On Tenterhooks (11 page)

“
Señorita
,” said Captain
De Hoyos
, “p
lease try to understand
me to what I am saying to you
.
We are not in the habit of making such
calls
as these without b
eing sure of facts. I question
the dive
profesor
a
myself
.
Sh
e
was most
assured
to
me that this was
Se
ñ
ora
Ryder’s first
time
to
Mexico
and she had only just received her
diploma
for
the
open-water diving
.
In fact,
la
profesor
a
knew her story very well
.
Sh
e say she
spent the entire time o
f
the boat ride to the reef
telling
to
her
how much
it might
mean to you that
she was learning to dive.”

Veronica
felt her throat constricting
.

“Ms. Ryder? Are you not an avid diver as your mother described
you
to the
professora
?” asked Commander
De Hoyos
.

“What?”
Veronica
asked.
“Yes, yes, I am
.
But
, but
I
didn’t know she was doing this. H
ow did she
. . .
?”

“Si,” said De Hoyos. “After hearing from the professora about the events that were occurring, the
medico forense, um
. . .
the coroner
. . .
believes that
Señora
was attacked by her heart while diving
.
The professor
a
say sh
e
turned to help another student
. Your madre, she
lose her breathing machine out of her mouth
,
and she was passed before the
professora could revive her
.
They
brought
your mother
to
the
boat and tried to revive her
,
but it did not work.
In less than several minutos
,
she was gone
.
I am
very, very sorry for your loss, Señorita
.”

Veronica
did not respond
.
De Hoyos paused on the line
for a
moment before continuing.

“We would prefer to have someone come
here to Cozumel
to collect your mother and return her to the
Estados Unidos
,”
said
De Hoyos
.
“It would be
well
if you could come, soon.”

“Is the investigation closed?” asked
Veronica
.
“
I mean
,
it’
s already over?”

“Si” said De Hoyos. “We pride ourselves on
la
Isla
de Cozumel
with being a safe place for Americanos to travel
.
Your mother’s passing is only the second muert
e
of the year
.
T
his is such a rare thing that
mi
Capitano asked that I contact you
rapido
to ask you to arrive. There is nothing more to do for the policia.”

“Yes,” said
Veronica
. “I will be there tomorrow morning.”

“Si,” said
De Hoyos
, “t
hat is
bueno
. When you arrive you can reach me at
. . .
”

And that had been how her mother had left the world behind
, with n
o chance for goodbyes or healing the rift
.
It had been sudden and definitive
.
Veronica
’s father had died decades ago
,
and her older sister
,
Louise
,
had never left Elysburg in her life, so it had to be
Veronica
who flew to Mexico the
next
day
. That had begun
a horrible
two-week
odyssey to retrieve
the body
, bring
it
back to the United States, deliver
it
to Pennsylvania and coordinate the funeral arrangements
.

“I still don’t know what got it into her head to go to Mexico
,
of all places,” Louise had
insisted
.
“And she wouldn’t let
anybody
go with her
,
either
.
Said it was something she had to do. I think maybe she wanted to impress you or something
. . .”

Veronica
never told her sister that
t
he
i
r mother had died SCUBA diving
.
Instead, she
talked about a peaceful death
in her sleep at the resort where she was staying
.
Yes, it was a lie
.
But only a small one, designed to keep the family
at
peace instead of
breaking
it into pieces.
Veronica
was
certain
Louise blamed her for their
mo
ther’s death,
even if she refused to admit it.
The barrier between them only grew stronger
,
as
Veronica
took charge of all the details with a business-like attitude that
left
little room for debate
.

Veronica
wished
that
the entire process
had been more emotional, more organic
.
But she had already mastered a rigid “no-emotion” demeanor from years of experience in the corporate world
.
Carrying this over into the details of a burial, writing the
obituary
herself
,
and selecting the flowers for the funeral
without discussion
came much easier tha
n
she had expected
.
Moreover
,
it had worked
.
She had gotten
through it
all
without a breakdown
—
her own
or anyone else’s
.

The
vibration on her
smartphone
broke her reverie and
brought her back to the present
.

