Tangled Thoughts (34 page)

“I feel like I've been in this car forever!” Tessa fanned her face as we herked and jerked toward the event. If only Uncle Dan were president already, we'd have had a police escort to speed up the tri
p. “Funny how quickly you forget the awful things about home—like the traffic—when you move away for a few years.”

“How long is it now?” Alexis asked. She sipped the champagne she'd found chilling next to her seat, another thing just like the Winter Ball. Except her glass was real crystal and the vintage was fine. “Until the baby, I mean.”

Tessa smoothed her hand over her bump again. “Oh, about 56 days, but who's counting, right?” We all laughed. “So around eight weeks,” she said, “give or take. The home stretch. My doctor thinks I might go a little early.”

“Is that bad?” Alexis asked.

“Not as far as I'm concerned!” Tessa said. “I look forward to being able to eat again. Anything I manage to keep down goes straight to the little guy.” She was joking, but she
did
look thin. Her arms were skinnier than I remembered them. Pregnant women were supposed to
gain
weight, I thought.

Before I could ask a probably stupid question, the divider slid down and John's voice drifted through. “All right, folks. Rolling up to the show at last. One more turn and it's go time.”

Spotlights drifted back and forth across the darkening sky, a sure indication we were finally close. Idling limos crammed the side streets, their drivers clustered in groups, enjoying the warm night. And then we turned the corner and the limo slid to a halt. Manny opened our door with a flourish.

“About time,” I heard him quip as my uncle led Tessa into the melee.

Stepping out of the limo was the closest I'd ever felt to a celebrity. I'd been on TV, was occasionally recognized in public, but that was nothing. Dozens of spotlights glanced off the imposing white stone building hosting this year's jazz-themed event, creating peek-a-boo
shadows with the thick columns that lined the front. Cameras popped and flashed. Voices shouted, sometimes even my name.

The red carpet, plusher than I expected, was dotted with men in black and women in the entire spectrum of colors, looking disconcertingly like pretty flowers floating up a river of blood. Jazz musicians drifted through the crowd, chased by dancers in costume, doing ballet versions of Foxtrots or Charlestons, or some other dances I had no idea the names of. I turned and extended my hand to help Lex out of the limo. It felt gentlemanly, and looked good for those watching.

The atmosphere was unbelievable, the kind of thing Lex was born to attend but usually made me feel like a fraud. But not tonight. I looked the part, and I
felt
it. Maybe Sam was right, and the clothes made the man. Maybe I was still riding the adrenaline of the shooting range. Hell, maybe I was just hungry and had become delusional. Whatever it was, it felt good. Like good things could happen. I breathed it in and let it carry me forward.

Up ahead, Uncle had one hand free for shaking and one on Tessa's waist, guiding her along as she smiled and waved. She stood out, in a dress red as a raspberry that hugged her pregnant belly, like a cupcake or a Christmas present. I made sure to stay only a few feet away, as promised. Martin was here too, just in front of them, his smile as bright as the spotlights.

Uncle Dan caught my eye and inclined his chin as if to say
I told you you'd enjoy this
. I nodded back, because he was right. I was. I put my arm around Alexis's shoulder and stopped, taking it all in. I truly couldn't believe I was here.

And then I blinked and it all changed.

RAT TAT TAT
.

For one moment, silence fell on the crowd like a blanket smothering flames. It could almost have been applause, or part of the music. But I knew the sound of a gun.

I'd fired one just like it that afternoon.

RAT TAT TAT RAT TAT TAT

Shots echoed over the ground.

I blinked again and the entire world erupted into screaming. Instinctively, I dove on top of Alexis. Beneath me, she screamed, adding her voice to the other screams filling the night. Feet pounded in every direction, shaking the ground.

“
STAY DOWN
!” John shouted as he sprinted past us. The lucky MP5 was already in his hands.

“It's okay,” I could hear myself repeating to Lex, which was ridiculous, because we could be dead at any moment. My body screamed at me to
do something
, but I couldn't leave her.

