A Blossom of Bright Light (9 page)

That was her little sister for you.

Within minutes, the homework was forgotten. Mateo, Alex, and David were talking about game one of the World Series, Christian was asking Luna what high school was like, and Dulce was asking if the Gonzalez boys had a trampoline (they did).

Señora Gonzalez returned and ordered everyone to get back to their homework. Luna asked to use the bathroom, and the señora directed her to a room with gold faucets and towels that were so perfectly straight and dry, she was afraid to wipe her hands on them, so she wiped them on her jeans instead. On her way back to the kitchen, she shot a quick glance into the living room. It had a two-story ceiling, a black leather sofa, a white rug, and a crystal chandelier. For all the beautiful furniture, the house felt vacant somehow. Luna couldn't put her finger on why, and then she did: there were no pictures or personal items. No family photos. No school art projects. Her own parents had crossed the border from Mexico with only the clothes on their backs. Her family had lost a lot of their possessions in that fire last year. And yet they still had pictures and drawings and homemade stuff all over their tiny apartment.

Luna walked back into the kitchen. The others had finished their homework already. She had a lot more than they did, but she could finish it later. Señora Gonzalez suggested the children go outside and play. Dulce was itching to try their trampoline.

Outside, Luna double-knotted Mateo's shoelaces and tucked a strand of Dulce's hair back into one of her braids.

“You take good care of your brother and sister,” said the señora as the children scampered off.

“Thank you,” said Luna, though the words sounded less like a compliment and more like an accusation.

“It always falls to the oldest girl, doesn't it?” asked the señora.

Luna cupped a hand over her eyes and stared out at the trampoline. She wasn't sure what the right response was so she said nothing.

“My mother died when I was twelve,” the señora continued. “I was the oldest girl too. So I know: the world is a cruel place when you don't have a mother to look out for you anymore.”

“My father takes good care of us.”

“Perhaps,” said Señora Gonzalez. “But he's a man. A good man, I can tell. But still a man.”

Luna wanted to defend Papi, but she quickly realized that nothing she said would help her father's situation, so she remained silent. The señora moved on to more standard topics, asking what Luna liked to do in school and how she spent her free time. Luna tried to answer, but with their lives in limbo, even the simplest conversations felt like an effort. Both of them quickly lapsed into silence, and soon the señora went back inside, leaving Luna in charge of the rest of the children.

Dulce began to tire of the trampoline. She was now up on the jungle gym with the boys. She asked them something and then ran over to Luna. “David says there's a Hula-Hoop in the garage. Can you get it?”

“Dulce!” Luna scolded. “This isn't a play date.”

“It's okay,” Christian shouted. “I told her if she wants to find it in the garage, she can play with it.”

“Can you find it for me?” Dulce pleaded. Luna could see her little sister was having a good time, so she agreed to go look.

The three-car garage was around the side of the house. The doors to the garage bays were closed, but there was a side entrance that was unlocked. Luna let herself in and flicked on a light. The Gonzalezes had a car in each bay: a Mercedes sedan, an Escalade, and a Corvette convertible. Papi had told her that Señor Gonzalez owned a chain of car washes. Luna guessed it made sense he would like cars.

Unlike the house, the garage had a certain lived-in quality to it. There were shelves of tools and canisters of paints and solvents. There were baskets full of baseballs and soccer balls and a corner taken up with bicycles and sleds. Luna didn't see a Hula-Hoop.

She wandered around until she spotted a big red hoop hanging from a high hook on the far wall. She stood on tiptoes and tried to nudge it off the hook. Her first attempt barely moved the hoop, but the second one pushed it off the hook and onto the floor. Not just the hoop, unfortunately. Too late, she saw that a carton had been resting on a plank above the hoop. It too fell down, nearly landing on her head.

Magazines, DVDs, and flash drives scattered across the cement floor. Luna prayed she hadn't broken anything. That was all Papi needed right now.

Luna turned the carton right side up and began hastily trying to shove everything back inside. The DVDs and flash drives were unlabeled. The magazines all had women on the cover dressed in their underwear in embarrassing poses. There was no way she could return the carton back to that high shelf. She wasn't tall enough. If she left the box here, someone might think she was snooping.

Luna started to fold down the cardboard flaps, hoping at least to make it appear that the box was never opened. A photograph on top of one of the magazines stopped her.

