Darkest Fear (6 page)

“I'm fine. I'm going to drive there. I have a GPS.”

Jennifer was silent. In the background I heard people talking and laughing loudly.

“To find this mystery aunt. Who is probably a mystery for a good reason.”

“Yeah?” I cleared my throat and sounded more definite. “Yes.”

Someone came up behind Jennifer, and she waved them away.

“I don't like it. It seems like too far to drive by yourself. I wish I could go with you.”

“Thank you, H.”

“I know you're going to do what you want,” Jennifer said, resigned. “But promise me you'll eat. If you lose any more weight, I'm telling my mother. Take your cell phone. Do you have Triple A?”

I smiled, and I was so unused to it that it felt odd, like my face was wrinkling.

“Okay, okay, and yes,” I said, loving Jennifer so much.

“Call me when you get there. Let me know what happens with the mystery aunt.”

“I will. Later, HD.”

“Bye, babe.” Jennifer made a kissing sound at the camera and hung up.

Now that I'd had this idea, I couldn't let go of it. I tried to think of all the grown-up things I should do before I left town, like stopping mail and telling the neighbors. After asking Mrs. Peachtree next door for advice, I sold Papi's Escalade at CarMax, because I was eighteen and could do stuff like that.

My tia Juliana called as I was finally doing laundry so I could pack. At first she had called every day, then every couple of days, and now about once a week. I didn't want to tell her about going to New Orleans to find Donella. She'd never mentioned Donella to me, and until I knew why, I didn't want to upset her or, worse, have her try to stop me. Instead I told her that I was turning off the house phone to save money, and she should call my cell phone from now on. I didn't mention New Orleans, didn't mention I was leaving town, and hoped she wouldn't plan a surprise visit.

It was even harder than usual to sleep that night. My brain
churned with ideas of what I might find in New Orleans, and over and over I went through my mental checklist of things I needed to do before I left. Finally I gave up, exhausted. I was only going to be gone a couple of days, after all. It wasn't like I was leaving forever.

In the middle of one of my nightmares I bolted up in bed, my hand over my mouth. Cold sweat stuck my T-shirt to my skin, my heart was pounding, and my breath came in fast pants. I'd dreamed I was back in the Everglades, in the clearing. I'd heard the first growl, the one that had made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

There was a can of warm, flat soda on my bedside table, and I took a gulp. This was the first nightmare in several days—I'd thought I was getting better.

Then . . . I heard something. My very first thought was that Mami or Papi was getting home late and unlocking the kitchen door. My second thought crushed that one. But . . . someone or something was trying to get in.

Get into my house.

In my dream, in the clearing, all three of us had heard the growl. The attacker was in the deep shadow of the woods but obviously knew we were there, had followed us or something. The attacker must have seen me run away. Knew I had escaped. They hadn't waited around—otherwise they could have killed me while I was waiting for the cops. The gods knew I'd been an easy target right then.

Scritch. Scritch.
Something was definitely messing with the kitchen door.

They were coming to get me. They knew where I was, knew I was alone, and were coming to finish the job. Suddenly the legend of the Talofomé came into my mind, but I dismissed it. Like Tia Juliana had said, this was just an evil haguaro, with maybe a pelado partner.

I couldn't breathe. When I was little—actually, until last month—whenever I'd heard a scary sound at night, all I'd had to do was remember that my parents were there. As soon as I'd realized that, I would quit worrying and go back to sleep. This was the first time I couldn't take comfort from that thought. The first time I had no one to protect me. No one except myself.

Terror made me shiver with cold as I scrambled into sweatpants and grabbed my aluminum baseball bat. Holding the bat tightly with one hand, I dialed 911 on my cell phone with the other. This time I could speak, and in an urgent whisper I begged them to send a patrol car to my address. As I hung up, I heard glass breaking in the kitchen and had to bite my lip so I wouldn't scream.

Should I lock myself in my bedroom? Climb out my bedroom window? Horrible images of my parents flashed through my mind—I wouldn't be able to defend myself against this. If this person had killed my parents, then I had no chance.

