Jeanne Stein - Haunted

An idea blossoms. “Has she eaten?”

“She will. When we’ve finished, I’ll take her a plate.”

I push myself up from the bench. “No. Let me relieve her. I’m not hungry and I’m sure she wants to be with her father.”

Ramon looks startled but grateful. “Are you sure? You haven’t eaten—”

“I’m sure. Is she just upstairs, in the cabin?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go now. Send her right back to join you.”

I’m at the door when Culebra’s sardonic voice sounds off in my head. Nice save.

Ramon has crossed to open the door, and I step past him, releasing a sigh of relief when the door closes again behind me. Nice save indeed. You’d think I’d be used to dealing with humans forcing food on me, but it never gets any easier.

At the top of the stairs, I find Gabriella seated cross-legged on the floor of the shack, a laptop balanced on her knees. She has an iPod in her hand and earbuds in her ears. I can hear the beat of a rap song. It’s loud enough that a tank could pull up in front of the cabin and fire off a shot before she’d hear it.

That’s the way she’s standing watch?

It’s my first thought until I see that her eyes are on the screen and projected there are four views of the grounds around, and leading to, the cabin.

She looks up in surprise when I appear from the subterranean stairway, and pulls the buds from her ears. “What are you doing here?”

I point to the laptop. “Nice setup. I didn’t see one camera when we arrived, let alone four.”

She smiles. “The best security system money can buy.”

“Your English is as good as your mother’s,” I say.

She shrugs. “I go to school in the U.S. My mom and I spend a lot of time there.” There’s a pause while she seems to reconsider what she’s just said. “At least we used to.”

I point to the laptop. “I’m here to relieve you. I’ll keep watch. You can join your family.”

But she makes no move to get up. Her face is both youthful and mature—her smooth skin and wide eyes speak of her young years but the sadness dimming those eyes and the worry lines already forming around her mouth make her seem older, life-worn. I’ve seen the look before.

“I know about your brother. I’m sorry,” I say.

She frowns. “My father told you?”

“It’s why we’re here.”

She sniffs. “Then you’ve come on a fool’s errand. It’s too late for my brother.”

“But not for you. We’re going to make sure you and your mother are safe. That the men responsible for your brother’s death are punished.”

This time she laughs. “Well, that shouldn’t be hard, should it? Seeing as how the one responsible is the one you came with.”

Her bitterness is scathing. She can’t mean Max; she couldn’t know about him. She thinks Culebra had something to do with her brother’s death? “You are mistaken. Cule—” I stop myself. “Tomás is a friend here to help.”

“Tomás?” Her eyebrows arch in surprise. “I’m not talking about Tomás. I’m talking about my father.”

“MY FATHER IS THE REASON MY MOTHER AND I are living like animals in a cage.” Gabriella turns away from me, looks out through the ruined doorway. “He is the reason my brother killed himself. Antonio could never be what my father pushed him to be. That last outrage was the breaking point. My father wanted him to fight back against the bullies tormenting him. When he wouldn’t, my father made it clear he thought Antonio a disgrace, a weakling. And then he took matters into his own hands.”

I’m trying to reconcile the story she is telling with the one her father told us. According to Ramon, Antonio never told anyone what happened to him. “Did your brother talk to you about what had been done to him? It sounds like you knew what happened to Antonio before you read his note?”

“What note?”

I stop, take a mental step back. Perhaps Gabriella didn’t know about the note. Ramon may have wanted to protect his daughter from the truth about the details of Antonio’s rape. I certainly have no intention of being the one to break it to her.

“I may have misunderstood. It’s not important anyway. What is important is that we’re going to make sure you and your mother are safe.”

Gabriella shakes her head and hands me the laptop. “Good luck with that,” she says, standing up. “My father is a hard-ass narco. If he can’t protect us, what chance do you think you have?”

She starts for the stairway, then stops, looking back at me. “I’m going to get something to eat. My mother loves to cook. At home, we have someone who cooks for us. I think she actually likes being here because she feels like she’s taking care of us again. Oh well. At least if we die, she’ll die happy.” She’s winding the cord for the earbuds around her iPod and when she’s done, she stuffs the thing into her jeans. “Don’t mention the iPod, okay? My father is paranoid. He thinks any electronic device can be bugged.”

I nod that her secret is safe. She takes a step toward the stairway.

“Gabriella?”

She stops again and turns around.

“You seemed really happy to see your father an hour ago. What’s changed?”

“I thought he came back to take us home. He hasn’t. Another promise broken.”

I raise my eyebrows and shake my head.

Her footsteps echo on the steps and then I hear the soft swish as the door opens into the living area. I’ve pushed the lever that returns the table to its position in the middle of the cabin and perch myself on the edge.

Gabriella’s cynicism lingers in my head. I’ve often wondered how the members of a gangster’s family square their lifestyle with the means by which it’s obtained. I have no idea how Ramon’s family lived before but if this hideaway is any indication, they must have had it pretty good. Gabriella is obviously well educated. Her teeth and skin flawless. Before they went into hiding, did she ever give a second thought to the bloodshed going on around her? Or was she immune because of who she was—or more precisely, because of who her father was?

That didn’t save her brother, though, did it? Even a hard-ass narco answers to somebody.

A click and a whirring sound emanate from beneath the table as the mechanism hums again to life. I jump away just as the table tilts inward, exposing the stairway.

Max trudges into view. He’s holding a plate brimming with tortillas, beans, meat and vegetables. More importantly, he’s carrying two bottles of Dos Equis. We set the table upright again and take seats slouching against the wall facing the door. I balance the laptop on my knees while Max balances his plate on his.

Max hands me one of the beers. “Brought you some food. Maria insisted. But I guess you can’t eat it, can you? Guess I’ll have to take care of it. Wouldn’t want Maria to think you didn’t like her cooking any more than you liked her taste in clothes.”

I punch his arm. “Nice going in there. They think I’m gay. In a good Catholic country like Mexico, I’m sure they feel real comfortable around me now.”

“More comfortable than they’d be if they knew what you really are?” He’s shoveling meat and beans into a tortilla.

“Didn’t you eat downstairs?” I ask. The smell makes my mouth water.

He takes a huge bite. My eyes trail the path from plate to mouth like a dog panting for table scraps.

“Yep. But damn, this is good. Maria is one hell of a cook.”

Great. I let him eat, finding a little consolation in my beer. After a moment, I ask, “What are they talking about?”

“Downstairs? Nothing important. Family stuff.”

“So what happens now? When do we go after Santiago?”