Vivian Divine Is Dead (17 page)

“Isabel,” I say. “Paloma—”

“Later.”

We’re rushing through the cemetery, our shoes slapping the marble tips of graves, when Isabel trips. She lands hard on her knee and collapses onto a flower-strewn grave, the ribbons in her braids spiraling out behind her skeleton-masked face like red sun rays.

I wrench her to her feet and sling her arm around my shoulders. With Isabel groaning at every step, we limp to the end of the graveyard. Outside the gates, the white marble stairs are nearly blinding in the direct sunlight. I shield my eyes with my hand, and I notice a figure standing at the top of the stairs.
Probably a flower seller peddling her last wares.

When we finally reach the gate, the bright sun is slipping behind the clouds. The blinding reflection from the stairs is fading, revealing the space between the gate and the white marble stairs, and I can see the figure on the top step more clearly now. She’s wearing a traditional white dress, her hair plaited into a long braid.
It’s not a flower seller.
I grab the tall iron gate, suddenly feeling protected again
.

It’s Mary.

She’s here to rescue me.

Only Mary could find me out here, in the middle of nowhere.
Did she bring the CIA? The army? Dad’s security team?

Joy pulses through me.
Everything’s going to be okay.
I don’t know how she found me, but I don’t care.
We’re going home!
I look around, expecting masked men to drop from helicopters, their guns drawn.
Any moment now.

“Mary!” I call, but she just glances at me, and then flicks her eyes away.
She’s telling me to stay quiet.
I drop my hands from the gate, hoping to fade into the shadows until Mary reveals her plan to get me out of here. I’m scanning the horizon for snipers’ rifles or police helmets when I notice Isabel standing stock-still beside me. She’s staring at Mary, her fingers clenched so tightly around the gate that veins are standing up on the backs of her hands.

Then from out of nowhere, another figure appears at the top of the stairs, his red suit a shimmering spot on the blue horizon.
Marcos.
I shrink back from the gate.
Where did he come from? And how did he get here so fast?

A vein pops out in Mary’s forehead.
“Dónde está mi hija?”

Marcos steps closer to her, so that they’re facing each other at the top of the stairs, their dark figures encased by bright light. “Welcome to Rosales,” he says, stepping forward to give her a kiss on the cheek, but Mary turns her face away.

“
Hola,
Marcos,” she says stiffly.

“
Hable inglés
,” Marcos says. “I want Vivian to hear this.”

Dread wraps through my body, blurring my vision and making my hands tremble.
Even if Marcos has seen me on TV, what could he possibly want me to hear?

“Okay,
señor
,” Mary says. “No more games. Just hand her over.” Nobody can resist Mary’s demands. Not studio execs, or producers, or directors with tight schedules. And neither can Marcos, apparently.

“If it means that much to you,” Marcos says, “you can have her.”

I knew she’d come for me!
The gate scrapes along the ground as I push it open and step through.
I’m here, Mary! I’m coming!

Then something cinches around my waist, locking me in place. I fight against the huge arm, squirming with snake tattoos as it wraps tightly around my body. In Scars’s other arm, Paloma struggles to pull out of his grip. “Mary!” I yell, but she keeps beaming at me with a stupid, dreamy grin.

“Paloma!” Isabel shrieks, and then Scars shoves Paloma, and she stumbles across the dirt patch toward the staircase, landing on the ground at Mary’s feet.

Mary gazes down, and she doesn’t seem to notice me screaming from the gate twenty feet away. She looks so happy: in her panicked state, she must think Paloma’s me. But then Mary lifts Paloma’s face up to hers and says, “Palomita. My baby girl.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

H
OW DOES
M
ARY KNOW
P
ALOMA?
A million tiny needles pierce my skin, and then a ringing starts in my head. I unconsciously tighten my fist, squeezing Scars’s hand like I used to squeeze Mary’s when I was nervous. Scars glances at me in irritation, and squeezes back until the blood starts draining from my arm.
What the hell is going on?

I feel like I’m looking at one of those superimposed photos, the kind where one person’s face is pasted onto another person’s body. And besides the fact that the girl in Mary’s arms should be
me
, not Paloma, there’s something strange about Mary. Her hair is pulled back into a braid, and she’s wearing a white cotton dress.
What happened to her black uniform?

“Palomita,” Mary says, crouching down beside Paloma and cupping her cheek in her palm. Paloma tries to pull away, but Mary holds her close. Paloma doesn’t look scared, exactly, like reporters look when Mary shields me from them; just hesitant, and angry.

“Not the welcome home you expected, Aurora?” Marcos asks.

Aurora.
Suddenly, I feel tingling up and down my arms, like when you’re spinning too fast and the tips of your fingers feel like they’re tearing off. The ringing in my head increases, until it’s a solid buzz.
Paloma’s mother?
For a long moment, I can’t breathe.
Mary is Isabel’s dead sister?
That’s not possible! She’s
my Mary
. For the past two years, she’s taken me to every rehearsal, film shoot, interview, wrap party. She was happy for me when I met Pierre, and hated him for me when he betrayed me.
She can’t be Aurora!
I remember the nights that Mary sat by my side after Mom died, and how she always comforted me when I woke up screaming from a nightmare. Besides, Isabel said that Aurora died crossing the border two years ago.
But her body was never found.

