Valley of the Moon (24 page)

I wanted to leap out of the car and throw myself into his arms, but instead I waited with my hands at 10 and 2 o’clock. His cowboy boots crunched in the orange dirt. He was sunburned under his flat-brimmed Smoky the Bear hat. It was a risk, talking to a cop, but I was out of options. I was so tired of running.

I peeked up at him and saw my face reflected in his sunglasses. I was pale, almost gray-faced, with spots of bright red on each cheek. My hair was a matted, sweaty mess.

“You in a big damn hurry today, girl?”

“Yes, Officer, I am. There are some men chasing me. They’re probably armed, and they’ll be here any second.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, peering into my car. “License and registration.”

“But, Officer, they’re right behind—”

“I said, license and registration.” I pounded the steering wheel and started babbling to the tan stretch pants—which were pressed up against the low Ferrari window.

“Please, you have to believe me,” I pleaded. “They’re in a black Lamborghini and you need to call for some backup or let me go, now.”

“Remain in your vehicle, Ma’am. I’m citing you for noncompliance.”

“No, wait!” But he was already walking back to his Nevada State trooper car. If I drove away, I would be driving away from the one good guy for miles around who had a weapon. I, meanwhile, had nothing. I started digging around in the bottom of my duffel bag for something, anything I could use if they showed up. My hands bumped a pair of jeans at the bottom and something glassy and cold slid out of one of the pant legs.

It was a cell phone.

Victor’s cell phone.

The screen showed that someone had searched for it multiple times.

I had been carrying my own tracking device this whole time.

In my rearview, the cop was standing next to his car and talking into his CB radio. I threw the phone as hard as I could out the window. It sailed through the air and disappeared into the scrubby red wasteland.

Then I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a supercar’s engine. In the distance, a glistening, low-slung black shape flew towards us. A blinding white glare glinted off its hood.

“They’re here!” I screamed out the window. “Officer!” My foot itched to jam the gas pedal. I started my engine and the trooper’s head snapped in my direction.

The Lamborghini came flying over a rise in the road and braked hard. It cruised slowly past him, like a shark prowling shallow waters. The cop stepped out into the road and waved at them to pull over. They slowed down, but didn’t stop.

I held my breath and ducked down as they rolled past me. I peeked over my dashboard and watched them come to a full stop in the middle of the road 50 yards ahead of me.

Then, a tremendous squeal of tires as the Lamborghini reversed and hurtled straight towards me backwards.

I choked out a scream and slammed my foot down on the gas.

The Ferrari shot forward like a rocket and I lost control. It veered to the right and skidded out in the red dust.

The Lamborghini came barreling into the exact spot I’d been in a split second before. It swerved as it raced backwards, brakes burning, and smashed head on into the front of the trooper’s car. The cop, who had been standing by his open car door, tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late. The patrol car spun like a top and hit the cop, sending him flying. The Lamborghini came to a stop in a shallow ditch on the opposite side of the road. Black smoke poured out of its wheel wells as its tires spun.

The cop. I could see him lying behind his totaled car. His legs jerked, so he wasn’t dead. Yet.

But I couldn’t help him.
Just like the girl in Independence.
Another innocent person hurt, maybe killed, because of me. I looked from the fallen cop to the Lamborghini spinning its wheels in the red dust, its engine shrieking like a jet plane taking off.

A horrible, sick feeling seeped through my body. The road, the dust, and the bright sun blurred before my eyes. For some reason, I couldn’t get my legs to move. I was paralyzed for a few seconds, just staring at the horrific scene.

I wrestled my panic into submission and hit the gas. The Ferrari responded like it was scared, too. We bounced off the dirt and back onto the reassuring grip of sunbaked asphalt.

I rounded a bend in the road and shot past a sign that read:

Valley of Fire State Park

Red, twisted rock formations suddenly rose up on both sides of the road. The long, flat desert road became a wavy ribbon of gray through a low mountain range. There was a small turnout where a couple of RVs and SUVs were parked. A few hikers strolled out of the hills wearing rock climbing gear and expensive-looking backpacks.

I pulled off the road and parked behind the last RV. When I swung my legs out of the car, they were like rubber. I grabbed my backpack and staggered towards a steep, narrow trail. Scrambling up the path, I slipped on loose rocks and panted in the arid heat, until I found a small ledge about forty feet above the ground. From this vantage point, I had a good view of the parking lot and the road beyond it.

