“In the living room, wondering if you’re going to come play Rock Band with us again.”
She giggled and her insides melted to that soft butter consistency she’d become accustomed to.
“Mrs. Ramirez!” Delaney’s voice, so welcome to Marcella’s ears, sounded from the tiny kitchen. Kellen turned to greet her with Marcella hovering directly behind him.
Delaney wrapped her consoling arms around Mrs. Ramirez, squeezing her with a warm hug. “Tell me what I can do.”
Her dark hair was in disarray and her full cheeks were red. “Oh, Meess Delaney. I am so worry for my baby. I tell you, this is not like her,” Mrs. Ramirez whispered with hushed words. “She never, never bad. Not even when she was in high school. I do not understand nothing anymore. Everything is crazy!”
Delaney patted her shoulder. “You go do what you have to and keep Kellen close by, okay? We’ll talk when you get back.” She thumbed away an escaped tear from Mrs. Ramirez’s pudgy cheek. “Go.” She motioned to Kellen with a swishing hand. “Carlos and I will be fine.”
Kellen planted a kiss on top of her head. “Thank you.”
Delaney tugged him down to her level. “Is you-know-who here?”
He gave her a sharp nod and a wink. “Right behind me.”
Delaney’s eyes twinkled. “Suhweet. Give her a kiss for me. Oh, but wait. I’m assuming you’ve already done that.”
Kellen’s smile was evasive. “Keep your cell on. I’ll call you to keep you updated.”
Delaney peeked over his shoulder and wiggled her fingers at Marcella. “Way to get your man,” she whispered. “Now go.”
Kellen ushered Mrs. Ramirez out the door with Marcella fast on his heels.
Mrs. Ramirez marched down the sidewalk with determined steps, her purse swinging rhythmically as she went. Kellen grabbed hold of her arm to slow her strides. “Any clues as to where to begin?”
She grunted her disgust. “I hear her, Meester Kellen. I hear her talk to her friends on the phone. I hear the names of the places.” She stopped short in front of a dilapidated brick building. The sign that had once glowed OPEN in pink neon hung at an awkward angle and was officially O EN, if it could be trusted.
Marcella wrinkled her nose at Kellen. What a dive. Paint peeled off the front door Mrs. Ramirez stomped through, letting it swing behind her so hard, it slammed in Marcella’s face.
She floated through the steel and rushed to catch up to Kellen, who squinted in the smoky gloom of the bar’s interior, scanning it. Marcella leaned in and spoke in his ear. “Jesus. She’s a force to contend with. Don’t lose sight of her. This place is foul.”
The bartender’s head rose when Mrs. Ramirez dropped a fist on the sticky surface, jarring a bowl of peanut shells. “Where is my baby?” she bellowed.
The bartender, scruffy, unshaven, and underfed, eyeballed her with apathy.
“I say, where is my baby?” Her anxiety was mounting. Not good.
Kellen placed his hands on her shoulders to calm her and spoke to the bartender. “We’re looking for a Solana Vega. She’s about . . .” He leaned over Mrs. Ramirez’s stout shoulder with a quizzical glance. “What does she look like, Mrs. Ramirez? In all this time, I don’t think I’ve ever met her.”
Tears filled her coal-colored eyes. “She is beautiful. She has dark hair—black. So black. About dees—
this
—tall,” she said, holding up a hand that just touched the top of Kellen’s shoulder and, had Marcella been human, would have skinned her nose. “She has green eyes—” She choked, stopping short to wipe furiously at the tears that slid along her rounded cheeks.
The bartender hitched his scruffy jaw at Kellen. “You a cop?”
“Just a concerned friend. Look, have you seen anyone even remotely like her in here—last night?”
“I don’t see nuthin’,” he spat with a tight mouth.
“What he needs to see is a bar of soap,” Marcella said, wrinkling her nose.
Kellen pulled his wallet from the pocket of his jeans. “How about I just leave you my card, and you give me a call if you do see her?”
He snatched the card from Kellen, looked at him with pointed distaste, and ripped up the card with slow precision.
“You are a pig!” Mrs. Ramirez shouted, banging her chubby fist on the bar. “You disgusting
cabrón
!”
“Hookay, she’s swearing in Spanish. It’s time to go,” Marcella said from behind Kellen, whose jaw clenched, leaving a pulsing tic.
