Vivian Divine Is Dead (11 page)

Chapter Fifteen

S
IX MONTHS AGO?
S
HOCK SHOOTS
through me, catching all my nerves on fire. Her niece disappeared out here, in the middle of nowhere? At the same time my mom was killed?

“Would you like to see Paloma?” she asks. I nod, and then I follow Isabel through the black sheet into a room glowing with candlelight. A towering altar of wooden crates is covered with pictures of Mexican movie stars torn out of magazines, cracked plastic cases of eye shadow, and a giant weaving of a smiling teenage girl.

“Meet Paloma,” she says, pointing to the weaving.

Paloma’s so—beautiful. Her skin is a glistening bronze, and she has these irresistible pouty lips and short, shiny black hair.
She should have been in movies.

“A couple of years ago, when my sister left Paloma with me, I thought she would return for her,” Isabel says. “My sister’s work usually kept her away for a few months at a time, but that time . . . she just never came home.”

“She wasn’t a weaver?”

Isabel shakes her head. “Aurora worked for Marcos, a very important man in this community. He owns the businesses, the land, the cemetery and funeral homes, everything. He even puts on charity events in the church, but all for a price.”

“Which is?”

“Silence. About who and what he steals,” Isabel says. “Marcos makes it easy. You’re either silent or silenced.”

“Silenced.” I shiver as I stare at the altar, trying to put the pieces together in my mind.

“Abuelita built an altar because she doesn’t think Paloma’s still alive, but I do,” Isabel says. “So when I was lighting the candles on the altar tonight, and I heard the dogs . . . somehow I thought . . . and then I found you.”

Right then I know I’m a disappointment. That every moment she spends with me reminds her of who I could have been. Sadness fills me, sadness for both of us.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I’m not who you were looking for.”

Isabel stares at me for a moment, and then pulls me into her arms. I hold tightly to her, uncertain what I’m supposed to do.

When she finally pulls away, she looks me in the eye. “Don’t ever say that again. God gives us miracles, even if they’re not the ones we expect.”

Before I can tell her that I’m the furthest thing from a miracle, Isabel ducks into the other room and returns with an old-fashioned radio. It’s the kind you see in movies, those World War II ones where a spy has to break an enemy’s code.

“I check it every evening to see if they’ve found out anything about Paloma.” Isabel sets it down and turns the knob, and the radio crackles to life. At first it’s only static, and the occasional mariachi band slipping in and out of tune. My mind starts to wander, imagining what it must be like to live out here, with the radio as your only entertainment. No DVDs of dead moms. No internet rumors. No news shows about stars being murdered. But then I hear my name, and I realize I’m a fool: when a star dies, everyone can see it.

I hear my name only once before the radio slips into static again. The static is tangible; it’s like being lost in a sandstorm, following the sound of one tinny voice. Isabel shakes the radio and the voice comes back to life.

“Actriz Vivian Divine fue encontrado muerta en Norte Hollywood
.
”

“What’s she saying?” I ask, trying not to sound too desperate.

She listens for a second, a frown creasing her face. “They’re saying that a young movie star was just found dead. Stabbed in the back.”

The whole world thinks I’m dead.
Maybe that’s what Abuelita meant by a dead child—maybe I’m dead inside.

“
Pobre niña,”
Isabel sighs. “She was only sixteen.”

Then Dad’s voice, like the deep undercurrent of a wave, comes on the radio for a second before the announcer translates what he is saying into Spanish.

“
Ofrezco cincuenta millones de dólares a quien que encuentra su asesino
,” the tinny voice says.

“What did that man say?” I ask, forcing myself to slow down and stifle the desperate need to know that’s tearing through me.

“The girl’s father is offering fifty million dollars to whoever finds her killer,” Isabel says.

Dad is safe.
Thinking of him, something tears at my heart, like those butterflies, all billion of them, jumping into the sky.

Isabel turns the knob, and silence crackles like electricity around us. “Enough bad news,” she says. “You’re too young to hear such things.”

I wish I were.
I wish I could go back to the time before Mom died, when I never thought about murder and death, when I was still young enough to trust the world.

