The Black Widow (13 page)

But then . . .

Then something terrible happened.

Damn Carmen for bringing her yellow roses. Getting rid of them hadn’t gotten rid of the bad luck after all. Even now, years later, it continues.

She should have seen it coming, though—Carlos’s suicide. Should have taken precautions to keep it from happening.

He was on antidepressants when he came here. You don’t stop any medication cold turkey—especially not the one Carlos was taking. That particular drug carries an increased risk of suicide if the patient abruptly discontinues it. She should have tapered him off the drug just as she had her own medication years ago. Or at least she should have made sure he didn’t have the means to harm himself.

She’d slipped up, and now look.

With a muttered curse, Alex pries the sharp, bloodied piece of the broken vase from Carlos’s hand and drops it into a small bag. Then, crawling on the floor with the flashlight, she collects the rest of the shards. She puts them into the bag and carries it out to the garage.

She puts the bag into the trunk of the car, along with the shovel, rake, and headlamp. Then, leaving the trunk open, she rolls the handcart into the house, jaw set grimly.

Lying naked in Ben’s arms in her bed, her head against his bare chest, Gaby keeps her eyes closed, though she’s not the least bit sleepy.

If she allows herself to open them, she’ll have to stop pretending that the past few years never happened.

Right now she can almost convince herself that they’re back in their old apartment—not the junior four with the nice countertops, but the smaller place where they lived together when they were young and in love and . . .

Happy.

We were so happy.

If they’d stayed in that cozy apartment, Josh’s crib would have been right next to their bed that morning. He’d still be alive.

That was what Gaby told herself—and Ben—for months after the loss.

Right or wrong . . .

In this moment, it doesn’t matter.

She’s happy right here, right now, for the first time in so long . . .

She doesn’t want to think about what led them here, or where they’ll go from here . . .

Ben’s fingertips play up and down her bare arm. “You okay?” he asks softly—the first words he’s spoken since they somehow tumbled into bed together.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yeah. But—”

“Don’t say it, Ben.”

“Don’t say what?”

“You know. That it was a mistake, that we shouldn’t have let it happen, that—”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. It wasn’t a mistake.”

She ponders that, listening to the city’s night noises through the open window. Hip-hop music from a club a few doors down mixes with traffic and sirens. Departing patrons shout at the bouncer.

Gaby’s fantasy is shattered. The old apartment was on the thirtieth floor, with central air-conditioning. They heard very little even when the windows were open—which was rare.

Reluctantly, she allows her eyes to open. Her gaze falls on two almost empty glasses of wine sitting on the table. They were sitting right there, sipping and chatting, when he leaned in suddenly and kissed her.

“Then what were you going to say?” she asks him. “When you said ‘but’ . . . ?”

“I was going to say that I don’t think we should talk about it.”

“About . . .”

“
This
. Not tonight, anyway. I don’t think we should try to figure out what it means, or what should happen next . . . okay?”

Relieved, she smiles and closes her eyes again. “Okay.”

Muttering to herself, Alex shoves the blade of a shovel into the patch of ground she just raked clear of fallen leaves from the dense patch of trees arching overhead.

“Over your dead body is right, you son of a bitch . . .”

She heaves a shovelful of dirt to the side of the hole and stabs the blade again into the deepening pit.

“If I’d known what you were going to do, I’d have done it for you myself . . .”

Thud
. The shovel slams into the hole again.

She grunts, lifts. More dirt hails down, hitting her shoes.

“Would have made it a lot less messy, too . . .”

Thud
.

Grunt.

Lift.

Toss.

At last, the hole is deep enough.

The beam of her headlamp bobs along the trail as she pulls the handcart up to the shed that contains a few large wooden crates, the kind used to ship construction materials and furniture. Carmen meant to burn them or repurpose them, but never had the chance. Alex carts a large one back down to the freshly dug crater. She pries off the lid and sets it aside, then pushes the crate over the edge. It lands in the bottom of the hole with a thump, open side up. Waiting.

Panting hard, she pulls the handcart back to the car, parked in a small clearing off a lane that runs up to the property from the main road. At this time of year, there’s a good amount of vegetation to conceal it even if someone happened to pass by—not that anyone ever does.

Reaching into her back pocket for the keys, she’s seized by momentary panic. They aren’t there.

