Heartless

by Alison Gaylin

  “You’re right,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “We should return to the party.” Dave moved toward the door. For a few moments, Zoe turned her attention back to the painting—to Rafael’s handsome signature, and then, for the first time, to a delicate anklet the girl wore.

  It was a thin black cross, a red stone glistening at its center.

  Zoe let out a gasp. She turned away to find the doctor watching her from the doorway. “Her name was Grace,” he whispered. “Ask Warren about her sometime.”

  By the time they were back in the studio, Rafael had already made his grand entrance. He was moving from group to group, all in white, an arm hooked possessively around Vanessa’s waist. Following a few feet behind them was Paul, smiling amiably in his Renaissance garb, as Zoe watched them from the hors d’oeuvre table, drinking another pulque, envying their relaxed smiles. Grace. Rafael loved her, painted her. Grace, who was killed the same way Jordan was. Why had Dave told Zoe to ask Warren about her?

  Grace, with that black cross at her ankle.

  Warren was about twenty feet away, a group of women— including Robin and Mariposa—clustered around him like a harem. One of them—a striking brunette Zoe had never seen before—was reading Warren’s palm, her fingertips running lightly over his hand. Zoe imagined herself walking up to Warren and asking, Who was Grace? Never was there a worse time to ask a question, but she kept thinking of that painting. She kept wanting to know.

  Zoe caught Robin’s eye. Robin smiled. Zoe gestured for her to join her, and she did, as enthusiastic as her dog. “Enjoying the party?” she said.

  “Robin,” she said, “there’s a painting in the sunroom.”

  She nodded, her smile fading.

  “Dave told me—”

  “Dave is trashed,” she said. “Don’t listen to a word he says.”

  She looked at her. “Okay, but—”

  “Seriously. He’s terrible when he’s drunk. Vicious and mean. I think he has a problem.”

  “I agree,” Zoe said. “But . . . please. I just need to know who Grace was and what Warren has to do with—”

  “Zoe. You’re new here and there’s a lot you don’t know, so I am going to tell you this now, and I need you to take it seriously.” Robin’s face was very still. Her eyes were cold, and for the first time since Zoe had met her, she looked her age. “Don’t ever, ever say her name out loud again.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it. You only get one warning.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “Warning before . . . what?”

  “That’s all any of us get,” she said. “One warning.”

  She put the smile back on and returned to Warren, and Zoe’s skin went cold. I need to get out of here. . . . But then Warren called out, “Look, Zoe!” and he pointed to Rafael, who was on the staircase alone.

  The effect of Rafael at a height was enormously powerful, and the pulque only enhanced that. His pure white clothes brought out his color. His amber eyes burned. Even the women clustered around Warren turned and stared.

  And Zoe smiled. It was a smile that didn’t belong to her— Rafael’s smile, the pulque’s smile. She looked at Warren, and he was smiling, too, and so were Robin and Mariposa and Vanessa and Paul. Even Dave, across the room, with devotion shining in his bespectacled black eyes.

  Rafael raised a glass and said, “To Las Aguas!” Everyone in the room applauded—including Zoe, her apprehension crumbling, scattering. . . .

  Steve was back at his apartment, finishing up packing when his cell phone rang. He had his iPod shoved in his ears in order to drown out the woman next door, who’d been full-on shrieking about the whore bitch for the past half hour. The sound track from T. Rex’s Born to Boogie had been blaring so loudly in Steve’s ears that at first he didn’t notice “Tommy, Can You Hear Me?” But it was clear soon enough. He yanked the buds out of his ears and grabbed his phone out of the charger and answered it without looking at the screen.

  “Steve. It’s Andy Fennimore. You at home?”

  “Yeah. Hi, Andy.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well, I’m packing, actually. I’m leaving for Mexico in the morning.”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  Steve stopped packing. “It is?”

  “I have some more information for you.” Fennimore’s voice was quiet, far-off.

  “Information? Is this about Tiffany because she already told me—”

  “It’s odd,” he said. “I’ve known Warren for ten years and . . . while I’ve always found him a bit alpha for my tastes, I certainly never thought he was a bad person. . . .”