It was a snapshot of a young Latina, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with long black hair and a curvy body. She was wearing only a bathing suit top and very short bright pink shorts. She was turned away from the camera, hands on her hips, looking back over one shoulder. In this position, her shorts rode up until you could see the crack of her behind, and her butt cheeks stuck out like two loaves of whole-wheat bread. Her face was blank and glazed. Her lips, smeared in bright red lipstick, were pursed ever so slightly. There was a stiffness in her bearing, a masklike quality. The pose was not her own. Luna could see it in her dark eyes, the hint of something sad and pleading. She followed the length of the young woman's sturdy legs to the bare floor and recognized the baskets of baseballs and soccer balls behind her, the same baskets Luna saw in the garage now.

Her neck turned clammy. The garage walls felt like they were closing in. She smelled gasoline and solvents, hot tires and damp wood. Dulce was outside, calling her name, saying they were ready to leave. Luna pushed the box into a corner behind a pogo stick and sprinted out of the garage. She was the first one in the car. She lied and told Dulce she never found the Hula-Hoop. She'd never tell her what she did find. She'd never tell anyone. But she couldn't forget, either. When Luna looked in the mirror, there was no mistaking.

That girl looked an awful lot like her.

Chapter 11

V
ega had hoped to locate Dominga Flores while it was still light out. But he ended up spending the rest of the afternoon chasing down a witness in another case involving two teenage boys nicknamed Flaco and Lil and a girl named Ruby, who thought she liked Flaco, then thought she liked Lil. Now Lil was dead, Flaco was in jail, charged with his murder, and Ruby was pregnant by a different boy altogether. Hormones and handguns. Three-quarters of Vega's caseload was made up of variants on this.

He flicked on his high beams and studied the navigation system on his dashboard computer one more time. This was supposed to be Barnes Lane. There were no street signs to mark it—just stone walls and woods and pinpricks of light behind electronic gates. His suspension told him he'd left asphalt behind at least a quarter mile back. He'd already had two close calls with kamikaze deer. He wished he'd thought to use the latrine before he'd left his office. He could feel a gallon of coffee sloshing around inside of him, and he didn't dare relieve himself by the side of the road. That was all he needed—to have one of Wickford's finest catching him pissing on some Fortune 500 CEO's front lawn. He'd never live it down.

Vega had spent his teenage years just twenty minutes west of here, but he could count on one hand the number of times he'd done more than drive through Wickford, with its whitewashed storefronts and Revolutionary Era churches. Lake Holly and Wickford were almost like different countries. Lake Holly was Little League and burgers on the grill. Wickford was horse farms and sushi by the pool. When Vega and Wendy were married, she took him to a few parties out this way. The women were all blond and leggy with anorexic builds and vampire smiles. Their husbands did exotic things with money that Vega, even with his accounting degree, couldn't understand. They all golfed and played tennis and discussed the turbos on their Saabs and the titanium on their bikes. Wendy's second husband, Alan, was originally from Wickford. And a cycling fanatic. It figured.

Vega was almost ready to double back when his GPS indicated that the two stone pillars he was parked beside were the entrance to 17 Barnes Lane. A six-foot-high slatted fence enclosed the property. Through the wrought-iron gate, he saw a copse of tall pines. Up the hill from the pines, Vega saw the upper floors of a stately Tudor. Lights glowed amber through prisms of glass.

He turned down his police radio and buzzed the security intercom on a console by the front gate. A gust of wind scattered dead leaves across the Belgian block driveway. There was a total absence of other noise here in the woods. No highway noise. No road noise. Not even a jet plane overhead.

Then Vega did hear a sound. A pitter-patter like someone was throwing uncooked rice kernels across the driveway. Not rice. Nails. Animal nails.

A slash of moonlight picked up something sleek and muscular in the pines on the other side of the gate. He counted two dark forms. Pointed ears. Long snouts. A metallic glint in their ink-colored eyes.

Doberman pinschers.

They hung back in the trees, pacing like sentries. Every now and then their mouths opened and Vega saw a flash of canines. He was glad he was in his unmarked Impala with a six-foot-high gate between them.

A man's voice answered the intercom.

“If it's a package, just leave it by the entrance.”

“Sir? This is Detective James Vega with the county police. I'm looking for a Mrs. Violet Davies.”