I yank my arms forward, but Scars’s grasp is too tight, and my elbows feel like they’re being pulled out of their sockets.
I thought Mary and I knew everything about each other! Or maybe she just knew everything about me.

Beside me, Isabel is holding on to the iron gate, her hands trembling, her mouth gaping in disbelief. “Aurora?”

“Shut up, Isabel!” Mary hisses, and then returns to caressing Paloma’s terrified face. Paloma scoots away from Mary, using her feet to propel her backward. “
¡Me abandanó!
” Paloma shrieks.

Mary grabs onto one of Paloma’s ankles before she slips out of reach, and reels Paloma back toward her. Paloma scrambles to grab the ground, but Mary’s too strong. She pulls Paloma close and wraps her arms around her in a tight hug. “
Mi hija
,” Mary says.

Paloma shakes her head furiously, trying to pry Mary’s hands off her skinny body. “
¡Me abandanó!
” she screams again.

“English, ladies,” Marcos interrupts, leaning all of his weight on his good leg and swinging his cane in a slow circle. “We’ve got a distinguished guest.”

Paloma breaks out of Mary’s grasp and runs across the dusty ground between the white marble stairs and the cemetery gate. She throws herself into Isabel’s arms and bursts into tears.

“You
abandoned
her, Aurora,” Isabel says to Mary. “It’s been
two years.
”

“That doesn’t matter,” Mary says through gritted teeth. I remember how Mary clenches her jaw at night, and how she said it was because she was worried all day about me.
It was never me she was worried about—that was all a lie.
“She’s
my
daughter!” Mary yells at Isabel, her eyes filled with rage.

Isabel cradles Paloma to her side, and her gentleness is gone. She’s fierce, a warrior. “This is Paloma’s choice,” she says, and turns to Paloma.
“
¿
Tu madre o yo?”

Paloma looks back and forth between them, her lips quivering with indecision, but then she hugs Isabel tighter, hiding her face in Isabel’s purple dress.

“But
I’m
her mother,” Mary says, her face filling up with red until it looks like an overripe plum. “Tell Isabel to give her back!” she screams at Marcos.

Marcos swings his cane in a lazy circle. “This has nothing to do with me,” he says.

“But you promised to give me Paloma,” Mary says, her fists squeezing into rocks by her sides. “If I gave you Vivian.”

The bottom of my heart drops out. I actually feel it hit the ground, roll around in the dust, and break open.
Mary gave me away to some psycho who might have killed my mom and probably wants to kill me, too?
As I struggle against Scars’s grip, my mind spins back through the two years Mary’s spent by my side: how she knew where to park the limo so the press couldn’t see me, how she learned every word of Pierre’s song about me so we could sing it together, how she guarded me against the press and Pierre’s betrayal, and how she knew everything about me, even the ugly parts.
It was her job
, I realize. Hurt like a bullet slices into me, exploding in my stomach and tearing apart my insides.
She never really loved me.

“How could you do this to me?” I yell, ripping out of Scars’s grip and charging toward Mary. Scars lunges after me, but Marcos shakes his head, and Scars stops in place. “I trusted you!”

Mary’s arms shoot out and grip my wrists with the kind of force I’ve seen her use to wrench journalists from my window. “I had to, V. He had my daughter.”

“But you said you loved me!”

“I do love you, but I love my daughter more,” Mary says, tears streaming down her cheeks. She slightly relaxes her grip on my wrists, but not enough for me to pull away. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Mary continues. “I wish I could take it back.”

“Which part do you wish you could take back?”

“All of it. Leaving my daughter, accepting the job as your bodyguard, helping Marcos kidnap Pearl, fooling you into coming down here.”

I suddenly feel like I’m in a sandstorm; my skin is stinging and hot tears are burning my eyes. I try to blink them away, but I can’t stop them from streaming down my face. “Then why did you do it?” I cry.

“You know why,” Mary says. She lets go of my wrists, and my arms drop limply to my sides. She turns toward Paloma, and, hovering by the gate twenty feet away, Isabel pulls Paloma tighter into her arms. “I never wanted to leave Paloma,” Mary says to Isabel. “But Marcos asked me to watch over Vivian until he got out of prison. He promised he’d pay me more money than I’d ever seen. I . . . I thought it was only for a year and then I’d come home with money that could change our lives! But he said I couldn’t bring Paloma with me, or tell you what I was doing. It wasn’t safe.”

It wasn’t safe?
With the back of my hand, I rub the tears off my face so hard it feels like I’m tearing through my skin.
What about
my
safety?

Mary turns and glares at Marcos. “But when you got out of prison, you didn’t pay me. You kidnapped Paloma instead, so I had to do what you told me to. And it was always one more thing: Just kill a Pearl Divine impersonator, you said,” Mary seethes, her voice full of venom. “Bring me Pearl, you said, and then you’d give Paloma back. But you didn’t. Liar!” she yells.

Marcos lifts his eyebrows, tempting her to say more.