  “Andy . . .”

  “It’s Tiffany, yes. She told me the whole story, which is . . . unbelievably strange. But, unfortunately, there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “When you showed me the list, I thought it was the same name, but I needed to make sure. I spoke to our executive producer. Turns out I was right . . .”

  “Andy, what are you talking about?”

  “The first name on Jordan Brink’s X list. Nicholas Denby.” He was quiet for a few moments. Steve could hear him breathing. “I think your friend needs to come home.”

  TWENTY

  Their SUVs formed a long caravan to Las Aguas. A dozen or so oversized vehicles packed with American baby boomers, most of them in white, driving through the night—the virtual negative of a funeral procession. Zoe traveled with Vanessa, Warren and Paul, who had wedged a large cooler into the back of the Cherokee; Zoe figured it was full of more homemade pulque.

  Warren opened all the windows and found classical guitar on the radio, and they leaned back in their seats, letting the elegant music and the warm, fragrant air spill over their skin. In the rearview mirror, Zoe saw Vanessa rest her head on Paul’s shoulder, as he smiled, thoroughly content. Zoe envied them. While the pulque and Rafael had relaxed her a good deal, there was still that gnawing feeling—like the tiny part of you that knows you’re in a dream and keeps telling you to wake up. The name echoed in her mind, Grace, Grace, Grace. . . .

  Zoe heard herself ask, “Why aren’t you allowed to say her name?”

  Paul gasped. “Dear God,” said Vanessa.

  Warren clutched the steering wheel. He closed his eyes for a second and swallowed hard, and when he opened them again, they glistened a little. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. “I saw her painting in Rafael’s sunroom,” Zoe said. “She was very beautiful.”

  Warren turned to her. His face was calm, but his eyes were wet. “She was a long time ago,” he said softly.

  “We don’t say her name for Rafael’s sake,” Vanessa said.

  “Right,” said Paul. “We sacrifice the name so she can have peace. Rafael says it’s the least we can do.”

  Warren said it again. “She was a long time ago.” He turned the music up louder and placed his hand on Zoe’s, and no one said anything for the rest of the ride.

  They arrived to everyone spilling out of their cars, walking through the parking lot toward the baths. The outdoor lights had been turned off, but the full moon made it easy to find the way. Warren helped Paul carry the cooler, while Vanessa and Zoe walked ahead.

  At first it seemed like just a continuation of Rafael’s party, Zoe wondering if she should have brought her bathing suit, casting a glance at some of the guests and grimacing at the thought that skinny-dipping might be part of the plan. But then she noticed something. . . .

  The scuff of shoes on the gravel driveway seemed to echo, and she felt as if she could hear and separate each guest’s breathing as they walked. From within the baths, she heard the shriek of Pio the hawk—and then the buzz of a passing dragonfly, like a tiny outboard motor. At first, she thought it was some strange effect from the pulque—and that might have had something to do with it. The main reason, though, was that no one was talking. Thirty people, fresh from a loud party, not a single one of them saying a word . . .

 
; “Vanessa, why—”

  Vanessa touched Zoe’s arm and put a finger to her own lips. And then Zoe got it. This is it, she thought. This is where I finally learn.

  Dave and Robin passed them. Dave was leaning against his assistant, stumbling a little. But even Dave, drunk and unruly and rude as he’d been, was quiet. Zoe glanced back at Warren. He was silent, too. But he was glaring at Dave, blades in his eyes.

  Wordlessly, the guests formed a large circle on the grassy area by the baths. Zoe glanced around at the faces—Mariposa, Guadalupe and the American counsel, Dietrich and Eva, Dave, Robin and so many others, all of them watching Warren so closely. . . . Zoe stood between Warren and Vanessa, holding their hands. Everyone in the large circle held hands. She glanced at Warren. His eyes were closed, as if in prayer.