“What's this about?”

“If I can speak to Mrs. Davies, I'd be happy to explain.”

“That's my mother. She's resting at the moment.”

“Then perhaps I can come up and speak to you.”

“Concerning?”

“A routine matter. Having to do with some unclaimed property.” That was true enough. Vega had a photo book in his car that Karen Reilly had made for Dominga. Dominga had yet to claim it. But Vega decided to leave Dominga's name out of it for the moment. It would be easier to ask about her face-to-face.

“This isn't a good time.”

“Sir?” Vega's voice got flat and steely. His cop voice. “It will only take a few minutes.” Vega had no legal grounds to compel the man to talk to him, but the threat of authority was usually enough. Cops banked on it.

“Make it quick. I have things to do.”

Vega eyed the Dobermans pacing in the trees. “I'm going to have to ask you to restrain your dogs while I'm on the premises.”

“Drive up to the circle and park. I'll put them in their pen when you get here.”

“Thank you.” Vega opened his glove compartment and retrieved some dog treats and a can of pepper spray. He tucked the treats in one pocket and the pepper spray in the other. Using lethal force on people's pets was a big no-no these days. Not that Vega ever wanted to shoot an animal anyway. But now especially, dog owners sued, and in places like Wickford they sued big. Vega was on the sergeant's list. He'd chance a bite before he'd chance doing something that would get him passed over for a promotion.

The gates slowly opened, and Vega nosed the Impala up the driveway toward a stone and stucco Tudor, probably built in the 1920s, with a slate tile roof and windows set with diamond panes of leaded glass. Beyond the glow, the lawn turned velvety, trailing off into a smudge print of woods. Vega followed the semicircle of driveway and parked in front of a three-car attached garage next to a dark green Land Rover with a dog cage in the rear compartment.

The two Dobermans raced after Vega's car and leapt at its doors, their nails clawing at the paint as they pressed their muzzles to the glass. Vega reminded himself that he had several thousand pounds of steel between him and these creatures. But still. Even the smears on the windows from their saliva felt terrifying.

A side door to the house opened and a bearded white man with glasses whistled for the dogs. They broke contact with Vega's car and ran inside. Vega counted to ten before he moved a muscle. He wasn't taking any chances. He even clipped his heavy-duty flashlight to his belt before he got out of the car. That flashlight was heavy enough to coldcock a suspect. It could certainly do the same to a dog. He left the picture book Karen Reilly had given him behind on the passenger seat. He wasn't sure how he was going to play that yet.

He walked up to the front door and rang the bell, expecting the bearded white man again. Instead, a young Latina opened the door and stood before him, head slightly bent, eyes on the floor. Vega recognized her from the picture book:
Dominga.
She had the same round face and high cheekbones, the same long, glossy black hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Except in all of Karen Reilly's pictures, she was smiling.

“Señorita Flores?”

Dominga lifted her head and tried to place his face. “I don't know you,” she whispered through chapped lips. She was wearing a loose, flowery dress, so it was hard to tell whether or not she'd had the baby. There was no baby in sight. Not even the sound of a baby.

“May I come in?”

Dominga looked over her shoulder. She was standing in a foyer paneled in rich dark beadboard. In the corner, Vega could make out the balustrade of a sweeping staircase. Somber portraits hung on the walls, the people pasty-faced and constipated-looking. Through an archway, Vega could see what appeared to be a living room. There were heavy brocade couches, a black baby grand piano, and a bay window with a stained-glass crest of a lion in the center.

The bearded man walked up behind Dominga, towering over her compact frame. Vega guessed him to be in his early fifties. He had small blue eyes behind black-framed glasses and one of those stringy comb-overs that made him look like someone had parked a loom on his head. He was thin except for a slight paunch beneath his dark blue wool sweater. He looked like a college professor. Dominga broke eye contact with Vega the moment the man entered the foyer.

“What's this all about?” he demanded.

“Just a routine matter, sir. Is it Mr
.
Davies?”

“Yes.”

“And do you live at this address?”

Davies hesitated. Vega wondered why. “On and off,” he said after a moment.

“As I said on the intercom, Mr. Davies, the county police recently recovered some property. We have reason to believe it belonged to your mother's housekeeper here.”

“
Stolen
property?”

