Ghost Flower

  As the years went by, parts of my memory came back like the missing pieces to a now lost puzzle, and I became more and more convinced that someone had tried to kill me that night, with no idea who or why. I knew only that I felt confused and frightened when I thought about Colin, Bridgette, and Bain. Colin had no motive to harm me, that I could remember, but Bridgette and Bain did. Or rather, somewhere between twenty and forty million reasons, depending on Althea’s will in any given month.

  I came back to Tucson after Nina’s death to be closer to my family, but with no plan. And then Bain walked into the Starbucks I was working at and gave me the perfect way in. If he and Bridgette thought I was an imposter, I’d be safe. And it would give me a chance to look for the proof I needed. Especially since I knew Colin had enlisted and was away.

  What I’d told N. Martinez was true too—I’d wanted to pick my family. And be picked.

  Mounted in front of me, Grant groaned. “Torn,” he said.

  “You’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  He slipped to the side, almost falling, and I had to drag him back up.

  “Hold on,” I told him. “Just a little more. Hold on.”

  As Medusa, that glorious, magical horse, and I galloped across the dusty golden earth, I discovered I was sobbing. “You can do it, sweetheart,” I repeated, and I don’t know if I was talking to him or the horse or myself.

  “Just a little longer,” I repeated over and over, my tears showering over him. I urged Medusa forward, my thighs clamped around her to keep us steady, my hand knotted through her mane. I would not let another person die in my arms.

  A building appeared on the horizon, and I remembered we had passed a fire station. Medusa’s hooves pounded the desert, galloping furiously. The firemen must have seen the dust we kicked up because they were standing outside, watching as I came up and yelled, “This man is injured; he needs an ambulance.” And they sprung into action.

  Someone tied up Medusa, and I rode with Grant to the hospital in the ambulance, holding his hand. Still holding it when, before we got there, he died.

  CHAPTER 48

  I had a broken rib, and the bottoms of my feet were badly lacerated. But I refused to stay still, refused to let them sedate me and put me to sleep. There was one more thing for me to do.

  I was grinding my teeth against the pain when I saw her in the doorway. She was wearing a white dress, and she had a paper airplane in one hand. Her braids gave off tiny clicking noises as she spun in a circle, making easy arcs with the airplane, around and around.

  “Nina,” I said, “What are you doing here?”

  She stopped and smiled at me. She looked like she’d grown; her arms were long and so thin. She said, “I came to see you.”

  “I’m afraid I’m out of stories.” I felt horrible as though I were letting her down, but I was so exhausted. I couldn’t move.

  She looked shy and a little nervous, like the first time I saw her. “That’s okay. I didn’t come for a story. I came to tell you something. I figured it all out. I know the answer.”

  “The answer to what?”

  She looked exasperated. “How to tell where you’re going, of course.”

  “Oh.” It’s too late for that, I wanted to tell her. “What is it?”

  She looked serious. “You can tell you’re running toward home when you stop looking behind you.”

  She was right. It was so simple. I was stunned that I’d never thought of it.

  She came and kissed me on the forehead and whispered, “Goodbye, Eve.” And then I saw there was another woman standing behind her. Her face was averted but she turned toward me now.

  “Mommy?” I said.

  She turned toward me and her smile was so radiant it made me feel like there were sparks in me. “How’s my girl?”

  “Mommy, I’m so sorry,” I told her.

  “You have nothing to apologize for, baby.”

  I was crying now, the tears hot on my cheeks. “When you called that day, I was angry at you, so I didn’t answer the phone. I just let it ring and ring. I should have answered. And then the next day you—you were gone. I should have answered. If I had answered, if I hadn’t been so ungrateful and selfish, you’d still be alive.”

  “No, sweetheart,” she said, smoothing a hand over my hair. “I was calling to say goodbye.” Part of me didn’t want to believe it, but somewhere deep inside I knew it was true. Had always known. “You couldn’t save me. No one could.” She kissed my forehead. “You have to forgive yourself.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting a finger to my lips. And disappeared.

