I looked up at her. “Got it. Can I go now?”
“As long as we’re clear.”
“Crystal,” I said, and got up.
I breathed my sigh of relief just a moment too soon. I wasn’t quite past the desk sergeant when a young man walked in. I recognized him instantly. He was the kid who’d caught me fishing the voodoo doll out from underneath Neil Bossard’s bed. There was something else about him. Something else familiar, I just wasn’t sure what.
“Hey,” he said to the desk sergeant. “Where do I go to pay this parking ticket?”
Then he turned and I was pretty sure why he seemed familiar. He had a heck of a bruise on his chin. It looked as if someone had landed a solid first strike to it. Maybe she’d done it after she’d been attacked while walking from her car to her apartment.
I’m not perfect at remembering people. We get so many students in the dojo and their parents that I start to lose track of the people I meet. Add to that the steady stream of patients in and out of the emergency room at Sacramento County and I see a stream of faces every week. I can’t possibly keep track of them.
Someone who has attacked me, though? That person has my attention. And whether or not I’ve seen their face, it’s part of what I do to know a person’s physique. It often gives clues on who to attack and what their weak spots might be. I was pretty positive that Drew Bossard had been Thug Number One.
I ducked my head, hoping I could make it to the door before he noticed me. No such luck.
He turned to head to the drop box for tickets and he spotted me. “Hey! You’re the woman who was crawling under my brother’s bed at the memorial service. What are you doing here?”
Chief Murdock gave me a baleful look, spun me around and marched me back toward her office.
“YOU CRASHED A MEMORIAL SERVICE?” MURDOCK WAS BACK on her perch on the front of her desk, with me craning my head to look up at her. My other choice was to look at her gun, with which I was eye level. Neither choice made me comfortable. I opted to crane. Guns make me nervous.
“When you say it like that it sounds icky,” I protested.
“It is icky,” she shot back. “Those people were grieving. Their son was dead. By his own hand. And you came in and crawled around under his bed. Looking for what?”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Chief! I was just driving around looking at neighborhoods. I saw people walking into the house with casseroles. I thought it was an open house. Then when I got in there, I had to go to the bathroom. I got confused, ended up in a bedroom, dropped my earring and that was when that boy walked in.”
“Girl, you lie like a rug. It’s totally effortless for you, isn’t it?” She shook her head in amazement.
That was completely unfair. It wasn’t effortless. It was a skill. I’d practiced it and polished it nearly as much as I had my roundhouse kick. If I had to choose between the two, I’d probably pick the roundhouse, but it seemed inappropriate at this moment and quite counterproductive. “Listen, could you just call Ted Goodnight from the Sacramento PD. He’ll totally vouch for me.”
“Honey, I don’t care if he’d totally tap dance and whistle ‘Dixie.’” She stared at me hard for a few minutes. Then she stood up, walked back around her desk and sat down in her chair. “Ms. Markowitz, with all due respect, get out of my town and stay out of my town.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice.
MEREDITH WAS WAITING FOR ME IN THE PARKING LOT WITH the Buick. “Hey,” she said as I walked up. “I was just wondering if I should call Ted. Paul’s got him on speed dial.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, but it was touch and go in there for a few minutes.” I rested my hands on top of the car and took a deep breath.
She tossed me the keys and I slid into the driver’s seat.
“So what now?”
“I’m to get out of town and stay out of town.” I started the engine and gave the dashboard a little pat. The Buick purred like a great big cat.
“And are we going to do that?”
“Absolutely.” I paused. “With one little stop first.”
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to John Littlefield’s apartment. We parked down the street a little ways. We couldn’t see the door to his apartment, but we could see his bike.
“What are we watching for?” Meredith asked, as I settled in.
“I’m not sure. Are you going to go all antsy on me like Paul?” I looked over at her and we both started to laugh.
“It’s adorable, isn’t it? He just can’t stand enclosed spaces for very long.” She wiped a tear from her eye.
