My Way to Hell (16 page)

“So you understand?” Kellen asked, his voice hesitant.

“I think I do, but I am scared.”

Kellen’s nod was calming, his words caring and gentle. “It’s okay, Mrs. Ramirez. I’ll help as much as I can.”

She shook her head, obviously overwhelmed. Digging a wad of tissues out of her purse, she pressed one to her nose and sniffed. “I have to go now. The bail man, he say I have to hurry. You look out for my baby, yes? I could be gone a long time.” The worry in her eyes tore at Marcella.

“You have nothing to worry about. You go take care of Solana. Carlos and I will be just fine.”

Mrs. Ramirez hurled her portly body at Kellen, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing. “I make you enchiladas when this all done. I promise. Carlos,” she called to him where he sat in front of a drum set. “You be good boy for me, okay?” Her fond smile, so obviously riddled with worry for her grandson, melted when he nodded his consent.

Kellen kissed the top of her head and set her from him, encouraging her to go get her daughter with a gentle nudge. The bell on the door chimed, signaling her departure.

Both Kellen and Marcella breathed simultaneous sighs of relief. Mrs. Ramirez’s fear and anxiety were like a heavy weight. Her burden was clear. Her love for her family, more so.

Marcella knew that kind of love.

She knew that kind of pain.

She knew.

“Hey.” Kellen gave her shoulder a nudge with his, pulling her from her reverie. “You wanna play drums or guitar?”

Her nose wrinkled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want to play anything.”

“Wow. You’re an assload of fun,” he whispered with a wink.

“C’mon, Marcella,” Carlos coaxed. “It’s fun.” His smile, so different from the wide-eyed terror of the day before, yanked at her poor heart. A heart that wasn’t accustomed to so much use.

“Fine. But you both do know I may not be able to pick anything up, don’t you?”

“You can sing,” Kellen offered with smug satisfaction. “I even have a microphone stand. You don’t have to touch a thing.”

Carlos waited with excited expectation in his twinkling green eyes. Those eyes. There was just no resisting them. Throwing up her hands, she gave them both a mock pained look. “Okay, but just remember, I’m warning you. I sound like I’ve been dipped in acid when I sing. You’ll both be a pair of sorry, deaf men when we’re through.”

 

 

 

Kellen watched Marcella’s pert, round behind sway to the music as she lent truth to her earlier statement. She blew chunks as a vocalist. But that hadn’t stopped them from doubling over with laughter as he and Carlos razzed her about how Russia had called and asked her to stop all that caterwauling.

Out of glee-filled spite, she’d smiled that sly, seductive smile of hers, with a tilt of her lips; thrown back her head; and begun to sing even louder, leaving Carlos almost unable to play the drums due to his fits of giggles. Giggles that made Marcella, the allegedly vain, shallow demon, glow with such apparent joy, Kellen was left dry mouthed.

Her long, curly hair fell in waves down the back of her ruined dress, so enticing he wanted to drag his hands through it before securing her full lips to his in a kiss that would demand she submit. Her voluptuous curves, swishing to and fro, left him planting his guitar firmly on his lap to hide his obvious arousal.

But what had caught his attention, beyond her obvious beauty, beyond her sultry charms, was her interaction with Carlos. The connection was clear between the two as they joked and laughed when she failed a song.

This was a woman who had more facets than a diamond. The woman he’d always thought was cold, calculating, and heartless was warm, funny, and bonding with a little boy she’d known for just a few short days.

It made him want her all the more.

He wanted her so much he ached with it. Ached in places he hadn’t known existed. Last night, when her curves had been so molded to his, he’d pressed her for answers about her past mostly because he truly wanted to know who Marcella was, but also to distract himself from finishing off that trashed dress of hers by tearing it from her body.

He wanted to explore every blessed inch of her, and now, knowing she wasn’t who she’d always claimed she was made it that much harder to stay away from her.

“Fire awwwaaayyyyyy!” Marcella howled into the microphone, finishing with a curtsy when Carlos fell off his chair and pretended to pass out from her ear-bleeding screeching.