“C’mon, Mrs. Ramirez. Let’s go.” Tugging at her arm, he peeled her away from the bar with gentle force.
“Jesus Christ, Mother. What are
you
doing here?”
All heads swiveled in the direction of the bathrooms behind them.
But only two mouths fell open.
“Did you hear me, old woman? What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be watching my son or making tortillas?” The woman strode across the littered barroom floor with seductive, ass-swishing steps. The sway of her hips, encased in a red micro-mini, was cadent. Her shoulder-length dark hair fell in soft waves around her face, her bangs just brushing her forehead, and her flashing green eyes glared their disapproval at her mother.
Kellen looked to Marcella.
She looked back. Eyes wide.
Holy, holy shit.
Mrs. Ramirez visibly shook with anger and upset. “Oh, Solana! You come with me right now! This is filthy! Why you behave like this? Carlos, he need you.”
The clack of her heels stopped when Solana confronted her mother, one hand on her rounded hip, the other curled around a tumbler of amber liquid. “Carlos, Carlos. All you ever do is talk about that kid. What about me? Me, me, me!”
Mrs. Ramirez jerked as though Solana had slapped her.
What a selfish brat. How did such a disaster have a great kid like Carlos? Marcella might have considered attempting to pick up something again—something big—and whack this bitch just for being so disrespectful to her mother, if not for the fact that she could barely process what she was seeing.
“And who are you, hottie?” she cooed at Kellen, flashing him a seductive wink.
Before Kellen could answer, Mrs. Ramirez grabbed her daughter’s hand, pulled it to her lips, and kissed it, tears falling along her cheeks, leaving wet tracks. “Please, Solana. You come home. We fix this. We get help. Whatever we need to do, we do.”
A deep chuckle escaped her throat. “Fix what, Mother?” she responded, mocking Mrs. Ramirez’s accent, then exhaling a sigh that had enough alcohol in it to pollute an entire army of men.
Leaning into Kellen, Marcella said, “Do me a favor?”
His eyebrow rose in question.
“Slap this silly bitch for me. That’s her mother. You don’t talk to your mother like that. Ever.”
“This! We fix this!” Mrs. Ramirez swept a shaky hand around the room. “This is a place for
putas
!”
“Oh, Mama. You’re such a cheeky wench,” she cackled, tweaking Mrs. Ramirez’s cheek with fingertips painted in slashes of deep red.
A warning tingle skittered along Marcella’s arms, spreading to her stomach and settling there like heavy lead. Chills of terror broke out on her skin.
Oh, sweet mutha.
Oh, Jesus God.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Marcella’s head reeled. Her hands went clammy; her knees melted like caramel in the hot sun. How could . . .
Suddenly, everything made sense. Carlos, the box—all of it. And then her eyes narrowed in Solana’s direction with fury spewing from them. Fury Solana couldn’t see, but if looks were deadly—Carlos’s mother would burn in the deepest pit of Hell.
“Dios condenada folladora madre, inútil hija de puta! Dios condenada folladora madre, inútil hija de puta!”
Marcella spat.
“Delaney always said to watch out for you when you reverted to your native tongue,” Kellen said out of the side of his mouth, his eyes never straying from Solana while Mrs. Ramirez continued to beg her daughter to leave with her.
Fear screamed up her spine. “Kellen, pay attention to me. We have to get her out of here!” How had this happened?
Kellen clearly hadn’t gotten over his shock, but Marcella had.
They had to get the fuck out of here and take Mrs. Ramirez with them. ASAP. “Kellen, get her the hell out of here now,” Marcella reiterated from between clenched teeth.
He shook her off, his eyes wide, his jaw still scraping the floor.
“Kellen, listen to me. Get her out of here now. Get her away from here. Trust me when I say, do it
now
!”
Kellen shook his head and his eyes cleared. He placed a hand on Mrs. Ramirez’s arm. “Let’s go, Mrs. Ramirez. You’ve done what you came to do. You know she’s safe. Let’s go back to my place and not make a scene. Carlos needs you.”
“Yeah, Mother. Carlos
needs
you,” Solana echoed mockingly with a growling tinkle of laughter.
But the older woman shook her head in an oppositional manner with vigor. “No. I no leave until my baby come with me!”
“Get out of here, Mother. Go away and leave me alone, you nagging shrew!” Solana shrieked, her laughter bordering on insane.