Adorable
hadn’t been the word I would have used, but then again, I wasn’t sleeping with the big bad wolf. “Just remind me never to bring him with me on any kind of surveillance again.”
That was the moment that Littlefield walked out of his apartment complex. He looked up and down the street, and both Meredith and I instinctively slunk down in our seats, although I was pretty sure he couldn’t see us where we were parked.
He walked over to the Dumpster carrying a little box.
“That’s our box, isn’t it?” Meredith said, squinting.
I didn’t need to squint. “Yep.”
He threw the box into the Dumpster, slammed the lid shut and walked back into his apartment, brushing his hands on his jeans.
I turned on the engine and pulled out of our parking space. “Well, that’s not going to work at all.”
“No. It’s not,” Meredith agreed. “So I want to see this witch of yours. Take me by her house.”
I drove Meredith into the neighborhood where Crying Woman—or Emilia Aguilar, as I suppose I should call her—lived. It just wasn’t nearly as romantic a name.
“How convenient,” Meredith said dryly, as I drove past the cemetery. Even I, witchcraft washout, knew what she meant. A little graveyard dirt added a lot of punch to a spell. Having a house by the cemetery was a little like living down the street from the supermarket.
It took me a minute or two to find her house again, but I knew it the instant I saw it. It definitely had a certain feel to it. It was an entirely different vibe than I got off the voodoo dolls, though. “Here it is,” I said. “This is where Crying Woman lives. I don’t know what she’s up to, but she’s got me completely confused.” I pulled over a little ways down the street from the house.
“What did you call her?”
“Crying Woman. The first time I saw her, she was crying behind a tree at the cemetery.”
“Hmph.” Meredith got out of the car and leaned against the Buick door.
“Is that significant?”
“La Llorona,” she said.
My Spanish pretty much sucks, but living in California one does pick up a little here and there. “Something about crying?”
“The Crying Woman. She was Hernando Cortes’s mistress. She murdered both her children by him, drowned them. People have seen her all over Mexico, crying for her children.” A breeze had begun to pick up and Meredith pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
I shivered. “I haven’t seen any children.”
“Before she was La Llorona, she was La Malinche. Because she was Cortes’s consort, her name became a symbol of betrayal. There’s more happening here than meets the eye, Melina. I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into this time, but I think it’s going to be ugly.”
I DROPPED MEREDITH OFF AT HER PLACE. “YOU’LL CALL WHEN you hear from him?” I didn’t have to say which him I was talking about. Nor did I mention that I’d noticed her holding his cell phone in her hand the entire way home, as if she could forge a connection to him through it or could make it ring just by holding it close to herself.
She nodded. “Even if it’s late.”
“He’s going to be fine,” I said, as much to reassure myself as to reassure her.
“I know he will be. There’s not much that can take him in human form. In wolf form? Well . . .” She smiled and shrugged.
We both knew that Paul was strong and powerful and smart. We also both knew that sometimes that wasn’t enough.
Meredith gave me a hug and then took a long hard look at me. “Go get some rest. You look like hell.”
“Thanks.” You would think having friends would boost my self-esteem. My life never did take straightforward paths.
“You know what I mean. Take care of yourself.”
“When? While I’m running the dojo? Or filing at the hospital? Or trying to figure out why the people I make deliveries to keep dying? Or teaching Sophie how to be a Messenger?”
“You have to make time, Melina.”
“No one can do that, Meredith, and you know it.”
She nodded. “You’re going to have to try and you know that.”
I LET MYSELF IN TO THE APARTMENT, WHICH WAS AGAIN UNCHAINED. I gave myself a little pat on the back. I’d done something right. I’d helped Norah be less afraid. I could cross something off my list.
Then I noticed the packing boxes open in the living room.
Norah came out of her bedroom carrying an armload of books and put them in one of the boxes.
“What are you doing?” I walked over and looked in the box. Maybe she was just putting together some stuff to take to Salvation Army. She went through occasional feng shui periods, where everything that wasn’t immediately useful had to go. She’d put in her copy of
The Moosewood Cookbook
, her dictionary of rune symbols and a guide to finding your animal spirit guide. Those were some of her favorites. I took the cookbook out. I looked up at her, confused.
