peaceful home in this neighborhood of tradition. The trees, most of which had arrived long before the safe structures of Tudors and bungalows, canopied over the rooftops, as if to say no storm could touch the homes for long. Yet harm had come to this neighborhood. Alex Brantingham had killed himself. And his family, maybe others in his community, seemed content to let Frank Vera take the blame.
‘It’s time to come forward.’ I put out my hand to Luis. ‘You’ve got to tell the truth.’
‘But my parents!’ he said. ‘My dad is from Vietnam. My mom is Mexican. Can you imagine how many ways Carla will ruin their lives?’
‘She can’t have that much power.’
‘She’s managed to keep even me quiet all this time.’
‘Not entirely quiet. Now you can do more than make anonymous calls, Luis. And you might be able to help other people like Jerry. He really believes the so-called treatment failed because there’s something wrong with him.’
‘I thought Jerry came out thinking he had been helped. I heard he was dating some woman he works with.’
‘He did whatever he thought he should. Did you know they wrapped Alex and Jerry in wet sheets in that place? Did you know they let those sheets dry around them so that he could learn control over what they thought were unnatural impulses?’
‘I never knew.’ Luis reached across the table for my hand. ‘Now I have a better understanding of why Alex did what he did. Thank you.’
‘They destroyed him,’ I said. ‘Now, if you are able, I would like you to help me tell the truth about that.’
‘I’ll need time.’ He reminded me of myself, always putting off that uncomfortable, maybe life-changing decision.
‘Take as much as you need.’ Yet the conviction in his voice encouraged me. ‘I do have a favor to ask,’ I said.
‘You’re full of favors.’
‘This isn’t for me, and it is important.’
‘Important like your next story?’
‘You know better than that.’ I pulled back so that we were eye-to-eye in the booth. ‘Life-and-death important.’
‘How?’
‘Jerry’s in trouble. He was kidnapped by family members and sent to that place the way I’m sure Alex was. He’s despondent and miserable.’
Finally, Luis seemed to hear me.
‘Does Jerry have the same contact information as before?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘Right now, he sounds as desperate as Alex must have been. Help him if you can.’
I left Luis, convinced that he would reach out to Jerry, and that maybe by coming forward, he and Jerry would help many more people in similar situations. Now I had to deal with my own family secret. I waited until Richard’s office was closed. I knew he would be there. He always was. Once we were face to face, I would make him tell me the truth about how he had known I hadn’t been officially adopted. Just as important, I wanted to know why he hadn’t told me any of this while we were together.
Trish Stevenson’s Harley was parked outside McCarthy & Stevenson
Animal Hospital. She came out just as I arrived and gave me a hug. She had as much energy as the animals she loved, and she was the perfect business partner for Richard. Since I had seen her last, she had spiked her short blond hair.
‘Oh, Kit,’ she squealed. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, babe.’
Her glow was natural, a combination of genetically blessed skin and a level of activity that always kept color in her cheeks.
I returned the hug, and then backed away. ‘I’m just visiting, Trish,’ I said, unsure how else to make her understand.
‘Oh. Got it.’ She scowled and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. ‘I mean, I’m sorry. You know how much I love you and Richard.’
‘It’s good to see you,’ I told her. ‘There’s no reason you and I can’t still be in touch, you know.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We’ll do that. I was so sorry to hear about your mom, Kit.’ Her face turned red. ‘I mean, about Elaine. She was a good person.’
‘Yes, she was.’ I couldn’t say more.
I watched Trish jump on the Harley and took a moment to compose myself before going inside.
The hospital hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been there, the day Richard had let me know our marriage was over. I walked through the entrance, where an elegant Grecian-looking stone tile sign was painted with the word ‘Cats’. On the other side of the building was an identical entrance and a sign that read ‘Dogs’. Richard and Trish had taken a risk when they’d moved their practice into this pricey shopping center in an upscale community, but it had paid off. Richard liked to brag that, for the first time since he was in college at Davis, California, he was as busy as he wanted to be, which was very busy.
As I stepped into the front office, Chantelle, a former stray and one of two office cats, jumped on to a pillar that was used to hold sign-in information.
‘Hey, there,’ I said, and stroked her mottled fur. ‘You’re getting to be quite the fat little princess cat, aren’t you?’
‘Hello, Kit.’ Richard came into the room. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
‘You have?’
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