I heard the Lamborghini before I saw it. It came screaming around the corner as it approached the parking lot. I prayed for it to drive right by. Not to see my car. Not to stop. But it skidded to a stop and pulled up right next to my car. The back end was dented and badly scratched.

Arkady stepped out. He pressed his face to my car window, and then casually lit a cigarette, as if he hadn’t just tried to commit vehicular manslaughter. I crouched down low so they wouldn’t see me if they happened to look up.

The shorter one, Sergei, stepped out, talking fast into his phone. Arkady yelled at him in Russian, and Sergei spat on the ground. He stashed his phone in his jacket, walked up to the rocks right below me, unzipped his pants, and peed.

Wailing sirens split the air. I realized they must have found the trooper. Maybe he’d be okay. Any minute they’d find the Lamborghini and it would all be over. I would be safe.

I scooted forward to check the road. A pebble bounced off the ledge and hit the ground, right behind Sergei.

His head jerked up. He zipped his fly and took a few steps over to the path I took.

The sirens got louder. Arkady shouted at him in Russian. I crawled away from the ledge and headed through the narrow passageway that led up through sheer rock walls. Behind me, the sun was going down. The afternoon light searing the mountains made them glow deep reddish orange.

I clambered up. At the top, the path split, and I jumped down to a lower ledge. My shoes skidded on loose pebbles and I slammed into a boulder. My left shoulder took the full force of the fall. Hot flares of pain blinded me. I clamped my hand over my mouth, but my scream echoed across the red ridges.

I heard faint shouting below me. I found a piece of flat rock half-hidden behind the boulder and collapsed. I peeked over the edge—it was a long drop to the desert floor below. Aching with thirst, I envisioned ice-cold waterfalls and crystal-clear rivers. And Alexander. I pictured him driving towards me, his beautiful face contorted with worry. Why would someone work this hard to help someone he doesn’t even know? I was going to die without finding out what was in Georgette’s will. Without learning my mother’s secrets.

In the parched silence, I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. At first it sounded like:
you’re still alive, you’re still alive, you’re still alive
. But then it morphed into:
you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die.

The desert sky was in a full riot of color. Pink and orange clouds streaked to the horizon. I had never watched the sun set over anything but the Pacific Ocean or the Sonoma Mountains. I wondered if I would ever see Sonoma again. I was so far from home. And so alone.

I was squinting into the light when a shadow fell over my rocky ledge. I turned my head and saw a tall black figure behind me. I screamed and scrambled to my feet.

Arkady lunged towards me, and I fell. My throat was so parched that my screams sounded like strangled gasps. Sharp rocks sliced my palms and my stomach as he dragged me towards him.

Rough hands flipped me onto my back and an iron knee hammered into my chest. The setting sun was painting the rocks a hellish shade of crimson.

“You can’t hide anymore, girl.”

“Get off me!” I gasped. “I can’t breathe.” He just snickered and muttered something in Russian.

“You try to kill Victor, you stupid girl? You can’t kill him, okay? But I can kill you.” His mouth split into a wide grimace and something flashed silver in his hand. My arms were pinned under my hips.

He brought the knife to my throat. The blade was smooth and cold against my skin. He glanced at the injury in my shoulder. “Did that hurt?” He drew the blade across my exposed injury, opening the wound.

My vision went black for a few seconds as pain wracked my body. I screamed, but my raspy throat barely made a sound. I kicked my legs in a desperate attempt to get him off me. The knife flashed red above my head, reflecting the fiery surroundings. He held it above me and pointed it at my chest.
This is how you die. Maybe it will be quick. You’ll see your mother. Soon.
I screamed out for my mother, for God, for anyone, to help me.

Then, in an instant, the crushing weight lifted. I gasped in deep lungfuls of dusty air. Arkady scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide, staring at something. His face drained white, and he let out a high-pitched scream.

He took a step backwards and slipped on loose rocks.

In a moment of lucid thought, I swung my leg out.

My foot caught the back of his heel. He tripped, arms flailing, and plummeted right over the ledge with a strangled shriek.

I scrambled to the edge, cradling my throbbing left arm, and peeked over. It was at least sixty feet straight down.

As I scanned the ground for a sign of his body, my ponytail spilled forward and dangled over the precipice.

Something grabbed onto my ponytail. I gasped and saw Arkady, barely clinging to the side of the cliff a few feet to my left. His face was contorted. Red dirt and sweat coated his face. He cursed in Russian.