Kellen smiled when she knelt beside him and said, “Excuse me, mister. Are you making fun of my velvet pipes?” She reached out to give him a poke under his arm, failed miserably by sticking her finger right through his armpit, then giggled with abandon when they both realized she couldn’t touch him. This scene that played out right before his feet was one he’d often hoped for—maybe not with a ghost and a nine-year-old who was being hunted by demons, but similar if not as desirable. When they’d bent their heads together while Carlos explained the rules of the game, it had done something totally unexpected to his heart. Unexpected and he’d like to claim unwelcome. But he couldn’t. Damn it all, he couldn’t.

Yet, soon enough, it would all go up in a puff of smoke.

Marcella couldn’t drift here forever unless Delaney found some sort of answer. Carlos would have to go home to his grandmother and his wayward parent.

He had to get a grip. Setting the guitar aside, he rose and said, “Okay, rockers. Whaddya say we break for something to eat? Hard-core musicians need to refuel.”

“Awww.” Carlos chirped his protest. “Can’t we play just a little bit more?”

Carlos’s obvious need for any kind of attention showed in the way he preened when praised and tried harder when corrected. He was a classic case of unintentional neglect. More than likely, Mrs. Ramirez was too overwhelmed by his mother’s behavior to devote as much time to him as she’d like, and his mother’s lack of interest since her husband’s death all led to a cry to be heard. Add into the mix his father’s death, demons, and ghosts, and it made for a mess of emotions on overload.

Marcella held out her hand to Carlos and gave him a teasing grin. “C’mon. Kellen’s right. Little twerp rockers need nourishment if they hope to rock another day.”

Carlos grabbed for her hand, knowing full well he couldn’t hold it, but playing the game with her anyway. She led him into the kitchen by holding her hand out to him, then yanking it back as they laughed their way into the kitchen.

Kellen paused for a moment in the midst of their instruments’ electrical cords and discarded drumsticks, listening to the sounds of their laughter, straining his ears to catch the words Marcella spoke in Spanish.

And for the first time, he understood why his sister was so happy now.

He understood the ache she’d once described when she’d talked about children and a husband, a home. The fear she’d never have those things because of her gift. The relief he sometimes saw in her eyes when he relayed an encounter with a particularly surly ghost. He suddenly understood the soft hush to her tone when she spoke of Clyde and the love they’d fought for.

He understood.

 

 

 

Carlos dug through his backpack, pulling out his treasured army men to show Kellen while Marcella hovered, feeling far too cozy. Familial.

Really, how long did bailing someone out take? The longer the hours grew while they waited for Carlos’s grandmother to come back, the more Marcella never wanted their time together to end.

Seeing them together, Kellen listening with interest and patience to Carlos, left her wanting both to escape and to join them, all at once. When Kellen placed his large hand over Carlos’s to show him how to draw a three-dimensional box, her heart got all warm and syrupy. Carlos wasn’t at all upset or fearful of her presence. He didn’t flip a nut because she couldn’t touch him. He didn’t seem to find anything about her, besides her name, strange at all. Which led her to wonder when he’d begun to experience the afterlife.

“Hey, Marcella. Do you still hate my army men?” Carlos asked with a giggle that swelled her heart.

She rolled her eyes with intended exaggeration. “I never said I hated them, young man. I said I didn’t want to play with them. I think I’m just more of a Barbie Dream House kind of girl. Or maybe Malibu Barbie, ya know, wisenheimer?”

“Barbies are stooopid,” he chanted on a laugh, ducking his head to dig in his backpack.

“Hey”—she pointed a finger at him—“you calling me stooopid?”

Carlos shook his head immediately. “Nuh-uh. My grandma’d yell at me.”

“Hey, I’ve got a question for you, little man. You mind?” she asked, floating toward him.

Green eyes became hesitant.

But Marcella sought them, winking. “It’s no big deal. I was just wondering something, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” She kept her request easy and as though it were no big thang if he didn’t want to answer.

Relaxing back into the kitchen chair, he nodded.

“Do you know how I ended up in your room that day, bud? I was just wondering because I was thinking, if you need me, you can just call me back the way you did the first time, you know?”