Where can they be? Did she drop them in the shed? Into the dirt? Somewhere along the overgrown trail? If so, she’ll never find them. Now what?

It’s not as if she can call Triple A for help. And she can’t abandon the car here with a dead body in the trunk.

She can if she flees the country.

It isn’t the first time the thought has entered her mind. She can make a fresh start in Mexico or South America . . .

No. That was Carmen’s fantasy, back before they built their dream house here. He was the one who had faraway family. She had no one.

No one but him, and their son . . .

And when they were gone, she was back to having no one.

Oh. Okay, there they are. The keys. Thank goodness. No fleeing the country tonight, at any rate. She’d tucked the key ring into the back left pocket of her jeans, not the back right.

She presses the remote and pops open the trunk.

The interior is lined with a big blue plastic tarp. On top of it lies a bulky black garbage bag—the oversized, extra-thick kind used by contractors.

With a grunt, she wrestles it out and lets it clunk to the ground. Then, positioning it on the handcart, she backs down the trail to the waiting crate inside the hole.

Every trudging footstep is in time to the refrain running through her head.

Two . . . weeks . . . two . . . weeks . . . two . . . weeks . . .

That’s all the time she has to find someone new.

Chapter 6

“Me muero de hambre!”
Jaz exclaims, picking up the menu.

“What else is new?” Gaby asks, seated across the table from her, busily texting on her phone. “You’re always starving.”

“I want the challah French toast
and
the goat cheese omelet. I can’t decide. They both sound so good.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Or maybe I’ll have the deep fried goat brains instead. What do you think? Do you want to split that?”

“Sure, okay, whatever . . .” Gaby murmurs while typing:
@ brunch w/ my cousin, how bout you?

“Ay Dios mio!”

Startled, Gaby lifts her head. “What?”

“You’re not even listening to me!”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re texting. You should have just stayed home alone and had brunch with your phone.”

“I’m sorry.” Gaby hastily types
gtg
—shorthand for
got to go
—and guiltily tucks the phone into her pocket.

Jaz is right. She probably should have stayed home.

But when her cousin called to invite her to brunch, she had just noticed the beautiful day beyond her measly window and was feeling as though she should get out there and enjoy it. Credit for that instinct went to Abuela, who had worked in a factory most of her life. She always said it was a crime for anyone who didn’t have to be inside not to go outdoors when the sun was shining.

“Sal afruera!”
she’d command, and Gaby would obediently get outside.

She had automatically said yes to Jaz’s invitation before stopping to realize she was about to spend several hours with someone who asks a lot of questions she’s not in the mood to answer on an ordinary day—let alone today.

Jaz still lives in the old neighborhood in the Bronx and has a Jeep that she likes to drive into Manhattan on weekends. Gaby met her on their usual corner near the parking garage a few blocks from her apartment. Luckily, Jaz was so full of news about a new guy she’d met that she did almost all the talking as they strolled through the dappled Saturday morning sunshine to this café just off Central Park West.

Gaby found herself watching the fat white clouds sailing high above the skyline, remembering those long ago beach days with Ben.

“That one looks like a wizard riding a tricycle up the side of a sugar cone with two scoops of strawberry ice cream,” he’d say, or, “Look! It’s a three-headed duck swimming over a waterfall!”

“What? I don’t see it!”

“That’s because you’re not looking at it the right way, Gaby. If you really want to see something, just look for it, and it’ll be there . . .”

Right now all she can see is her cousin shaking her head disapprovingly from across the table, her big hoop earrings swaying back and forth.

“What? I put away the phone.”

“I feel like you’re still thinking about it.”

“I’m not.” She reaches for her own menu and tries to focus on it. But she’s too distracted for that; too distracted even for simple conversation. Electronic conversation—with
him
—would be a different story.

A tone sounds from her phone in her pocket, signaling a return text. She waits until Jaz looks away to reach for it, but her cousin catches her.

“Gaby! Come on! You’re going to see him in a few hours anyway, aren’t you?”

“See who?”

“Ryan. Isn’t that who you’re texting?”

“No. But I am seeing him tonight,” she adds quickly. “We’re going to a movie. Have you seen anything good lately?”

Diversion foiled: “If you weren’t texting Ryan,” Jaz says, “then who were you texting?”

“Ben,” she admits reluctantly, setting the menu aside again. Might as well get it over with.