Mary shakes her head angrily, the vein in her right temple throbbing, and then she shifts her gaze back to me. “He wouldn’t give Paloma back—not until I delivered you to him. And with Mr. Divine’s added security, kidnapping wasn’t an option.”

“How could you?” I demand, pressing so close to Mary that she has to back up to keep standing.

“I didn’t have a choice. He would have killed my
daughter
,” Mary says, her eyes teeming with tears. “And he arranged everything. I just had to be at the right place, at the right time. And it wasn’t hard,” she adds. “All it took was a cheap video, a fake DNA test, and an easily fooled body double. Everything can be bought, you know, with the right funds.”

I don’t realize that I am backing up in horror, but there’s suddenly a large distance between Mary and me. My fists are squeezed into tight balls, wanting to pummel her until she feels the pain I’m feeling right now, but at the same time, my legs are yelling for me to run as fast as I can away from her.

“So that’s it?” I snap. “It was that easy?”

“Well, it did get complicated at the end.” Mary shakes her head. “Sparrow and Pierre almost ruined it when they saw that FBI agent threatening me,” she says. “Pierre tried so hard to warn you, and if he had, my Palomita wouldn’t be alive right now.” Mary gazes at Paloma, now weeping in Isabel’s arms.

Face-to-face, I realize she looks nothing like the old Mary, the person I trusted with every intimate detail of my life. Her face is sharp and cruel; her eyes glimmer with a mix of grief and hate. “How could you do this to me? After two years together, all day every day! I’m a daughter to you too,” I insist. “And you’re my—”

“Servant,” she answers. It’s a shock. I never thought of her that way. I thought she was one of the family—actually, the only family I had.

“Okay, ladies, enough,” Marcos says, glancing at his watch. “It was a pleasure, but there’s somewhere I have to be.” He winks at me. “Take care of this,” he says to Scars, and walks toward the graveyard.

“Sí, señor.”
Scars smacks Mary across the face with an open palm, and she drops to the ground. Then he reaches for me.

On the ground below him, Mary grabs Scars’s massive legs. “
No la toque a
Vivian,” she warns Scars as he drags her across the ground. “Marcos—” Mary mimes the gesture of slitting Scars’s throat.

Scars stops and shakes Mary off his leg.
If Mary said what I think she said, then Marcos is protecting me. But why?

Then, by the cemetery gate, I see Paloma pointing at me, trying to get my attention. I look over and she tilts her head to the right, toward the long fence.
“Siga los cempasúchiles
,” Paloma says urgently.

Cempasúchiles? Where have I heard that word before?
I suddenly remember Isabel in the cemetery, asking me to help her spread the marigold petals over Aurora’s grave. I glance at Paloma, who is pointing toward the trail of orange petals that start at the cemetery gate and weave around the cemetery fence
. Siga los cempasúchiles. Follow the marigolds.

Hoping I got the right message, I take off down the marigold path that winds around the cemetery fence, following the trail of orange petals. As I run, the petals crush beneath my shoes, releasing their sickly sweet scent into the air. To my surprise, I don’t hear any footsteps behind me.

On the other side of the fence, people are leaving church and flooding back into the cemetery. In the light, their skeleton masks lose their power, becoming cheap Halloween decorations rather than the grim versions of death they were earlier. Some people are walking through the cemetery gates, little kids in their arms; others are cleaning the graves, pushing brooms back and forth, gathering trash from the night before in large black trash bags.

I finally glance back behind me. Scars is just standing at the top of the stairs, watching me. He’s at least a foot taller than everyone around him, and it takes me a second to find Isabel, Mary, and Paloma huddled together at the cemetery gates.
Keep moving, Vivian. Siga los cempasúchiles.
I drop my head and focus on following the orange marigold path. It winds around the end of the fence, passes the farthest corner of the graveyard, and then leads to the door of the two-story white house. Hanging above the door is a gold-engraved picture of a coffin, with the words “Estella Funeraria” inside of it.

The path leads to a funeral home? What was Paloma trying to tell me?

The marigold path I’m following doesn’t stop at the front door, but continues beneath the door, into the house.
Do it, Vivian. Turn the handle. Go in before anyone comes.
I turn the doorknob, and the door opens into the Estella Funeraria.

I haven’t been in a funeral home since Mom died. I remember how her casket was closed so we couldn’t see her face, how Mary insisted that I wouldn’t want to remember Mom that way.
But Mary did all of this to me. Did she help kill Mom, too?

Gritting my teeth, I walk into the funeral parlor and close the door behind me. This somber, cold room couldn’t be more different from the lively cemetery outside. The floor is covered with a deep red carpet, and there are two rows of black metal chairs, all facing a shiny silver coffin.

I creep forward along the thinning marigold path until it takes a sharp right turn at the coffin and disappears into an enclave, which is separated from the main room by a beaded curtain. I follow the flower petals through the curtain, the gold and black beads running in silky waves between my fingers. On the floor just inside the curtain, the path ends in a large orange cross of marigold petals.
But why did Paloma tell me to follow this path? Does this have anything to do with Mom?
When I look up, I see that I’m in a small chapel, glowing with candlelight
.
But it’s unlike any chapel I’ve ever seen.