  How different this was from the last time she and Warren had been here. No picnic. No candles. As in the parking lot, the moon was the only source of light. It spotlit the white clothes, the rocks that bordered the baths, the silver hair of some guests, and made them all radiate. If it was possible, the plants seemed fuller, their flowers brighter, the trees darker and more imposing against the light, starry sky. The grass glistened with beads of water and it looked electric.

  Pio screamed from the trees. “Sssh,” said Las Aguas’s owner, Xavier. Dressed noticeably all in black, he stood between Robin and another woman on the other side of the circle, holding their hands—a missing link in a glittering silver chain. His eyes shone.

  What is happening here?

  Zoe heard a long, clear, plaintive note. It was played on some kind of wooden flute, and then a guitar joined in, and the note turned to a melody, then one of those wistful Indian songs that made Zoe think of mountain peaks and coffee beans and magic. But where was it coming from? A jug of pulque was passed around the circle and Warren’s arm went around her waist and Vanessa’s did, too, and everyone—the whole circle—began to sway very slowly. The jug came to Zoe. She took a swallow. She found the pulque’s sweetness early this time.

  Rafael emerged from the trees, followed by the two musicians, who stayed back, still playing while he made his way to the center of the circle. Once again, Zoe’s face broke into a strange, involuntary smile.

  Then Rafael spoke—the first voice any of them had heard since they’d arrived. “My brothers and sisters.” A shudder passed through the circle. His voice resonated more powerfully than any voice in the world outside. It rode the Indian music like a wave.

  “You are here because you have been chosen.” He gazed out at the guests. “Each and every one of you is special. You have the power inside you. The shine. There is bad within you, but you all know that. It isn’t news.” He took a deep breath. “It is your type of bad, though, that makes you special—the type that turns when it’s released from the body. Your weakness can save the world. You just need to let the world take it.”

  He paused for a few moments, the words hanging in the air. From somewhere in the circle, Zoe heard a whispered “Yes.”

  “We have all been hurt before. We have been touched deeply by the cruelty of life. We have seen death close-up. Everyone here has seen death close-up.”

  A sigh. A stifled sob. Heads nodded. “Yes, yes . . .”

  “We have had the nightmares, felt the pain. We have identified the bodies. We have seen the police photos.” He glanced at Zoe. “We have heard the killer’s voice in the darkness.”

  Her eyes widened.

  Rafael’s gaze traveled around the circle. “We have ached with sorrow. We have been ruined by illness. We have watched, powerless, as those we loved more than anything in the world let go of that last, frail thread.”

  Vanessa let out a gasp. Warren’s grip tightened around Zoe’s waist. “Unable to help, unable to heal. But I am here to tell you . . .” The music stopped. “You’ve had that power all along! You can heal yourself, heal your loved ones.” He threw back his head and shouted up at the sky, his voice expanding until Zoe could feel it along the base of her skull, in the pit of her stomach, at the tips of her toes. . . . “You can heal the world.”

  Vanessa started to sob. Zoe bent down to comfort her, but she waved her off. Warren pulled Zoe closer to him. She looked at his face, and he glanced back at her, his eyes rapt, glowing. More sobs echoed around the circle. Zoe started to choke up.

  “Don’t hold your tears back,” Rafael said. “You give with your tears. We all know the feeling—that feeling of calm, the strange contentment that fills our bodies, but only after we’ve cried ourselves empty.”

  Zoe watched him, her vision blurring from tears, her head nodding on its own. Yes, yes, I know that feeling. I know it well . . .

  “That is the earth’s gratitude. It is thanking you for your tears by transforming them to good and giving you the first taste. The very first taste.”

  “Yes,” Warren whispered.

  “And now,” Rafael said, “we will give with our tears. And we will give with our voices.”

  He closed his eyes, took a few steps forward. The flute played one long, clear note. Rafael found the same note in his own voice and sang it out. Soon, the guests started to join in, their voices getting louder until they became a single entity. . . .

  Zoe’s heart thrilled to it. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was singing, too, the note coming out of her and filling her at the same time. . . . Then it became a melody and the melody became a song—a song Zoe had never heard, but somehow, she knew it.