Mrs. Ramirez began to cry in earnest, but she allowed Kellen to pull her from the bar.
When they hit the door, Marcella gave one last glance back at Solana. One last hard, long look.
Her brain wanted to deny what her eyes were seeing, but there was no denying what was right in front of her.
She shivered.
Holy doppelgänger.
Delaney sobbed into a tissue with one hand and held Kellen’s with the other. “God, Marcella. I wish you’d told me. I’m your friend. I love you. I would have listened. I would never have judged you. Most importantly, I would have
believed
.”
Knots of tension tightened in Marcella’s stomach. It was only fair Delaney know, but reliving her grief three times in a row, explaining herself and her motives over and over, was like being overcleansed. “Tell her I know she wouldn’t have, but the memories . . .”
Waving a hand at her brother, Delaney said, “You don’t have to say it, Kell. I know what her response is. It hurt too much. I can’t even imagine what you’ve suffered. But I knew, Marcella Acosta, I
knew
you’d been unfairly judged, and it makes me that much more determined to keep you here with me.” She slapped a hand on the table for emphasis.
Marcella fought a sympathetic BFF sob and stayed focused on the task at hand. “We have bigger problems than that now. Carlos is in some serious danger. So is Mrs. Ramirez. Send Delaney home, Kellen. Please. We can’t afford to have her involved.”
They’d decided not to tell Delaney about what had unfolded at the bar, other than that Solana refused to come home with her mother. Delaney might have had plenty of friends in the afterlife, but she had enemies, too. If Delaney knew what they’d just witnessed, she’d be hell-bent on helping, and they couldn’t risk that. Letting her focus on a way to keep Marcella earthbound was far less risky because, at this point, it seemed impossible.
Kellen gave her that look again. The one that still screamed he couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed.
The doorbell jingled and Clyde, tall, handsome, glasses crookedly propped on his nose, entered the kitchen. His eyes fell immediately on Delaney with gentle sympathy. “Hey, honey. Been a long day, huh?”
Delaney was up and out of her chair, hurling herself at Clyde’s hulking form. “Take me home, Mensa Man. I need babying after what I heard today.” She snuggled against him and for a moment, Marcella felt a stab of envy for that thing called normalcy.
“What happened?” he asked, lips pressed to the top of her red-gold head.
Kellen gave him a brief overview of the day’s events, ending with Marcella’s confession, to which Clyde responded by whistling long and sharp. “So my woman’s been right all along about Marcella?” He clapped Kellen on the back.
Marcella gave Kellen a smug smile. “Yeah. She has.”
“She’s here, by the way.” Kellen tilted his head in Marcella’s direction.
Clyde looked out into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Marcella, for your loss. I wish there were something I could say, but what could lessen the pain of losing a child?”
Clyde’s words were so spot-on, so accurate, she swallowed hard again. Marcella had to look away when she responded for fear she’d cry again. “Tell Clyde I said what would really make me feel better is if he and Delaney would go home and make me an auntie.”
He reached out a hand to her, clasping her fingers between his, and laughed. “Marcella said go home and make babies. She wants to be an aunt.”
“Will you two be okay?” Delaney’s concern riddled her eyes.
“We can’t do anything but wait now anyway, D. Carlos isn’t the immediate problem right now. It’s Mrs. Ramirez’s daughter, Solana. And what else can we do other than be here for Mrs. Ramirez when she needs us? I promise I’ll call you if anything else happens.”
Delaney reached up and kissed Kellen’s cheek. “I feel so bad for Mrs. Ramirez. Whenever she talked about her daughter, she made her sound like such a wonderful woman, a great mother. I guess grief has many facets. What a mess for her and poor Carlos.”
Kellen shook Clyde’s hand and smiled. “I promise to call if anything happens. Get some rest.”
Clyde chuckled dotingly. “Like she’ll ever do that until she finds a way to get Marcella earthbound again. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get all romantic with a woman who’s passed out on the couch with her nose buried in a book?”
Kellen laughed, giving Clyde a slap on the back and sending them out the door.
Silence fell between them.
“I—” They spoke simultaneously.
Silence came again—words had become laborious.
When Kellen finally spoke, his voice was still laced with his confusion. “I think I’ve said this about a hundred times since this thing with Carlos began—I don’t get it.”
“That makes two of us.”