“We’d better get ready to go,” Isabel continues, standing and picking up the radio. “It’ll take a couple of hours to get to Rosales. If you need to use the outhouse before we leave, it’s right outside.”

Even though the last thing I want to do is walk alone to the outhouse after my near miss with the feral dogs, I decide to brave it.
If I made it across Mexico, I can handle an outhouse at night.
I smile at Isabel and walk outside, steeling myself for the smell. It’s unpleasant, and stinky, and drafty in all the wrong places, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, and I’m even a little proud of myself.

On the way back to the house, my flashlight scatters shadows across the mountain. As I walk gingerly through the trees, I see a faded beam of light in the woods.
Is someone else lost in the woods?

The light is pretty far away, but it’s coming fast, getting brighter by the second. Then the beam doubles, and there are two streams of light.

Those aren’t flashlights: they’re headlights.

And they’re coming straight for me.

A cold pit opens up in my stomach when I see Isabel holding the front door open. “I’m not sure who it is,” Isabel says, ushering me inside. “People don’t usually come out this far, and if they do, they don’t bring good news.” She shuts the door behind her, crosses the kitchen in two steps, and pulls the sheet to the altar room. “Just stay here until I tell you to come out.” As Isabel pulls the sheet closed between us, tires squeal to a stop. I crawl over to the altar and blow the candles out, Paloma’s beautiful face blinking into darkness.

A car door slams and footsteps grind across the gravel. I cower back in the darkness, watching the front door through a small tear in the sheet.

There’s a knock on the door, but before Isabel can move to open it, a uniformed guard pulls the door open and a man enters.

The man who walks in might look ordinary at first glance, but you’d look again. His pale gray eyes shimmer in the firelight like melted silver. His red silk suit matches his ruby-topped cane, and a long, unlit cigarette dangles from his lips above a thin gray mustache. When he moves, one leg drags behind him just slightly enough that I wonder if I imagined it.

“Señor Marcos,” Isabel says in surprise, quickly brushing off the kitchen chair for him to sit down.

“Isabel,” Marcos says, ignoring the chair, and stepping up to kiss her on one cheek.

“
¿Cómo puedo ayudarse?
” Isabel whimpers.

Marcos paces around the room, glancing in each dark corner.
What is he looking for?
He nods at his guard, who quickly moves forward, striking his lighter with nervous hands. Marcos doesn’t break eye contact with Isabel as he sucks the end of the cigarette until the red tip glows. “
¿Está listo?
” he asks, smoke leaking out of the corners of his mouth.

On the other side of the curtain, I hear the loom start to pound.

“
Lo siento, señor
,” Isabel says.
“Mañana
.
”

Marcos nods at her, and then gestures to the guard. The guard leaves, quickly returning with a paper sack of apples and a plastic grocery bag crammed full of marigold petals.

“
Para Los Muertos
,” Marcos says.
“Para todos en Rosales
.
”

“
Gracias, señor
,” Isabel says, bowing her head.

“
Y esto es para su trabajo
,” Marcos pulls a roll of money out of his suit pocket, and something falls unnoticed to the floor. He peels off a few bills, and puts the money roll back in his pocket. “
Adiós
,” he says, taking a last drag of his cigarette and holding it out to the guard between two fingers. The guard quickly takes it from him.

When Marcos turns around to leave, the guard flicks the lit cigarette toward the open doorway, but it falls short, landing in Honey’s bed of blankets. The lamb squeals in fear, and the smell of burning fabric fills the air. Isabel hurries over to stamp it out, but Marcos halts abruptly and holds his hand up in a stop signal. He slowly turns around and picks up the cigarette.

“
Idiota
,” he says to his guard. Marcos calmly takes his guard’s hand and presses the lit cigarette into it until the guard cries out in pain.

“
No, señor
,” Isabel pleads.

“
¿Sí?
” Marcos asks, and Isabel nods. Marcos lifts the burning cigarette off the man’s palm. “
Lo siento
, Isabel,” Marcos says, glaring at the guard.

“
Lo siento
,” the guard repeats sheepishly.

Marcos waits until the guard grounds out the fire under his boot and opens the door. Popping the cigarette back into his mouth, Marcos goes out into the dark night, the guard slinking out behind him.