  Rafael walked up to her, touched her face. She felt that healing energy coursing out of his skin. He stared into her eyes as she sang. The whole circle was watching her. Normally she would hate that type of attention, but now she didn’t care. She was moved—physically, emotionally, spiritually. His gaze overtook her, his touch. Zoe stopped singing.

  Rafael said, “You hate a large part of yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “You hate your curiosity.”

  She swallowed hard, stared at him.

  “You do, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I do.”

  “People will tell you that it wasn’t your fault. That the women didn’t die because of your curiosity, your questions, your deeply flattering interest in a killer. . . . But the truth is, they did. He did kill them for you. It is your fault, Zoe Greene Jacobson.”

  Zoe’s mouth went dry. Her jaw dropped. She was aware of Warren’s muscles tensing next to her. He told Rafael, told him everything. Zoe could tell he felt bad about it. He wanted to comfort her, but she didn’t want comfort.

  Rafael is right. It was my fault. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone, and no one will listen. . . . Tears sprung into her eyes, but with them came a strange relief. She didn’t want to close the door on Daryl Barclay, lock him away like one of Warren’s bad memories. She didn’t want to act as if the murders had never happened. She’d been trying for five years, and it hadn’t worked. She needed to confess. “The murders were my fault.”

  Rafael’s touch soothed her, kept the sobs back. “Yes.”

  “I killed those women.”

  “Yes, you did,” he said. He brought his face close to hers and said it softly enough so only she could hear. “But you will make it right. You will pay your debt. Tonight.”

  He stepped back from her, addressed the whole group. “We are here to get rid of the fear, to throw out the weakness, to take away that selfishness and hate and petty jealousy and passivity. We are here to throw away our morbid curiosity. We are here to cut it out of our bodies! We will feed it to the earth!”

  Vanessa gasped. Warren’s arm went rigid around Zoe’s waist.

  Zoe heard a few screams and one woman collapsed.

  “We are giving back to the earth. We are giving back to the planet. We are ripping weakness out of ourselves and recycling it to good so that the world will not end. Our loved ones will not die. We will be strong and powerful, and we will arise. Arise!”

  More gasps. And then silence, sa
ve for a rustling of heavy wings as the hawk in the trees beyond them changed perches. “Arise!” Rafael said again.

  And the group repeated it, “Arise! Arise! Arise!”

  Rafael hummed with the music. Vanessa let go of Zoe’s hand for a moment, and when Zoe turned and looked at her, Vanessa was cutting a line into the back of her own hand with the tip of a maguey spine. Vanessa groaned, and clutched her wrist and flipped the hand over, holding it, trembling over the fresh green grass. “Please, please,” Vanessa muttered. “Take the bad and turn it good. Hate to love, death to life. Please, please, please, watch over her for me. . . .”

  Zoe’s gaze shot around the circle, and she saw the people were passing maguey spines like the jug. Everyone in the circle was cutting himself. . . . She found herself staring at a tiny, elegant woman of around seventy with gleaming white hair and a diamond cross at her neck, hacking away at her wrist, crazed, as if the blood wasn’t coming fast enough. . . .

  What is going on?

  She caught sight of Robin, her head back and her eyes closed as Dave took a daggerlike maguey thorn and cut into the soft underside of her outstretched arm. Zoe saw his face, his ecstatic face, and her stomach turned. This wasn’t good. This was not good at all. She looked toward Warren. He smiled and kissed her hand. “We’re giving back,” he whispered. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Warren, I don’t like—”

  His other hand held a gleaming black knife. He sliced into her palm. It seared.

  “Stop!” She pulled her hand away and stared at it. Blood poured out of the long, deep wound. Pain shot through her arm.

  “Don’t fight it.” Warren smiled, his eyes gleaming in a way she had never seen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hawk, circling low, drawn by the smell of the spilling blood. And one word entered her mind: Prey. “You have been chosen,” said Warren. “I chose you. You are special. You are mine. Not his. You can give all of us so much. . . .”