  I opened my eyes and saw Althea being wheeled in through the door. Her body looked frail, but her eyes were alert and focused. “Help me up,” she said to the orderly.

  “Ma’am, you should really stay—”

  “I’m going to hug my granddaughter, and nothing is going to stop me.”

  And then she was there with her arms around me, hugging me tighter than I would have expected possible and saying, “My darling girl. My darling Aurora. I love you, girl.”

  “I love you too, Grandma,” I said, and my eyes blurred and I passed out.

  I dreamed of N. Martinez in his neat police officer uniform standing above me, smoothing hair off my forehead and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  When I opened my eyes, he was sitting in a chair next to the wall in his uniform, dozing. My heart skipped a beat, and my mind whispered, Wait, maybe. He was slightly slouched, his hair was a little bit messed up, and he didn’t frown in his sleep.

  He opened his eyes, and for a moment he looked approachable and friendly, like in my dream. But then he frowned again, and I knew it hadn’t been real.

  Tell him how you feel, I thought. Tell him he makes you feel like confiding, tell him you’ve never met anyone like him, tell him you feel safe with him, you want to spend afternoons by his side flying kites and eating ice cream and doing nothing and anything and looking at the stars and naming your own constellations. Tell him you dream about him. Tell him you have never seen him smile.

  I said, “I’m sorry I missed your sister’s birthday party.”

  “Yeah. You could have called,” he said.

  I looked down at my hands. “I know.”

  He stared at me. And then, as though he’d been reading my mind, he laughed, his wondrous rich laugh, and he finished it with a smile. “You make me nuts,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  I shrugged. How could I tell him it was because hearing him laugh, seeing him smile, were even better than I’d imagined?

  The smile vanished, and he went back to frowning and messed up his hair like he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything. Sat tight-lipped.

  Finally he cleared his throat and sat up straighter and said in an official tone, “I thought you deserved to know. It’s something not being released to the public. I could lose my job for telling you.”

  “I won’t rat you out.”

  “I didn’t think—” He shook his head. “I knew that.” He said, “The hammer was the weapon used to bash Grant’s head. The murder weapon. You were right.”

  I sat still, waiting for him to go on.

  “It had prints on it,” he said.

  I knew what was coming, maybe before he did. “Liza’s prints,” I said.

  He nodded.

  He cleared his throat again. “I—I guess I owe you an apology.”

  I shook my head. “I barely believed it myself. It all seemed—I mean you grow up thinking there are no such thing as ghosts. But—”

  “But,” he agreed. We looked at each other. For a long time. Stretching the silence like taffy until it was thick and taut and far too sticky to be comfortable.

  He said, “I seem to have a very bad effect on you. I’ve seen you with other people, and you’re not—like this.”

  “Yeah.
” I swallowed. “I suppose it’s mutual.”

  “Yes. I mean, no but—” he began. His frown deepened. “I don’t know how else to say this. Being with you is really hard. It—I don’t understand it. It makes me nuts. You turn me into a fool.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Fool. Bad. Nuts. I’m clear on that.” I turned my face away. “I think I want to be alone.” Having him there so close, and hating to be near me, was hard.

  I heard him push his chair back. I sensed him hesitate, and then I heard his shoes slip across the floor toward the door. He paused there.

  And then he did the worst thing I could imagine. “Napoleon,” he said. “That’s my first name.” His footsteps receded.

  I wanted to press the nurse call-button and say I was in pain, but I didn’t think they had medication for what was hurting me. He’d told me his name. The name he only told people he wasn’t going to see again.

  I pushed my face into my pillow and cried.

  I fell asleep and had a weird dream in which I realized I’d had the princesses backward and Liza was Cinderella and I was Sleeping Beauty. I was half-awake and half-asleep, trying to figure out what it meant, when I heard footsteps and opened my eyes to see Bridgette and Bain walk in.