“No, sir. Nothing of the sort.” A cop showing up and demanding to speak to a housekeeper could easily get that housekeeper fired. Vega didn't want to cost Dominga her job if she was an innocent in all of this. “This is just unclaimed property that we believe might belong to Ms. Flores. I have it in my car if she can come out and take a look.”

“Both of us will come.”

“No. That's not necessary.” Vega wondered if this guy was always so overbearing. “It will just take a minute.” Vega turned to Dominga. “You'll need a coat. It's cold outside.”

Dominga spoke to the floor. “I don't have a coat.”

Vega noticed her feet for the first time. She was wearing rubber beach sandals. His grandmother's
chancletas.
In late October. In the photo book, there were shots of Dominga playing with the children in the snow. She had a coat then. And winter boots. Didn't this young woman ever venture outdoors anymore?

“Do you have a coat she can borrow?” Vega asked Davies.

“Can't you just bring whatever it is inside?”

“I'm afraid that's impossible.” Whatever was going on here, he was unlikely to get a clear picture of it with Davies around.

Davies rummaged through a closet in the foyer until he found a shapeless brown tweed coat with a velvet collar. It had a Bergdorf Goodman label inside and looked at least twenty years out of date. Violet Davies's coat, no doubt. Davies also managed to dig up a pair of sensible black calf-length rubber boots. They were too large for Dominga's tiny feet, but she wasn't walking far.

“You're just going to your car, correct?” he asked Vega.

“Yessir. She'll be back in a few minutes.”

Dominga shuffled out of the house with her head down and her hands tucked under her arms. She didn't speak. Davies remained on the doorstep, eyeing them.

“Does he always watch you this closely?” Vega asked her in Spanish. He was betting Davies didn't speak more than a few words.

Dominga mumbled into the velvet collar.
“No quiero problemas.” I don't want any trouble.

“Trouble from him?” Vega continued in Spanish. “Or trouble from me?”

She licked her chapped lips. “Trouble from anyone.”

Vega nodded to her belly. “Have you had your baby, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Boy? Girl?”

“A boy.”

“When?”

She looked confused. “Almost three weeks ago.”

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs. Sleeping.”

“Where did you give birth to him?”

“Here.”

“In the house?”

Dominga looked over her shoulder. Davies was still standing at the doorway watching them, arms folded across his chest.

“Yes.”

“By yourself?”

“No.”

“Who helped you?”

“A woman.”

“You mean a midwife?”

“Yes, a midwife.”

“What was her name?”

Dominga hesitated. “I don't know.”

“Was she Spanish?”

“Yes. Spanish.”

Vega put on his gloves. The temperature had dropped. He could feel the cold bite right through his jacket and khaki slacks. “Why didn't you go to the hospital?”

Dominga shook her head and looked down again. She didn't answer.

“I'm asking, miss, if you or your baby have seen a doctor?”

“No.”

“No, you don't want to? Or no, he won't let you?” Vega jerked his head in Davies's direction. Davies called from the step again.

“How long is this going to take, Detective?”

Dominga shot a nervous glance at the step.

“Sir? The less you interrupt, the faster it will go.” Vega used his command voice. That usually kept civilians at bay. He turned back to Dominga.

“Are you telling me that you aren't free to leave?”

Dominga met his eyes. She looked nothing like the Dominga in Karen Reilly's photographs. The skin beneath her eyes was bruised-looking from lack of sleep. Her face was gaunt. She started to tear up. “Please, officer. I can't lose my job. I don't want to get into any trouble.”

Coño!
This was not a situation he wanted to get into tonight, either. And yet something was very wrong in this house. Even if Dominga was telling the truth and her baby was upstairs, not dead in the woods, there was still the matter of her cowed and frightened demeanor and the fact that mother and child had never seen a doctor or received proper medical attention.

First things first, however: he had to make sure the child was alive.

“Miss—if we go back into the house right now and I ask you to show me your baby, can you?”

“Of course.”

“His name is—?”

“Emilio.”

Vega popped the Impala's trunk and lifted the hood to shield him and Dominga from Davies's gaze.

“I need you to pretend you're looking at some items in the trunk of my car,” he instructed her.

“Why?”

“Because I want to give you something. And I don't want your employer watching us while I do it.”

He walked to the passenger seat and grabbed the envelope with Karen Reilly's photo book. Then he walked back to the trunk and slipped it into Dominga's hands.