Carlos gazed at her with uncertain eyes. “I don’t know how come you came to my room. I just remember I saw a picture of you in my head, and then you were in my room.”

So how in the fuck did a virtual stranger get a picture of her in his head? She and Kellen exchanged glances with questions attached to them. Kellen chucked him under the chin. “Has it been a long time since you started to see ghosts?”

He shrugged his shoulders, the blue of his sweatshirt bunching while he fidgeted. “I dunno. For a little while, I guess.”

“Do you remember who the first ghost was?” Kellen asked. “I totally remember the first one I saw. He wasn’t scary or anything. Just really loud,” he said as though he were confiding in Carlos, telling his deepest secrets.

“Yeah. I remember. It was my dad.”

Marcella fought her gasp. If she could grip the faded countertop for support, she would. Instead, she wobbled in midair. “Did he come to tell you he loved you,
chico
? I think that makes you pretty special if he did. Crazy cool.”

Carlos’s lower lip began to tremble. “I miss my dad. He played army with me. He told me he loved me, but he said other stuff, too.”

Kellen held his breath along with her. Kellen reached across the small table and ran his hand over the top of Carlos’s head. “You wanna talk about it?”

“He just said I was going to have to be a five-star general soon. I think he meant I have to be brave.”

Oh, sweet mother. “Did he say anything else?” Marcella fought for calm, to beat down the squeak in her voice.

Pulling his backpack toward him, Carlos shut down. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore. I just want to play with my stuff.” Burying his head in his backpack, he withdrew. Gone was the impish grin. Gone the squeals of delight. Back was the solemn, intimidated little boy.

Marcella’s heart shattered into a thousand sharp pieces, each shard cutting her as though it were made of glass. She swallowed hard when Kellen’s eyes once more sought hers. Silent messages passed between them.

So much baggage for such a slight set of shoulders.

Bowing her head, she fought those ridiculous tears once more. When she lifted it, a silver gleam dragged her eyes front and center. Her hands went ice-cold. Her vision blurred, then cleared, only to return with a dizzying swoop.

Calm. Calm and steady. She battled for it. Refused to be anything but, in front of Carlos.

Yet her intestines tangled in knots. Her head rang with a piercing buzz. Wave after wave of panic thrust at her with vicious jabs.

Darwin had been right.

Carlos did have the box.

Terror rose like a flood of bilious waste, sticking in her throat.

Oh, Mary, Mother of God.

He’d opened the box that contained the fetid, vile, tainted soul of her dead husband, Armando.

Once locked away seventy-six years ago.

Now?

Not so much.

Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, and fuuuck! Jamming a finger into her mouth, she fought her scream of horror.

“Marcella?” Kellen tipped his head in her direction, his concerned eyes falling on her.

She held up a hand to silently ask for a moment, turning from him and gasping for breath. Her head swam. How could Carlos have the box? It was supposed to be buried—years ago. How had he figured out how to open it? He was nine, for the love of God! She had to know where he’d gotten the box.
Who
he’d gotten it from. Shaking off the initial shock, Marcella turned back to face the pair, forcing a serene smile to her lips. “Hey, Carlos, where’d ya get the cool box?”

Holding it up, he smiled with pride. The silver interlocking sides were askew, no longer precisely aligned like they had once been. It shone, menacing and ugly. “My grandpa gave it to me. He’s in Puerto Rico visiting his cousins. But he said he gave it to me because I was sad he was leaving for a month. I unlocked it. It was really hard, like a puzzle, but I figured it out.”

Booyah for high IQs. Fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She had to try to see inside it. “You are seriously smart,” she complimented him. “Can I see inside the box?”

He twisted the top open, revealing the burgundy velvet lining and nothing else. Wrapping her arms around her waist, she bit the inside of her cheek to fight the onslaught of fury that rose like vitriol to settle in her mouth.

Kellen stood, pushing away from the table, and cornered her with eyes that held fear and hands that pinned her shoulders in a light grip. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“I can’t,” she squeaked, swallowing hard.

“It’s the box that you said your contact told you about?”