My neck started twisting at an awkward angle as he pulled my hair, and me, down. I screamed at him to let go and tried to brace myself with my feet, but his weight on my hair only increased, pressing my face hard into the hard rocky ledge. His body was like an anchor dragging me down, and I slid, inch by inch, towards the edge.

Then—I saw something glittering in the dust a few feet away from me. Arkady’s knife. My hand clawed the ground, but I couldn’t reach it.

He pulled me another inch closer to the edge.

I closed my eyes and prayed.

Your godmother. Ask your godmother!

“Georgette!” I rasped. “Help me!
Aide moi!”

Something scraped the ground. I felt something press into my palm.

My eyes opened. I was holding the knife.

I didn’t have time to marvel at the incredible thing that had just happened. My fingers tightened around the black handle.
Please be sharp.

I counted to three and swung my arm below the cliff hard as I could. I sawed once, twice, three times. With the third stroke, the wide blade sliced cleanly through my target. Arkady let out a hideous, strangled cry as he fell.

I heard a sickening crunch.

And then it got really quiet.

When I mustered the courage to look down, I spotted a black boot in the shadows below. A huge boulder on the ground obscured the rest of his body. There was a blotch of bright red blood smeared across its top.

I threw the knife into the ravine and sat up.

What had Arkady seen that made him back away like that? He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Suddenly, there was a loud
chuk chuk chuk
right behind me. Startled, I turned in time to see an enormous mountain goat a few feet away, looking right at me. Its eyes were huge and shiny black. He put his great white horns down to the ground, leaped across a deep crevasse, and disappeared behind a craggy rock tower.

I tried to catch my breath as the adrenaline drained away.

I gingerly felt the back of my head.

Short, spiky tufts of hair were all that remained of my ponytail.

A young couple APPEARED
behind me. They wore matching hiking outfits.

“Hey, are you okay? We thought we heard somebody screaming up here.
”
I stumbled to my feet and the man grabbed my elbow to help me up. I hissed in pain and sat back down.

The woman noticed the blood.

“Oh my God, what happened to your arm?”

“I fell,” I said, through gritted teeth. “It got cut.” A bolt of pain arced through my arm. The hikers exchanged glances.

“You need to get that looked at,” the guy said. A master of the obvious. “Honey, hand me my first aid kit.” The woman pulled a red pouch out of her backpack and handed it to him. He unzipped it and pulled out a giant roll of gauze. “Good thing I took that wilderness survival class,” he said.

After dressing my cut, they helped me down the steep hiking trail. As we made our way back down, I started shivering uncontrollably. The woman draped her hoodie around my shoulders.

“Wow, what happened to your hair? Did you cut that too?” she asked.

“Yeah.” My voice sounded ragged and torn. I saw them exchange another glance.

At the bottom, there were police cars everywhere. Cops stood around talking into walkie-talkies. The Lamborghini was gone.

I took my backpack from the man, who had carried it down the hill for me. “Thanks a lot for your help, you guys, take care,” I said, and limped towards my car, which was mercifully still in the parking lot.

“Wait! Let’s see if someone can look at that cut,” the woman said, jogging after me.

“Oh, no, that’s okay, I’m fine,” I lied. “My car’s just over there and my parents are waiting for me at our hotel. They’ll be mad if I don’t get back soon. Thanks again for all your help, I really appreciate it.” I glanced nervously at the police milling around, but no one seemed to notice the limping, bloodstained teenager in their midst. I fished my keys out of jeans pocket.

“Wait, that’s her car?” I heard the woman ask the man. “A Ferrari?”

“Excuse me, folks?” a voice yelled out. My heart tightened in my chest when I saw a portly young sheriff walking over to us. His face was red and sweaty “Did you all happen to come down that trail?”

“Yes, we did,” said the man. “What’s going on around here?”

“You didn’t happen to see anyone up there, a male Caucasian, black t-shirt, dark hair?” Actually, Officer, you just missed him.
I shook my head and tried to look casual.

“Nope. What’d he do?” the man asked the cop.

“Hit and run. He injured one of our deputies a few miles down the road. His vehicle was spotted in this lot earlier.”

“No kidding! We’ll keep our eyes peeled, Officer,” the guy said. The cop nodded and walked away. The hoodie the woman lent me had covered my cut and all the blood on my arm.

