Mateo’s whole body seemed to deflate, like a man reaching the end of a very long journey.
He sighed, looking down. “They’ve changed the carpet,” he said. “But otherwise, this room looks exactly the same.”
Lore, 2017
Someone pounded on the bathroom door. “Mom, come out, get dressed—hurry!”
“?Qué pasó? ?Los ni?os?” I kicked the drain with my heel, and it sucked back its first slurp of water.
“No, they’re fine,” Gabriel said. “It’s Mateo.”
Five minutes later, we were going fifty, then sixty, down Del Mar, past Starbucks and H-E-B and the Maverick (now called something else) where I used to call Andres, and the Wendy’s where I’d taken the cuates the night he died, though back then the tile was ugly brown rectangles, and cigarette smoke cut through the scent of hot oil. We passed St. Patrick Church—both instinctively making the sign of the cross—and Rangel Field, where the cuates had briefly played Little League before discovering basketball and thank goodness for that because it hurt to watch them strike out, their little shoulders slumped as they looked up at the bleachers, as if we would ever do anything but cheer for them.
We swooped left under I-35 a full second after the red, and I gripped the handle above the passenger door. “Gabriel, what is going on?”
His panza strained against the seat belt, and I remembered a carnival where the cuates had driven bumper cars and Fabian and I had laughed at how they leaned over the wheels like viejitos straining to see the road.
“We have to get there. What room is she in? Do you know?”
“Cassie? I have no idea. Gabriel, dime ahorita qué está pasando!”
Gabriel glanced at me. When the cuates were younger, they always knew it was serious when we switched to full Spanish.
“He said he heard you two talking.” We were on the highway now, going seventy, seventy-five, even though the exit was half a mile away. “He said he had to stop it. Brenda called me to help her with Joseph, and when I came back out, he was gone. What did you tell her? Did you tell her—about me?”
“Ay, Gabriel.” My fingers reached, out of some ancient habit, to my chest, but the locket was long gone. I grabbed the collar of my cardigan instead, rubbing it between my fingers. “You think I could do that to you?”
Gabriel swerved onto the exit. As usual, the cars on the access road didn’t yield, and Gabriel punched the horn, then finally swung into the right lane and into the motel parking lot. He exhaled, pointing. “His truck. I fucking knew it.”
We ran from the car to the lobby, where a skinny kid who barely looked out of high school was staring at his phone behind the front desk.
“Cassie— What’s her last name again?” Gabriel asked me.
“Bowman,” I said to the kid. “Cassie Bowman. What room is she in?” I didn’t understand Gabriel’s distress, but it filled me like a strange vapor, making me light-headed and unsteady.
The kid looked at his computer. “Hold on. I need to call her first.”
The phone rang and rang. Gabriel loomed over the counter, a heaving mass.
The kid glanced at us. He had an angry sprinkling of acne on his chin. “That’s weird, she was just—”
“What’s her fucking room number?” Gabriel growled.
“Please,” I said to the kid. “I’m her—” I hesitated. “Mother.”
The kid shrugged. “Fine, whatever.”
He gave us the room number, and we ran down the cement walkway. Gabriel pulled ahead of me, so I felt like I was chasing him, chanclas slapping the ground, breath ragged. The pool area was empty, the water lit from within. Bugs clustered on the lights. I was panting, choking on my own heartbeat.
And then we were at the door, Gabriel jiggling the handle. He pounded the aluminum with a fist: banging, banging, banging. Was this Andres’s old room? I thought I would remember, but they all looked the same. All I knew was that no one was answering and something was horribly wrong.
“Mateo!” I yelled. “Cassie! ?Abre la puerta!”
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the door opened.
Mateo looked ten years older than he had at dinner tonight. “Well,” he said wearily, stepping back. “This has always been a family affair.”
Cassie, 2017
Lore and Gabriel pushed into the room, and while Gabriel shoved Mateo into the corner, Lore pulled me so tightly against her I couldn’t breathe. I felt like a child whose mother had picked her up hours late from school—fury cutting through the relief—and I almost pushed her away. We were here because of her, because of all the lies she’d told, everything she’d needed to have, but then it seemed we were here because of me, because of everything I’d needed to have, and her grip on me was strong and solid, so I dropped my head to her shoulder, succumbing, as always, to the care that still felt so real. But I didn’t take my eyes off the brothers, who were conferring angrily, too low for me to hear.
“Are you okay?” Lore pulled away, searching my face and body. She glared at Mateo. “?Qué hiciste?”
“I’m fine.” Those moments of terror seemed surreal now, a tide lurching back toward the horizon, leaving only damp sand as evidence of its presence.
“It was you,” I had whispered to Mateo, losing feeling in my hands and feet, as if the center of my body were disconnected from the earth, as if nothing could keep me from floating away and disappearing, just another vanished woman. A laugh had been trapped in my chest. A lifetime of true crime had brought me to this moment, though it sure as hell hadn’t taught me how to get out alive. Maybe I could shove past him to the bathroom or the door, I’d thought, though he’d probably grab me before I managed to turn the lock. Maybe I could keep him talking until my phone charged, then try to get the SOS call slider to appear. Andrew’s self-defense lesson rushed into my mind—if Mateo grabbed me from behind, I’d throw my head back into his chin or nose, and if I had an arm free, I’d stab my elbow into his solar plexus, I’d hook my foot around his so he couldn’t yank me backward, I’d fight, at least, I’d fight like hell, and I’d scream, and I’d make sure that even if he killed me, my body would tell the story.
But Mateo hadn’t taken even one step closer. He’d stood near the door, motionless. His hands loose at his sides. His stare was earnest and sad, waiting for something. For me, to give him permission to carve open his skin and bone, exposing everything glistening within.
He watched as I neared, my heart hammering. When we were close enough to touch, he said, “I’m really fucking tired of keeping secrets.”
Trembling, I took his hand. He looked startled at the sight of our palms pressed together. I was startled, too. Then he laced his fingers through mine. I whispered, “Tell me.”
Now Lore’s voice hardened. “Good. ?Ahora alguien dígame que está pasando!”
Mateo’s shoulders sagged. While no one was looking at me, I unlocked my phone, finally charged just enough. I opened Voice Memo, hit record. When Mateo met my gaze, I said, “She needs to know.”
He nodded, jaw clenched. To Lore, he said simply: “It was me.”
Lore looked warily between the three of us, as if trying to anticipate a cruel punch line. “What are you talking about?”
“It was me,” Mateo repeated, more firmly. “I—”
“No, güey.” Gabriel clapped a hand around his brother’s shoulder. He said something I didn’t understand. Not English or Spanish or any other recognizable language, but a rough, nonsensical series of consonants and vowels, meaningless sounds.
Lore clapped her hands once, loud. “Stop it! ?Ya con tu secret language!”
Mateo took a step forward and Lore shrank back—not afraid of him, I understood, but of what he was about to reveal.
“I killed him,” Mateo said. “It wasn’t Gabriel. It was never Gabriel.”