“Ben?
Ben
, Ben?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

She takes a deep breath. “We got together the other night, and we—”

“No!”

“What?”

“Please tell me that you did not do what I think you did, Gabriela.”

“If you think we went out to a nice dinner,
Jacinda
”—she echoes the deliberate emphasis on her cousin’s given name—“we did.”

“And that’s all?”

“Ladies, have you decided?” Summoned to the rescue by Gaby’s subconscious mind, the waiter materializes with his pad in hand.

“I’ll have the challah French toast,” Gaby tells him, and adds, with a gleam in her eye, “She’ll have the deep fried goat brains.”

“Goat cheese omelet,” Jaz amends. “And here I thought you weren’t listening.”

“Yeah, well . . . I’m a multitasker.”

“I guess so. Juggling Ryan and Ben . . .”

Pen poised on his pad, the waiter asks, “White, rye, or whole grain with the omelet?”

“Whole grain, please. No butter.” Jaz smiles at him sweetly, then turns back to Gaby. “Does Ben know about Ryan?”

“Hash browns or fresh fruit?” The waiter again.

“Fruit.”

“Got it.” The waiter departs.

Jaz looks expectantly at Gaby, who sighs.

“Yes,” she says, “Ben knows about Ryan, but—”

“Does Ryan know about Ben?”

“Know that I was married and now I’m divorced? Yes, he knows that.”

“But does he know that you and your ex-husband are—”

“No, because we’re not
anything
. We saw each other. We’re in touch again. That’s it.”

Jaz is silent.

Gaby toys with the cloth napkin in her lap, rolling and unrolling the hem.

“I love you,
mami
,” Jaz says at last. “I just don’t want you getting hurt. You were so excited about seeing someone new, moving on . . .”

“I’m still excited. I’m still moving on.”

“You can’t move on if you’re with your ex.”

“I’m not with him.” She picks up her cup, sips her coffee, fights the urge to take out her phone to check the latest text.

“Is it because you saw his profile on InTune? You said you weren’t going to get in touch with him.”

“I didn’t. I ran into him.”

“On purpose?”

“No! By accident. We were both at Yankee Stadium the other night.”

“When you went with Ryan? You didn’t tell me you saw Ben.”

“I know.”

“But you’re still going out with Ryan tonight?”

“Yes. Of course.” She tries to sound enthusiastic.

She’s been trying to
feel
enthusiastic, but ever since that night with Ben at her apartment, she’s found it hard to look forward to seeing Ryan again. She can’t remember what she found so appealing about him, or what they talked about, or why she’d reacted so passionately to his kisses.

But Ben—she can remember everything about Ben. Everything they said, and did, and the way it felt to kiss him and fall asleep in his arms . . .

She was half asleep when he left before dawn that morning to go home to shower and get ready for work. He kissed her forehead and told her he’d be in touch.

“Don’t you want to take your box with you?” she asked groggily.

“Not now. I’ll get it later,” he said before slipping out the door.

A few hours later she got an e-mail from him at the office, asking for her new cell phone number. Since then, they’ve been texting back and forth. Mostly just casual comments and questions, although he did ask to see her tonight. Tempted to cancel her plans with Ryan, she thought better of it and told Ben she’s busy.

She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask her to; just wrote:
How about Sunday then?

Not busy,
she responded.

He invited her to go to the beach with him. She said yes. She didn’t ask him where. She knew: Orchard Beach.

Now, she finds herself confessing the plan to Jaz.

“So many memories there for you, Gaby. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“There are memories everywhere, Jaz. We were together so many years.”

“I know.” Jaz takes a long sip of her coffee, holding the cup in both her hands and staring at Gaby over the rim. When at last she sets it down again, she says, “So you’re dating him, basically. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“No! It’s a Sunday afternoon. We’re just going to the beach. Some of the guards from the old days are still there, so we can visit them, maybe take a swim.”

“Still a date.” Jaz sighs heavily, then brightens. “Maybe it’ll rain and he’ll cancel.”

“Come on, Jaz.”

“What?”

“First, the weather is supposed to be great—”

“That’s not what I heard. And maybe you should cancel anyway, because—
hello
—you’re divorced! He left you! He broke your heart!”

“Maybe I broke his first.”

The words spill out of her unexpectedly, obviously catching Jaz by surprise—but catching Gaby off guard as well. She hadn’t even realized she’d been thinking that way, but . . .