I raised my head until I could see Uncle Dan and Tessa buried under someone's broad shoulders. The edge of Tessa's red dress peeked from the bottom of the pile and flapped in the breeze of rushing feet. Just past them was Martin, his face contorted in pain.
Oh, God
.

Manny stood over them, waving his hands toward the side of the building. It was yards away, but I could just make out someone holding up a machine gun, ready to shoot again or—

BANG BANG Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang

Guns fired, closer now, and I hugged Alexis as tight as I could, praying her screams wouldn't be the last thing I ever heard.

And then it was done. The noise changed, the running feet shifted directions. Tangles of limbs and chiffon unfurled into people. A few seconds from the first shots until now. That was it.

“
GO, GO
!” Manny was shouting. “
LIMO, NOW
!”

I hauled Alexis to her feet but I couldn't move, not until I saw that my uncle was okay. John and the other agent were pulling him up, practically carrying him off Tessa and back the way we'd come. Someone was helping Martin stand, thank God. One arm was clutched to his to his chest.

People with cameras and professionally concerned voices pressed around us. Alexis tugged me toward the cars screaming back up to the curb.

“Carter, c'mon!
Please
!” she pleaded.

But I still couldn't move.

Because Tessa was still on the ground. She was screaming. Screaming and screaming, a sinister stain darkening the bright red of her dress and pooling around her.

I was wrong. The carpet wasn't the color of blood at all.

“
TESSA! NO!
” my uncle screamed even as John lifted all six foot five inches of him off the ground and dragged him toward the limo. “
NO!”
My uncle was still screaming. “This can't have happened, this wasn't meant to hap—”

The car door slammed and tires peeled away, louder even than the gunfire. Tessa's cry rose over the noise and I sprinted to her, shoving through the growing crowd of people.

“
TESSA!
” I landed hard on my knees next to her.

She looked at me, face the color of a chalk outline and arms clutched to her abdomen. Her breaths were quick rasps.

“The baby,” she gasped out. “Carter,
the baby
!”

And then she screamed again, gripped by another contraction.

Lainey

A
llen Jacob Fernando Astor Espinosa had a name longer than he was and would never have the chance to grow into it. He was buried on a day so clear and beautiful it was painful even to open your eyes.

I stood apart from the others in the cemetery, alone, or almost. My parents' grave stood before me, looking more cheerful than it had any right to in the bright sun. Fresh flowers surrounded the heavy stone, complementing the soft rose color of the marble. My mother had been so bright and beautiful, Aunt Tessa had once told me, she couldn't stand the idea of her spending the rest of forever under a drab gray piece of rock. So pink it was. My brother's stone would be white.

Even with my dark sunglasses, I had to shade my eyes with my hand so I could read their names. Allen, my brother's namesake, was on the left. My mother was on the right. I wanted to kneel down, to trace the letters, to be closer to them, but I knew if I did that, I wouldn't have the energy to get back up. And it wouldn't matter anyway. They weren't really here, except for their bones and their memory.

“Take care of him, mom,” I whispered, knowing wherever they were, she would. She already was. I'd never spent much time thinking about the afterlife. Before today, I wasn't sure I even believed in one. But now? How could I not. There had to be
something
more for my brother than a few measly hours.

I kissed my fingertips and pressed them to the cold top of my parents' stone before I turned back toward the others, arranged in a loose line before the too-small hole in the ground. Family only had been invited. My grandparents, Uncle Tommy, and Uncle Martin on our side. Abuela wept openly, as she had nearly every moment since she'd arrived. I wondered if she'd ever stop.

My aunt was in the middle, looking absurdly small in her black wool coat without her pregnant belly rounding the front or joy rounding her cheeks. Her skin was the color of wheat flower and her usually proud shoulders sagged under the burden of burying her baby. Why the hell didn't we have chairs? Aunt Tessa had just had an emergency cesarean, had just lost her
child
. She shouldn't be forced to stand through this. Despite that Dan was by her side, his hand on her back, she seemed alone in the world. We looked like piano keys that had gotten all mixed up, the tall and pale ones standing straight on one side, and the smaller, dark, passionate notes leaning against each other on the left.