After I hear his car squeal away, I crawl through the sheet into the main room. Isabel is still standing in the same place, staring at the door as if he’s going to yank it open and stab her in the heart.

My eyes are locked on the thing that fell from his pocket. It’s near the fire, half-hidden beneath a leg of the rickety card table. As I get closer, my cheek suddenly burns like he just slapped me. Because lying there, looking completely out of place in this tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, is a rose, carved out of a single pink diamond.

Chapter Sixteen

V
ISIONS OF THE LAST DAY
I saw Mom swim through my mind. I see her standing in the doorway in her white shawl, her pink diamond earrings dangling from her ears.
If Mom was wearing those earrings the day she was kidnapped, why did Marcos have one of them?

“Are you okay?” Isabel asks.

I shake my head.
I have to find out why Marcos had my mom’s earring. He may know something about what happened to Mom, but I don’t know who he is or how to find him, and I can’t speak his language.
I watch Isabel’s legs tremble beneath her as she wraps Honey in a wool blanket.
I need Isabel’s help, but I have to admit who I am in order to do that. Should I tell her? Didn’t Mary say to tell no one, no matter who it was?
I glance at Isabel’s shotgun, propped up beside the door, and quickly pick up Mom’s earring.
But Isabel’s taken care of me, and I have no other option.

“Isabel,” I say, trying to make my voice calm, despite the panic coursing through my body. “I’m not who I said I am. My name is not Ines.”

Isabel stops and stares at me. “Are you a runaway? Are your parents looking for you?”

I have to draw in breath to get out the next few words. “My real name is Vivian Divine.”

“The girl on the radio?” Isabel says, staring at me like I just fell out of the sky. “The movie star?”

I nod.

“But you’re . . . dead.” Isabel backs away from me then, as if Abuelita was right and she’s looking at a ghost.
A ghost who was murdered violently in a country far away from here. An angry ghost looking for revenge.

“I’m not dead! Someone faked my death.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone would want me dead.” My voice is rising to a hysterical pitch. “But they killed my mom too.”

“¿Tu madre?”
Her voice is doubtful. “Why?”

“I don’t know why. But the police were involved, and the FBI too.”

Isabel takes a few steps toward me. “The FBI?”

I tell Isabel about my last few days: receiving the death threat, fleeing L.A. in disguise, hitchhiking down here, flipping Scars’s car and escaping into the woods. I don’t mention Nick. If I say his name, I might break down. “So I have nowhere to turn,” I finish, “but to you.”

“Why me?”

I hold out my hand, showing her the pink diamond earring. “This was my mom’s earring,” I tell her, trying not to choke up. “One of the earrings she was wearing when she disappeared. Marcos dropped it just now.”

Isabel is quiet for a minute, staring at the earring in my palm. A silence settles over us, as uncomfortable as a wet feather bed. “You’ve lied to me about everything,” Isabel says. “Why should I trust you now?”

“Um . . .” I can’t think of anything I’ve done to make her believe me.

Isabel glances down at my muddy shoes with the gold
G
s on them, and then she shakes her head like she’s going against her better judgment. “Okay. Let’s say, for a moment, that I believe you. Why would Marcos have your mother’s earring?”

“I don’t know. But is it possible he knows something about my mom’s death?”

“It’s possible,” Isabel says. “But it’s more likely that his men hijacked a truckload of jewelry, and this was in it.”

I imagine a truck bed of jewels, packed in darkness, crossing the border. “True. He may just be a thief. But if you can help me—”

“No!” Isabel says. “He’s too powerful.”

“I’m not asking you to confront him,” I say.
Just to risk your life for a girl you barely know, a girl who leaves a trail of bodies behind her.
“I just want you to take me to him,” I continue, completely aware that Isabel may end up dead in a field, covered in butterflies.
Am I a bad person for wanting her to help me?

“You saw what I turn into when he’s around,” she says. “I didn’t even want to do this weaving for him, but—”

“What weaving?”