  Bridgette surprised me by sobbing all over me. “I am so mad at you,” she said as she sobbed and hugged me. “You lied to us. Lied. All the time.” More sobbing and hugging. “I missed you so much, Aurora. I missed you every day, and you lied. And you thought we tried to kill you. When I saw you on the street, I was coming to tell you that I thought we should end the imposter scheme.”

  “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Bridgette shook her head. “Some family we have. I’m so glad you’re back.”

  Bain was more subdued. After Bridgette finished, he said, “I’d like to talk to Ro alone,” and she nodded and left. He sat down on the chair next to my bed and seemed nervous.

  “So. They, the police, said, um, your memory was coming back. Not all of it.”

  “That’s what I told them,” I said. I stared directly at him. “But it was a lie. It all came back.”

  He let out a breath and sat back in his chair. “I’m not proud of what I did. And I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure.” I said, “Why don’t you tell me your version?”

  “After you disappeared that night, I took off. There wasn’t any reason for me to stay at the party once—well, once it was clear my plan wasn’t going to work. And then I’m driving by the side of the road, and I see you. Walking there, just strolling along. I couldn’t believe it. I’d gone to all that trouble to arrange a kidnapping for you, and you’d somehow disappeared. But then poof you’re back. All alone. I pulled over and offered you a ride and—well, it was weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “I said, ‘Aurora, do you want a ride?’ And you looked at me and said, ‘Who are you?’ You had no idea who I was, what your name was, anything. I figured, even better, you won’t remember what happened. So I picked you up. You fell asleep, and we drove toward Phoenix. I figured that was as good a place as any to hold you while I sent the ransom note and everything, so I stashed you in a motel. But something must have happened because when I came back you—you weren’t breathing. I thought you were dead.”

  “So you left me there.”

  “Not like that. I called nine-one-one, and then I took off. I couldn’t help; I’m not a doctor. And I figured if you were dead, they would take care of it, identify you, and I’d be home before the Family got the call.”

  “But the call never came.”

  His head went from side to side slowly. “No. That was—that was weird. I assumed they just couldn’t ID the body. I was so sure you were dead.”

  “Where was it?”

  “On the way to Phoenix. I told you.”

  “No, I mean, what was the name of the place?”

  “Oh. The Highway Motel.”

  There’s a buzzing noise. I’m lying on a bed, my cheek pressed against the spread. There’s light coming in from a window, evening light, and I have no idea where I am or how I got there. I look for a clock, but there isn’t one. My feet are slightly elevated, on the pillows. I’m backward, my head is at the foot of the bed, and pulling myself up onto my elbows. I see my face in the mirror over the bureau.

  I have no idea what my name is. I have no idea where I am or what day it is. I see the window reflected in the mirror. Between the half-open curtains of the room, I can make out a car wash and, closer up, a part of a sign. I lean toward the mirror and stare at the reflection of the sign, spelling the letters out with my finger. T-O-M Y-A-W. Tom Yaw.

  In my mind now I flipped the reflection over —WAY MOT. Tom Yaw wasn’t a person; Tom Yaw was the middle letters of “Highway Motel,” seen in the mirror. Across from the car wash.

  So that was it. The story of what had happened.

  Or so I thought. There was still one crucial piece missing, although I didn’t realize it at that moment.

  Bain shifted nervously in the seat. “What are you going to do?”

  It was kind of fun watching how uncomfortable he was. “What’s in the bag?” I asked, pointing to a pink paper gift bag next to the seat.

  “I don’t know. It was here when I got here.”

  My heart stopped for a moment, and my mind screamed, Liza? “Hand it to me, please,” I said, working to keep my voice level. My fingers shook. I took the bag and spilled it onto the blanket in front of me.

  There was a small plastic tiara, an eraser that smelled like bubblegum, and a butterfly with a suction cup on it. A Post-it note attached to the butterfly said, “My brother says you are sick and like butterflies. I’m sorry you didn’t come to my party. We went swimming. It was gnarly. Love, Josephine.”

  I must have been allergic to the eraser because as I read it my eyes started to tear a lot.