I let out a deep breath and unlocked my car. My reflection in the window shocked me. It looked like squirrels had gnawed all my hair off just under my ears. It was uneven all around, which only made my pale skin and dark circles look scarier.

I pulled the door open with my right arm, but the door seemed lower.
You lost too much blood. You’re just hallucinating.

“Looks like you might have a flat,” the man called. “Or two.” I stumbled in a circle around the car. All four tires sagged loose on the silver rims. I could see the slash marks. I closed my eyes and felt the Earth start to spin.
Don’t lose it yet. Not yet. You need to get to a phone.
I took a deep breath and looked at the couple.

“Do you think you guys can give me a ride?” I tried to sound like it was no big deal to have your tires slashed randomly in the middle of nowhere.

A white police cruiser sped by, slowed down as it passed, and made a tight U-turn into the crowded parking lot. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the words on the side of the car: SHERIFF NAPA COUNTY.

The other police milling around turned to look and then resumed their discussions.

I wriggled free of the hiker’s grip and backed away. How did she find me? What was she doing here?

“Wow, they sent cops from all over,” the man exclaimed.

The door opened and a slim, black-clad leg emerged. An elegant hand rested on the top of the door.

“Lana, darling! There you are at last!” Ramona called out. The driver’s side door opened and a hulking Jenner emerged, mirrored aviators glittering, bald head glistening. His thick lips curled like a fish’s around a hook.

Ramona, even in the desert, looked chic. She wore black slender pants and a sleeveless, silky white blouse. Her tan face was makeup-free, except for the scarlet lipstick.

A concerned parent chasing a missing teenager wouldn’t have bothered with the lipstick, Ramona.
I glared back at her. I took a step backwards, but the hiker put his arm around my waist and held me in place. I wanted to run screaming to the cops but my body felt like it was trapped in quicksand.

“Hey, your mom’s here!” the woman said, unhelpfully.

“She’s not my—”

Ramona ran up to me, suddenly breathless. “Lana! Thank GOD!” She enveloped me in a bony embrace and whispered, “Get in the car right now.”

“Ma’am, your daughter slipped and fell on some rocks, so she has a pretty bad cut on her arm.”

“Oh you poor thing!” Ramona shrieked. “Oh my darling! I promise
not
to be mad at you for running away! Quick, get in the car and Officer Jenner will take us home.”

“Whose home, Ramona?” I didn’t have a home anymore. According to Maya, it burned down. Everything had been taken from me. And at that moment, I knew that Ramona was involved somehow. Everything she’d ever done had been designed to hurt me.

The hiker cleared his throat. “Uh, are you gonna be okay?” he asked me.

Ramona flashed him a spellbinding smile. “She must be delirious from being out here so long. She’s a bit autistic, you see. She stole my car and ran away from school. Officer Jenner and I have been looking for her for two days.”

The hikers looked at each other and nodded solemnly. I racked my feverish brain for a plan. If I ran over to a cop and told them about Arkady, I’d be safe from Ramona and Wade Jenner for the moment, but my dad would be in real danger.

She’d make up some story, and they would hand me right back to her. I could try to run for it, but I’d have half the cops in the state looking for me. Anyway, I’d only get about five feet before collapsing.

“Well, good luck,” the man said to Ramona, who theatrically wiped an invisible tear.

“I can’t thank you enough. I was out of my mind with worry.” She met my eyes at last. “What happened to your hair, dear?”

“She cut it,” the female hiker told her. Ramona looked at me, her eyes narrowed. I stared back at her.

“How’s my father?” I asked.

Her face stiffened. “He’s just fine. Come home and you’ll see him.” She glanced over at the slightly confused hikers, her mouth pursed. “Thank you both again.”

“Get that arm looked at!” the man called after us.

Ignoring them, she and Jenner dragged me towards the cruiser. I could feel blood steadily trickling down my arm and onto my hand. I was still wearing the hiker’s sweatshirt, but she didn’t ask for it back.

A cold darkness edged in to my mind and I stumbled into the back of Jenner’s car.

***

The night sky stretched to the ground like a lead curtain. Jenner’s headlights would occasionally illuminate a jackrabbit bounding across the narrow highway.

At some point, I saw a sign. It lit up just long enough for me to read it.