Isabel leads me through the curtain into Abuelita’s weaving room, where a rug, at least two feet long, is stretched taut across the wooden loom. Even though the wide wooden plank covers the middle section, I can still see the golden halo and the pale blue veil draped around Mother Mary’s face. “A month ago, Marcos commissioned this weaving from us,” Isabel says. “It’s not quite ready, but I told him I’d bring it to him tomorrow morning.”

I turn away from the weaving to stare into Isabel’s frightened eyes. “He might not know anything, but he had the earring my mom was wearing when she was kidnapped!” I insist. “Even if he bought it, he bought it from someone. And if he got it himself . . .” I shiver. “You’ve got to find out for me.”

Isabel shakes her head, her hands a blockade in front of her. “No. It’s too risky.”

I glance behind me at the black sheet, remembering how the candle flame danced on the altar, highlighting Paloma’s beautiful face. “If you could find out what happened to Paloma,” I ask, locking eyes with Isabel, “would you?”

“I guess I would,” she whispers.

“Then help me!”

“I already said no, Ines, or Vivian, or whatever your name is.” She turns and picks up a stack of white spindly candles from the floor and pushes through the black sheet into the kitchen. “I have to get ready,” she says. “And if you’re coming to Rosales, you’d better get ready, too.”

I wrap Mom’s earring in a small piece of dyed yarn lying on the floor, stick it in my bra, and follow her into the kitchen. In silence, we pile bags of marigold petals, white candles, and bruised red apples onto the table, until its almost overflowing. I’m starting to wonder if she’s angry enough to leave me behind when she clears her throat.

“So I was thinking,” Isabel says, “about Paloma. I haven’t wanted to admit it,” she adds, tears in her voice, “but Paloma is probably dead.” She focuses on stacking the candles perfectly into a cloth bag. “But if you could help me find out what happened to Paloma, and you didn’t, that wouldn’t make you a very good person.”

Maybe I’m not a very good person. Maybe I would run away scared, like you’re doing.

“And if you were afraid,” Isabel continues, “and you couldn’t get past it, I’d call you a coward.” She looks up then, but she’s far away, in a place I can’t see. “I’m not a coward.”

A few minutes later, I follow Isabel out of the house into the dark night, a pile of candles in my arms. Crickets are chirping and the sound of howling lingers in the night sky.

“Should I put these in the car?” I ask, praying that, by the time we get to Rosales, Roberto will still be waiting at the dock.

Isabel puts her fingers in her mouth and blows one long, piercing whistle, and an old brown workhorse pads up. “Meet Tenorio,” she says, patting his fuzzy brown nose.

“Oh, no, I don’t ride horses,” I insist. The terror of my horse scene in
Abandoned
, my Oscar-nominated role as a teenager in a postapocalyptic world, comes back to me: a disobedient horse, sailing through the air before landing on my back. Weeks of physical therapy later, I swore I’d never ride a horse again. It took my agent months to secure that “No Horse” clause on all my contracts.

“That’s the only way to get there,” Isabel says.

“Then I’ll walk,” I say, realizing I’ve sunk to an all-time low if I’m offering to continue
walking
up a mountain. At home, I’d rather die than make the three-block trek to the nearest nail salon.

As Isabel ties the bags onto Tenorio’s back, Abuelita toddles up, the weaving for Marcos cradled in her arms like a baby. “
Completo
,” Abuelita says.

Isabel takes the weaving from her and ties it on top of the bundle. “
Te amo
,” she says, kissing Abuelita on the forehead. Abuelita squeezes my hand before she wanders back into the house. “She’s too old to come,” Isabel says, “but she’ll take care of your lamb until you can come back for him. Do you want to say good-bye?”

Guilt leaks into me from all sides.
Until I come back for him
.
Both of us know that’s never going to happen.
I shake my head. “I hate good-byes,” I say. “They kill me every time.”

Isabel climbs onto Tenorio and kicks his side. He plods slowly away from the house, and I drop into step behind him, making sure his big brown butt is more than kicking distance away from my face. But as I follow his U-shaped hoof prints up the mountain, I realize that what I said about good-byes isn’t true. Good-byes have cracked me open wide and rained salt on my wounds, but maybe I’m stronger than I thought I was, because they haven’t killed me—yet.