“I’m packing,” she said, a little defiantly.
I blinked a few times. “To go where?”
“I’m not sure exactly where. Maybe my parents’ house for a little while. It just has to be somewhere where I haven’t, you know, invited him in.” She took the cookbook from my hands and put it back in the box.
I took it back out. “I talked to him, Norah. I swear I did.”
“I believe you. It just didn’t make any difference.” She walked back toward her room, leaving me holding the
Moosewood
. I followed her. She pointed at the vase. “He left another one.”
“When?” I sat down on her bed, clutching the cookbook to my chest.
“Last night. While I was asleep.” She opened up a drawer, pulled out some clothes and dumped them in a suitcase that was open on the floor.
“I’ll talk to him again,” I said. This wasn’t happening. I know I took Norah for granted all the time, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t important to me. She’d always been there for me, through being the weird kid in grade school and the sullen, silent girl in junior high and then through the horror that was high school. She’s always been there with her sweet smile and her accepting ways. I couldn’t let her go now.
Besides, who would pay half the rent?
“It won’t help. You know it. I know it. He’ll do whatever he wants. We can’t stop him. I didn’t realize when I invited him in that night. I didn’t know what it would mean. I can’t stay here, Melina. I have to go. One of these nights, I’m going to wake up while he’s here and I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist him. I don’t know if I even want to resist him.” She pulled a black T-shirt out of the suitcase and held it up to me. “Do you want this? I never wear it.”
I shoved it back at her. “No. I don’t want it. I won’t do this. Put it back in the drawer.”
“Oh, Melina,” she said, and wrapped her arms around me.
I shoved her away. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Not if you’re not staying.” Then, to my horror, I started to cry. “I can’t do this. I can’t lose one more thing. I can’t have one more thing change. Not right now.” My chest felt so tight I didn’t think I was going to be able to get any air sucked down into my lungs. “Don’t leave me.”
“But I can’t stay, Melina. I know you can see that.” She stood there with her stupid black T-shirt that I sort of wished I’d taken because it was kind of cute balled up in her hands.
“Give me one more chance. Let me talk to him. Let’s talk to him together.”
She shook her head.
“Please, Norah, just one more chance. One more night. Please.”
I don’t know if it was the tears or the outright begging, but after a few minutes of standing there with a frown on her face, she finally nodded. “One more night, but if I get one more rose, then I am out of here.
Capisce
?”
“
Capisce
,” I said.
I felt the air returning to my lungs. Of course, what I was going to do with this one more night to change her mind, I didn’t know. I did know how to start, though. I walked out of her room and dialed Alex’s number on my cell phone. I got his voice mail.
“Get your undead ass over to my apartment the second the sun sets or I will come to your house and stake you myself.”
13
TED AND ALEX ARRIVED AT THE SAME TIME. I WONDERED IF Alex had called Ted to find out what was up. Whatever. I didn’t care. I needed this dealt with in a way that had Norah staying in the apartment where she belonged and it needed to happen now.
I’d put the chain on the door so that they had to knock.
“Why, come in, Alex. Of course, you would if you wanted to regardless of what I said right now, wouldn’t you?” I hoped he heard the sarcasm in my tone. Who am I kidding? A deaf ogre could’ve heard the sarcasm in my tone.
He shot me a look. “Is that what this is about?”
“Yes, Alex. It is. It’s about you creeping everybody out. It’s got to stop. Norah’s moving out.” I’d meant to sound stern and angry. Unfortunately, my voice wobbled a tiny bit on the last sentence. Norah put her hand on my shoulder. I grabbed her hand and held on. I couldn’t lose Norah. I wouldn’t lose her.
His head came up.
Ted put his arm around me. “Really?”
“Yes. Really. If Alex doesn’t stop sneaking in here at night and watching her sleep, she’s going to leave me.” I heard the catch in my voice again and wanted to scream. When had I become a crier? This was ridiculous.