Hoover Dam - 25 miles

“We’re taking a tour of the Hoover Dam?” I asked. “How educational.” There was no response from the front seat. I was feeling an ounce better after a short nap and some sips from the water bottle they had tossed into the backseat, but my forehead burned and my arm throbbed every time the car bounced.

The back doors had no handles and no locks. A metal grate separated me from the cruiser’s front seat. I was a prisoner.

The car bounced over a dip in the road. The suspension squeaked and I gasped in pain. We rounded a sharp turn and I saw lights behind us. Another car was about half a mile away—the first car I’d seen the whole ride. Its headlights flicked off.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. “Sonoma is the other direction.”

“I told you, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

“By the Hoover Dam?” Ramona glanced over at Jenner. He didn’t budge.

Thinking felt like searching for matching white socks in a big basket of white laundry. It was exhausting, trying to find words that went together. I was so tired.

I reached for my ponytail out of habit. My fingers felt my scalp where I’d sliced off my ponytail. The surviving wisps were barely an inch long. I sighed and leaned my head back.

“Ramona, how did you meet my mother? It was at Barnard, right?” I heard a quiet intake of breath from the front seat. “You were the same year.”

She opened the glove compartment and pulled out a box of cigarettes. Jenner had a lighter ready for her immediately. She took a long drag and blew out the smoke.

“Tanith and I were freshman roommates.”

Something burst in my heart. I stayed as calm as I could—I wanted her to keep talking. “Did you move to Sonoma when she did?”

“No. I was in New York. I’d met Martin by then. I tracked her down years later and convinced Martin to buy me a house in Sonoma.” She flicked her ashes through the grate into the backseat. “Tanith was easy to find, even with her new name. Your Ambrose friends could have found her—and you—if they hadn’t been such fools. But foolishness runs in that family. All that money and not one clue.”

“So my dad knew you were…acquainted.”

She shook her head. “Of course not. We never let on. She made me swear I would keep her new identity secret. Tanith didn’t want anyone from her past to find her, including me. She wasn’t too happy when I found her. But I kept my distance. Until she was…out of the picture, so to speak.”

She took another drag and turned to face me. She blew the smoke through the metal grate. “Did you know Tanith hated her money? She had this ridiculous idea it was cursed. That’s why she refused her inheritance when Claudette died. And it went to Georgette instead! Such a fool.”

She knows about the Ambroses. She knew about the inheritance.

“Why did you tell Severine I was studying abroad? Why didn’t you want her to find me?”

The police radio in the cruiser squawked. A fuzzy voice blared. Through the static I heard that the body of a “male Caucasian, deceased” had been found at Valley of Fire State Park. Good-bye, Arkady.

Jenner and Ramona exchanged glances. He switched off the radio.

“Maybe she was right about the curse,” she said slowly. “After all, look what happened to her. And, of course, to your poor baby brother.” She drew the last three words out slowly.

The Earth tilted and I slid right off the edge.

She peered at me through the grate and her eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Ha, I knew it. She never told you. So typical. Well, you might also like to know that her baby’s father was the love of my life. She stole him from me, and I cursed her for it. And then the baby…” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head and took a long drag.

“What? What happened to him?” I managed to whisper. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. Ramona had never been her friend. Ramona hated my mother. She’d hated her for years.

Which explained how she treated me.

“Your foolish mother let those crazy old spinsters babysit him one day so she could do some Christmas shopping. He climbed into a bathtub full of water. Tanith found him in it when she got home. He must have been one or two.”

So much about my mother came into sharp, jarring focus in a single instant.

I had a brother. She lost a baby.

An anvil of grief came down hard on me, breaking me into a thousand shards. After craving answers for so long, I was finally getting them.

I wanted to go back to not knowing.

The truth was too hard.

The truth sucked.

No wonder she didn’t tell us. No wonder she was sad.

No wonder she jumped.

I sobbed quietly in the backseat. The cracked pleather seats dug into my thighs. Cigarette haze filled the car and burned my eyes. Jenner opened his window and icy air flooded the car, clearing out the smoke. Outside, the ragged landscape came into focus. The moon had risen and eerie formations threw shadows across the desert floor.

Ramona stuck the tip of her cigarette through the metal grate and flicked the end. Hot ashes hit my arm.

“When I married your father, he begged me to add you to my will. He wanted you to be protected in case he died. Unlike your dear mother, who left you with nothing.”

I wanted to scream at her, tell her to shut up and stop talking about my mother, but I also was desperate to hear more.