Next to her son, Evelyn Revell stood stoically, but I could see how tightly her fingers gripped her handkerchief. Jillian's arm was looped through her grandmother's. Jeff Revell stood to her right, as straight and tall as ever, and then, on the end, was Carter. My eyes skimmed over his broad shoulders, stiff with tension, and glanced off his hair, glinting in the sun. I avoided looking at him directly, even from the back, because it just hurt too much.

Grief and rage performed a brutal dance in my chest, trampling the spaces around my heart that had just been starting to mend. The
unfairness washed over me in waves, and I wondered if I ever had the chance to confront the person who did this, could I kill him? Would I? Except I'd never really know the answer, because he was already dead. The part of me that wanted to
do
something, anything, seethed at this.

The rest of me wondered if
I
was to blame.
I'd
been meant to die; I'd seen it myself. Was
this
my payment for thwarting fate? I didn't really know how it worked, fate. Maybe it didn't appreciate my meddling. Or maybe death simply required an even exchange. Had I traded
my
life for my brother's? If that was true, would Aunt Tessa ever forgive me? Could I ever forgive myself?

My aunt turned her head in my direction, almost as if my thoughts had drawn her attention. Over her shoulder, the priest looked at me too, and I knew it was past time to begin. I started the walk back to join them, slower than I should have. An acre of flower arrangements surrounded our gathering, all white and pastel, like we were at a baby shower gone far awry. I wavered, wanting to go to my aunt, to offer her comfort, but not knowing how. I took the spot on the end, next to Uncle Tommy, instead. As soon as I stepped into line, the priest began the ceremony. He said things, about death and life and resurrection, but I didn't really hear them. I couldn't stop looking at my brother.

It didn't seem possible for a coffin to be so small. It looked like a macabre toy, a salesman's portable demo. How could this fancy little box be the place where my brother would spend eternity? He hadn't even lived.

And then it was over and the little toy box was lowered into the ground, showered with dirt and flowers from our own hands. My brother was buried and we were all still here. We were supposed to go to lunch because even though the worst thing in the world had just happened, we still had to do things like eat.

Everyone was hugging and crying again before we left. My grandparents hugged me, and Uncle Martin, Evelyn, Uncle Tommy,
everyone. Did they all say things to me? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if I hugged any of them back. All I knew was I couldn't move.

If I moved this would be real.

“Lainey.” His voice was so soft. I blinked.

What was wrong with me that I thought about how good he looked? Even with red eyes and somberness sitting on him heavier than his long wool coat. The coat was unbuttoned, despite the cold, and his gray shirt competed with the bright blue of the sky to make his eyes look like a stormy Caribbean Sea. Cut short like it was, Carter's hair looked darker, like burnt caramel, but the bright sunshine lit up the golden bits.

He'd been there the whole time, only a few people away, but it might as well have been miles. We were so far apart now. But then here he was, right in front of me, and it was like something snapped with a twang in my chest.

“Carter—” I started, but even I didn't know what else I meant to say. The tears I'd held in so tightly burst from my eyes and I crumpled into his arms.

Carter

T
here was no funeral. Tessa, bless her, had refused anything but the committal ceremony where we all now stood. I fucking hated funerals. When you've been attending them literally since your birth that tended to happen. I felt like I'd spent half my lifetime saying goodbye, putting people I loved in the ground.

Today, it was my Godson.

People sometimes said
you can't miss what you never had
, but that was a lie. I was about to watch them bury the boy who was the closest I'd ever come to having a brother and I already missed him. I missed the chance to hold him, watch him grow, teach him to play soccer and ice skate. I missed that he was something Lainey and I would have shared, when otherwise it felt like the entire world was between us.

I could feel her behind us now, watching from the nearby grave that was surrounded in almost as many flowers as this one. I assumed it was her parents'. After we'd unloaded from the limos, she'd marched straight past the open grave to that one, like she had an appointment.
She hadn't met my eyes once yet, and I wondered if she would. And if she did, what it would feel like.