Sterling winces at how rough my voice is.
“Mercedes? It’s afternoon where you are; why do you sound like you just woke up?” My cousin’s voice is frazzled, which is uncommon for Esperanza. The biggest reason I allowed the reconnection was her calm and common sense.
“We were up all night for a case. What’s wrong?”
“Family meeting this morning.”
“Oh, God, I do not need to know this.”
“Yes, you do. Tío is sick.”
“Which tío?”
There’s a heavy silence, and after far too long, it clicks. “Oh.”
My father.
“Pancreatic cancer,” she continues once it’s clear I won’t.
“Painful.”
“The family wants to get him out of prison for treatment.”
“Probably not happening, but not any of my business regardless.”
Eddison is almost sitting up now, slumped against the arm of the couch and desperately blinking to keep his eyes from staying closed.
“Mercedes . . .” Esperanza huffs into the microphone, and it distorts like a hurricane through my speaker. “You really think the rest of the family isn’t going to bother you about this?”
“That’s exactly what I think, because I’ll be turning off my personal phone until I can switch the number.”
“Most of the grandkids have never even met him.”
“Lucky them.”
“Mercedes.”
“No.”
“Pancreatic cancer isn’t all that treatable. You know he’s probably dying.”
“Mucha carne pal gato.”
“Mercedes!”
“Is that her?” I hear her mother in the background. “Let me speak to her, that ungrateful, malicious—”
I end the call and turn the phone off, which is how it will stay for a while. The kids in the hospital have my work number, as do Priya, Inara, and Victoria-Bliss. Anyone else can email me. Have to admit, I’m disappointed in Esperanza. She was supposed to be the one person in the extended Ramirez familia who understood that that wasn’t my life anymore.
“Throw it against the wall?” mumbles Eddison.
“I have some pictures and shit to get off it first. Then we can destroy it.”
“Okay. You okay?”
“No. Go back to sleep, though. This problem isn’t going anywhere.”
He immediately burrows back into his blanket so only his shaggy dark curls are visible.
Sterling regards me solemnly, and it’s amazing how young she looks when her hair is down and messy around her face. “Need to talk about it?” she offers quietly.
Sterling doesn’t know the story the way Vic and Eddison do, like her old boss Finney does, for that matter. It took me years and half a bottle of tequila to finally tell Eddison. But Sterling is . . . she’s important, and I’ve finally settled into trusting that sense in a way I hadn’t when I told Eddison. She’s my team, and she’s my friend. She’s my family.
“Not yet,” I say eventually. “When the world isn’t on fire.”
“Sounds like a date.” She curls back into a tight ball, a little pill bug twisted into a tag-edged fleece blanket with Care Bears all over it. It is Brittany’s favorite blanket in the world, and she very rarely lets it come downstairs for anyone else to use.
As tired as I am, as drained, it still takes a long time to sleep again. My arms ache for the comfort of the black-velvet teddy bear on my nightstand, but this case . . . I don’t know if that bear will ever be what it was. It saved my life in important ways, or reminded me my life was worth living, however that distinction can be drawn.
I stare at the ceiling for I don’t even know how long before Vic’s face swims into blurry focus. His warm brown eyes look somewhere between sad and amused, and his callused hand is gentle as he strokes my hair back from my face, thumb lingering over the scars. “Sleep, Mercedes. You’re not alone.”
The laugh comes out more like a sob, but I close my eyes, and he lightly pets my hair until I fall asleep.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was scared of change.
But—
Some fears, she’d finally learned, were good things. Some fears weren’t the terror and pain, they were just . . . thrills. Sparks of nerve.
Despite the uncertainty of all of her foster homes, where impermanence was the only permanent thing, the little girl had worked hard at school, learning all the things her lackadaisical homeschooling had never taught her. She worked hard to catch up, and then she worked harder to get ahead. When it came time to apply for colleges, she had stellar grades and a fistful of personal essays that struck a carefully crafted balance between the horrific experiences of her past and a heartwarming determination for her future.
Her guidance counselor, perhaps the only person the little girl tentatively labeled On Her Side, had laughed herself silly when she read them, promised her she’d strike gold with them.
She had.
She got acceptances and scholarships, and when combined with the money the court forced her father to give her nearly four years before, it meant she could even go out of state, start over somewhere entirely new. Somewhere no one knew what had happened to her (unless they worked in Admissions). She even changed her name, legally and officially. It made the school paperwork a nightmare, but it was worth it. Her old name belonged to that other girl, that girl who’d been hurt by so many people and could never do anything to stop it.
She was someone new, someone without the baggage and the accent, someone from nowhere and anywhere. There was nothing to tie her to where she’d come from.
She loved college. It was scary and overwhelming and wonderful, with freedoms she’d never dared dream of. She even made friends. Slowly, cautiously, not entirely honestly, but friends enough to make her genuinely happy for the first time she could remember. She didn’t date—she wasn’t brave enough for that, wasn’t sure she wanted to be—but her friends protected her when people didn’t want to take no for an answer, when her old instincts fought against her new courage, and she was grateful.
She found a job that didn’t require her to interact with people much, and let her face some of her old fears in small ways, and she was surprised by how restful it was. She enjoyed her friends and classes, liked getting together with other people, but working gave her time alone to recover, to re-center. She liked the balance, and was proud of herself for discovering and maintaining it.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was afraid of change.
She went out bravely into the world anyway.
21
The events at the hospital and the Joneses’ home happen too late to get into the Saturday paper, but they start spinning around on social media that afternoon, and half the front page on Sunday is dedicated to “A Tweaker Tragedy” and I really want to stake whatever asshole came up with that headline. The only blessing to the relentlessly slipshod reporting is that none of the other murders are brought up. The article doesn’t even classify the Joneses’ deaths as suspicious; it makes it sound like the kids wandered away from home to get help and their home exploded while they were gone. It lists the wrong fire station, totally misses the detectives who were present, and misidentifies the FBI agents as DEA agents.
It’s some form of protection for Brayden, at least, and all the other kids.
Priya pokes my shoulder at breakfast, which is eaten sprawled out in the living room because there’s too many of us even for the seldom-used dining room. “What time is Mass?”
“What?”
“Mass,” she repeats patiently. “What time?”
I blink at her, too tired to fully comprehend what she’s asking.
“You feel better when you go to Mass, Mercedes. It’s a Sunday. So what time?”
“She likes the nine-thirty best,” Eddison tells her around a mouthful of half-chewed apple tart.