She
gave the subject lines a cursory glance
.
Since she didn’t need a new mortgage rate
,
and she didn’t have any interest in learning how to
“
increase the length of her
manhood,” most
of them went straight to the trash
.
She
scanned
the legitimate ones
and decided they could wait
.
As she perused,
her computer dinged again with
the familiar chime
alerting her to a new message. T
he Subject line caught her eye:

Veronica
-Thought This Would Help You

It was addressed to her and her alone in the “To” field
,
and the
“From”
field was filled with a generic
[email protected]
that told
her it was an automated message
.
She read on.

Say Goodbye One Last Time

Do you miss a loved one?  Did someone you care about die without any warning?  We know that pain
—
we’ve experienced it ourselves
. . .
 

She stopped reading
.
L
ike an opportunity to increase her credit score or decrease her waist size, this was SPAM
.
Although the ironic timing of its arrival wasn’t lost on
her, she deleted the message and shut down her computer.

“And on that lovely not
e, friends
,
we go home.”

She took her briefcase of
f
the credenza, turned off her lamps and left the office, shutting the door behind her.

Chapter
1
4

It never failed
.
As soon as Sharon sat down at her desk to eat lunch, the office door opened
.
She
sighed and put the
massive broiled beef burger
back in its box, wiping
the ketchup
off
her face
.
She
carefully
brushed
the crumbs
off
her ample lap
before standing up to
waddl
e
around her desk and out to the reception area.

“May I help you?”
she
asked the man standing at the office counter.

“Yes, I am seeking the child,” he responded, smiling.

Judging from his dress and the
Bible
clutched in his hand,
she
assumed he was a pastor of some sort. She had no
t seen him at the school before, and Sharon was the type to make it her business to know everyone and everything that went on at the school
.
Being the receptionist in the front office helped her
in this mission
.

“Sir, this is a high school. There are lots of children here,” Sharon replied
, using her best patronizing-while
-
being-polite tone
. “You’ll have to be more specific. And do you have some sort of appointment or
identification
?”

“I have the only authorization
that is
truly needed
,
my child: that of my Lord,” he said, with a toothy smile.

Sharon judged him to be around her age and
,
Man of God or not, calling her child was enough to move her beyond polite
inquisitor
to authoritative enforcer.

“Yes, well, I am sorry,” she said
.
“I am all about how the Lord is wonderful
and all that
, but without a parent’s written permission, you cannot simply walk into this school and expect to see one of our students.”

“
I desir
e
to see
Abby Nikko.”

“O
h,” said Sharon,
tone softening
, “y
es, well
that makes sense
I suppose
.
But you
still
need
to have her parents’ permission.”

She
pulled up the student records database and looked for
a
message from Abby’s parents.
“I’m sorry,
but I can’t find anything authorizing
a visitor
.
Would you like me to call them and verify it over the phone? We don’t usually do that
,
but with all that’s happen
ed
to that poor
family
, we can make an exception
.”

Preacher’s free hand closed over hers
,
as she picked up the
handset
. His ha
n
d
felt
like ice.
On any other day, Sharon w
ould have been
grateful for the lunch hour in the office, alone to eat her lunch and peruse confidential student files or play online
poker
.
But now, in this moment,
she
felt alone and vulnerable.

“No, child,” he said,
smiling,
“t
hat will not be necessary.” He placed his Bible on the counter and tapped a long curved finger on the plate of his oversized digital wristwatch. “I’ve got all the time in the world. Do you?” He flashed
her
a
toothy smile and flicked his tongue across his thin upper lip.

He pushed the
phone down
, and
softly squeezed her
plump
hand before letting it go
.
She felt the gooseflesh
gallop up her arm
to
the shoulder
, seemingly giving birth to
a pain in the joints of her elbow and shoulder.
S
he suppressed an involuntary
shudder
, as he
picked his Bible up,
backed away and opened the door to the hallway.

W
ithout another word, he
was gone
.
Sharon began crying
suddenly
,
as she tried to rub
the warmth back into her hand
and arm
.
She peered through the glass and watched him walk
purposefully
toward the
main
entrance
.
She moved to the front do
or of the school
to see him
continue
across the school grounds
, making sure to stay
until he was out of sight.

She could feel her heart tight in her chest
, and
tried to slow it down by taking deep breaths.
As she
walked back across the hall,
she
stopp
ed
at the bathroom
to
splash
her face with cool water. She
had a sudden urge to scrub her hand
, hard
.