Maybe it’s true.

After all, he was the one who’d wanted to keep talking, keep trying, go to therapy . . .

And you? You just wanted to be left alone with your sorrow.

Her response to the tremendous surge of grief had been to shut down her emotions altogether, anesthetizing herself against experiencing not just pain, but anything at all—including love. Yes, she’d gone through the motions of working on her marriage—but if you can’t feel, how can you heal?

At last the numbness has finally begun to give way to genuine emotion. Not just because of Ben, but because she’s finally allowed herself to start living again.

Part of the credit for that goes to Jaz.

Gaby reaches across the table and squeezes her cousin’s hand. “You always have my best interests in mind. I love you for that. Thank you for not turning your back on me and letting me wallow.”

“You know I’d never do that. You’ve been through hell, but it’s behind you now. That’s what I thought, anyway.”

“It is.”

“When he left you, you told me that you never wanted to see him again.”

“I didn’t.” She takes a deep breath. “I know you’re trying to protect me, but trust me—I know what I’m doing.”

Before Jaz can respond to Gaby’s words—essentially, a lie—their food arrives.

“I should have gotten the French toast,” her cousin decides, looking at Gaby’s plate. “Want to switch?”

“No! I told you I’m not in the mood for eggs.”

“Neither am I. How about if we just share yours?”

“You do this every time we go out to eat.”

“So? You love me anyway.”

Laughing and shaking her head, Gaby pushes her plate to the center of the table.

Saturday is Alex’s day off.

Ordinarily she sleeps in.

But last night, she didn’t sleep at all. She tried, but her thoughts wouldn’t stop churning and her entire body was tense, still, from her ordeal.

Not just the shock of discovering Carlos’s bloody corpse, or the unexpected rigor of transporting it up to the woods and burying it with the others, or even the painstaking clean-up that involved lugging pails of hot water and bleach to the basement room and scrubbing away the bloodstains.

It was the tremendous letdown that put her emotions, and her nerves, over the edge.

Carlos had seemed so right. His name even began with C-A-R . . .

Well, she’d been correct to take that as an omen. Just—she should have realized that it wasn’t necessarily a
good
omen.

The first thing she does, after giving up on the hope of sleep and crawling out of bed at last, is open the medicine cabinet and take out the pregnancy test she’d been saving.

Always before, there’s been an air of anticipation when she holds the box in her hand. Today, for the first time, that spark is missing.

It makes her sad, in a way. But more than sad, it makes her angry.

He robbed her of the excitement she should be feeling as she opens the box, pees on the stick, and carries it back to her bedroom. There, she sets the egg timer she keeps in a drawer of her bedside table. She could just use her phone’s stopwatch, of course, but this is the good luck timer she used when she found out she was expecting Dante years ago.

She paces, usually remembering to bend her head at the farthest points of the room where the sloped ceiling gets too low. Sometimes, though, she forgets and walks right into it. Her head throbs, and her fury grows with every step.

This should be a peaceful, hopeful time, and yet—

He robbed her of the ability to say the familiar prayer that’s become a mantra. She does pray, but not for a positive result.

Please . . . please . . . please . . .

Please let it be negative.

As much as Alex longs to find that she’s carrying a child again, she doesn’t want it to be his. A positive test will mean that the bad luck has taken root inside of her, and she’ll have no choice but to destroy it.

Closing her eyes, remembering how she’d slaughtered the yellow roses in the garbage disposal, she knows now that it wasn’t enough.

She should have incinerated them instead. She should have—

The egg timer dings, curtailing her raging thoughts.

She takes a deep breath and crosses the room to check the plastic indicator.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease . . .

Negative.

Grateful, she closes her eyes and tilts her face to the ceiling.

Okay.

Okay.

It’s over. Thank God it’s over.

Now she can make a fresh start. And she will . . .

Today
.

Something is not right.

Ivy Sacks is certain of it.

It’s been exactly two weeks now since Carlos Diaz e-mailed to tell her that his father had been killed in a car accident in Costa Rica.

Horrified by the news, she wrote back right away, extending her sympathy and telling him to take all the time he needed. She also asked about the funeral arrangements, wanting to send flowers. A few days later he e-mailed again, from Costa Rica, to say that the funeral was on hold because his mother was still in intensive care and that he couldn’t leave her.