  “Are you okay?” Bain asked. “Do you need a Kleenex or a nurse or something?”

  I wiped my eyes on the bedsheet. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m really fine, actually.”

  “And us?” He gestured between us.

  “We’re fine too. But if you ever try anything like that again, I’ll tell Bridgette.”

  He looked scared. “No worries.”

  I put the butterfly and the tiara and the note on my nightstand. I kept the eraser in my hand.

  I slept. I slept for days. And when I woke up, I really did know everything.

  CHAPTER 49

  I stood with my toes nestled among the trail of white flowers that stretched from the side of Three Lovers Point and down into the canyon.

  Today I will lay your soul to rest, Liza, I thought.

  I didn’t turn around when I heard the footsteps behind me. I had invited her. I was making a new start, a new beginning.

  “Hi, Reggie,” I said as she came along side of me.

  She gave me a hug. “I was so excited when you called. I didn’t really expect to hear from you.”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about your tattoo,” I said. “The butterfly. Or rather, the monarch butterfly. Not because it migrates, or even because it’s poisonous, but because of its name. Monarch. I should have gotten it right away. Reggie is short for Regina. It means ‘queen’, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes sparkled behind the blue contact lenses.

  “Three girls all named after queens. Ellie for Eleanor of Aquitaine. Liza for Elizabeth I. And you. Vicky. For Queen Victoria.”

  Her smile was radiant. “My secret identity is revealed! I knew you’d get it eventually. How did you figure it out?”

  “Three sugars,” I said. Her pretty forehead compressed into a frown. “Three sugars and soymilk,” I elaborated. “I remembered how Grant knew exactly what you put in your tea that day you ran into us at the hospital café. It’s the kind of thing you learn about someone you care about. So I guessed he knew you, and the two of you had some re
ason for lying about it. I couldn’t figure out why, but when he was dying, he kept saying he was torn. Only that wasn’t it. He was saying Tory.”

  She picked one of her slightly-too-dark hairs from her sweater and dropped it on the ground. “I hated that nickname. It was so trailer trash. But I guess that was to be expected.”

  I felt myself starting to get angry. “He loved you. He protected you even when he was dying, you know. He made it seem like he killed your sister himself.”

  “He did,” she said, painting her face with shock. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “When I said I remembered your tattoo, I meant something else. I remembered seeing it the night your sister died. Seeing it after Grant knocked me out instead of Liza and called you in a panic asking what to do.”

  “What a mess,” she said, shaking her head at the memory. “He really screwed everything up.”

  “Actually it was you who messed it up. When Ellie brought you the note she’d found in the Old Man, setting a meeting with Colin to run away, you thought it was for Liza. You assumed Colin and Liza were a couple. That was why during the party you texted Liza’s phone pretending to be Colin. You expected it would be Liza who came running, but it was me, and me that Grant knocked out. He used my phone to text Liza and get her to come out too. But that meant you had two of us to dispose of.”

  “What an interesting story.”

  “I saw your tattoo then. When you came to help Grant. You turned me over, slapped me on the cheek to see if I was conscious. I pretended not to be, but I was. And I heard your laugh. You were enjoying it.” I stared down at the sea of white flowers. “What I can’t figure out is why you did it. Why did you want to hurt Liza?”

  Her pretty face grew grave. “You didn’t really know her. To you, to her friends, she seemed like a nice girl, but really she was hor-rible. She only thought about herself and pleasing herself. Having her own way.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  She looked at me guilelessly. “But it is. She only cared about getting what she wanted. She didn’t ever think about others. About the Family. She was out of control. I’d tell her to do something, and she’d just ignore me. It had been getting worse and worse since Christmas. Finally, when I saw that note, it came to a head. She thought she was going to leave us!” Her eyes were wide, incredulous. “She thought she could abandon our family. She needed to learn that actions had consequences. Being in a family was like being part of a team—if you do something it affects everyone. And you have to respect the leader. She had no respect.”