Or . . . maybe it was just a random break-in? Someone who thought the house was empty because of the uncut lawn and the pile of newspapers by the front door?

I swung the bat onto my shoulder and started silently down the hall, praying to hear sirens. At the kitchen doorway I leaned against
the wall, listening. After the glass breaking it had gone quiet, as if they were making sure that the noise hadn't alerted anyone.

Very slowly I poked my head around the corner. I saw well in the dark, of course, and so I could clearly make out the gloved hand snaking through the broken pane on the door, reaching for the deadbolt.

Sudden fury lit my blood with adrenaline. How dare they? How dare someone come here to hurt me or to rob this house? I sprang forward on bare feet, the bat raised high, then slammed it against the hand as hard as I could. Shockingly, I heard their bones breaking, followed by a horrified scream of pain, then the welcome sounds of police sirens. I raised the bat again as the hand was dragged out of the broken pane, and then footsteps ran through the garage and out the side door.

Quickly I punched the garage door opener, and it started to rise just as patrol cars swung into the driveway. Running out to meet them, I shouted, “He got out through the back! He's in the backyard!”

Two officers ran toward the back, and another one pulled out a clipboard to take my statement. I showed her the broken glass, and saw that it was dripping with blood.

“I hit their hand with my bat,” I explained. “I guess it got shoved down on the broken glass.”

The officer looked at the blood running down the door and said, “They'll be lucky if it didn't almost cut their hand off. Can you describe the intruder?”

“Well, it was a person,” I said without thinking. It had been a hand and not a paw that I'd smashed.

“Yes, honey,” said the policewoman. “I figured it probably wasn't a bear. Do you need to sit down?”

An hour later, the cops hadn't caught the guy, I'd given them as much information as I could (“black glove”), and the curious and alarmed neighbors had all made sure I was okay and then gone home.

Before they left, the police made sure the kitchen door could still lock, and even found a small piece of wood to cover the broken pane in the door.

“Will you be all right here?” one of them asked. “Do you want a ride to a friend's house?”

Jennifer's parents would take me in with no question, I knew, but I shook my head. “I'm okay. Thanks for coming so fast.”

There was no way I could sleep after that. I stayed alert, bat in hand, and listened to every sound from every corner of the house. Why hadn't I thought of that before, that of course my parents' attacker had seen me? Maybe because I'd been a complete raving basket case. Like it or not, I was a haguara, and the attacker knew it. And had come to kill me tonight.

Good thing I was leaving town.

• • •

When the sun came up, I felt gritty-eyed and wrung out, but still determined to head to New Orleans. I waited till a semidecent hour, then talked to my neighbors on both sides, asking them to call
the cops if they saw anyone at my house, telling them I'd be home in just a few days, and giving them my cell-phone number.

Finally, feeling as if I were about to drive off the edge of the earth, I grabbed the suitcases I'd packed, put everything else I might need into a couple of laundry baskets, and loaded the car up. With my baseball bat on the front seat beside me, I started the engine, then turned it off again. Back in the house, I ran down the hallway to my parents' room, where I yanked off the bedspread and grabbed the top sheet from their bed. I bundled the sheet up, carried it to the car, and threw it in the backseat. Then, very carefully, as if I had just started driving, I backed Mami's green Honda out of the driveway.

• • •

I'd totally underestimated how not eating solid food for a month could deplete my energy and ability to think clearly. Not to mention the break-in last night, and staying awake till dawn. It was a twelve-hour drive from Sugar Beach on the western coast of Florida, to New Orleans, but by four o'clock in the afternoon I could barely see straight. I checked into a Holiday Inn and cried until I fell asleep. Crying was still a normal state for me, like breathing.

Once again my brain kept me awake most of the night—I would sleep, dream, wake up, cry, then repeat the pattern. The next morning I finally woke, feeling more tired than when I had gone to bed. I showered to clear my head and get the crying grit out of my eyes, and filled the car with gas. Then I headed west again to New Orleans and, I hoped, the answers to some questions.

The drive up through Florida, then quickly through Alabama and Mississippi and into Louisiana, was not the most interesting drive in the world. It wasn't ugly, but the land was flat. The trees were mostly pines. No hills, no mountains in the distance, no Blue Ridge Parkway vistas. And the farther away from home I got, the more twitchy I became. I was really tempted to turn around, drive back home, and curl up in my bed. Except the house was violated now, my safety there compromised. Maybe it had been a random break-in. After all, why would my parents' attacker wait a month to come after me? Unless it had taken that long to figure out where I lived. Which meant they had known that my parents were haguari, but nothing more, like their names or address. I was so sick of thinking about it.

This trip to New Orleans was the best thing I could do right now. Before last night, I'd felt my parents' presence in our house, smelled their scents, felt the dimming reverberations of their voices. When I was at home I could picture them in every room, in every lighting, doing all the things that had made up the hammock-cocoon of my life.

But everything at home that reminded me of them also reminded me of my searing grief. The more I wallowed in my grief, the worse I felt. I needed to take a break from it. Plus, last night's break-in had shattered that cocoon and taken away my memories' almost magical power to keep me connected to my parents. Now I was out here on the road and so much more alone. Not only was my anchor up, but it had run out on its chain and was lost in the sea forever.

I pressed down on the gas and kept going.

In the afternoon I crossed the Mississippi River. It was wide, greenish-brown, and had tankers docked along both banks. Getting off the bridge was confusing, and I got a little rattled, especially when someone honked at me, but I found the right exit, and my GPS program took me to the address I'd gotten from the envelope. I'd tried calling again this morning, with no better luck than before.

Esplanade Avenue bordered the French Quarter. I drove along the French Market to Esplanade, which was wide, with huge live oak trees that met overhead. The median was planted with big, familiar shrubs: azaleas, oleanders, camellias. Parked cars lined both sides of the street, and I drove slowly, looking for a place to stop.

Then I was there. A wrought-iron fence lined with tall, thick shrubs enclosed the yard, broken by a clear space behind an ornate iron gate. I parked and peered through my car window, able to catch only a glimpse of the house.
What am I doing here?
I wondered even as I got out of my car. An old, uneven brick walkway, splotched with moss, led to the house, which I now saw was enormous. Hesitantly I pushed the gate open and stood looking at where my aunt might live.

Both the covered front porch and a second-floor balcony ran right across the whole width of the house. French windows nine feet high stood in pairs on either side of the double front door, which was wooden and pointed in the middle like a church window. A thick mass of confederate jasmine covered half the porch railing and climbed to the second floor. It had rained this morning,
and between the heat and the humidity, the air was scented so heavily it was almost cloying.

Slowly, unable to imagine how this was going to play out, I climbed the wide marble steps and rang the doorbell. I had rehearsed my speech all the way from Florida.
Hi, my name is Vivi Neves. I think I'm your niece. . . . I have bad news. . . .

There was no answer. I was both relieved and disappointed. Well, I could wait. After coming this far, I couldn't stand to leave, even for a while. The thought of getting in my car again made me feel desolate, and I had absolutely no plan B. At the bottom of the porch steps I paused, seeing the narrow brick path that ran around the house. It felt nosy and presumptuous, but I followed it into the side yard. The fence and tall shrubs separated this yard from the side street, and I walked past the overgrown garden beds and across the grass so I could see the entire house at once.

The architecture was so typical that it looked like it belonged in a movie set in New Orleans. Tall, beautiful, a bit ramshackle, the house had once been painted lavender, but bare stucco now dotted the walls like a disease, and the dark green shutters were peeling. Lacy black wrought iron defined balconies and porches, but some of it was rusty, and I saw places where pieces had broken off.

The yard showed the same signs of neglect—bushes were overgrown and shapeless; the raggedy lawn was sprinkled with weeds and dead tree branches. More weeds choked the formal garden beds, as if they were trying to strangle the old roses and hydrangeas, the plumbagos and daylilies.