Kiss Kill Vanish (37 page)

“Are you gentlemen here to buy art?” I ask innocently.

More smiles. “Maybe,” the young one says. “Are you?”

I eye the near-empty glass in Goatee's hand. “I'm here to have fun.”

Goatee takes the last sip, and I narrow my eyes at him.

“There's more where this came from,” he says, tipping the empty glass in the direction of the entrance.

I slip off the arm of the young one and thread my hand through Goatee's arm. I press my body into his side. “Show me,” I say.

He doesn't have to be asked twice, and the young one follows close enough behind after I flash him another of Lola's smiles over my shoulder.

As we approach the entrance, the man with the clipboard frowns at me. I pretend not to notice, nuzzling into Goatee's neck like I have a secret to tell him.

“Excuse me,” Clipboard says.

My heart lurches. Goatee seems too distracted to respond, but then he pulls a folded wad of bills from his pocket and hands them to Clipboard without even counting it.

Clipboard stares at the money. I can't breathe. He tucks it into his breast pocket. I feel Goatee's hand between my shoulder blades, sliding down the curve of my spine as we glide through the door into the gold light of Vizcaya, into the dizzying swirl of people I'm afraid to look at. I keep my eyes low as we weave around clusters, his hand slinking farther down my back.

I smile through clenched teeth. “I've got to use the ladies' room.”

He frowns.

And I twist away, slipping into the crowd before I can hear his response. Laughter and music devour me. And so many people. Ropes of bright colors bind me as I spin, shiny dresses and gemstones screaming and coiling around me.
Breathe.
I stumble on, turning behind the first set of arches, rushing past a couple having an argument and another couple kissing against the wall.

One glance into the ballroom and I spot him. Papi. He's laughing, telling a story with both hands waving like he does, eyes shining, cheeks ruddy. The affection surges fast. It startles me, nearly pushes through my hard and shiny disguise before I can brace for tears. I blink before they spill. I pull myself back together, because this vengeful shell in a red wig doesn't love him; the real Valentina shouldn't love him either.

From this angle it's easy to see that he's the center of attention, as always, but now I finally understand that doesn't mean love. That means fear.

Papi, this party, everything—I've been seeing it all my whole life, but I've never really seen it. I thought I grew up in some kind of garden of cultured beauty and art, but this is excess and rot.

Yolanda Rojas.

I see her face, and I'm on fire. I just have to think it, and he's a monster again, and I'm a monster's daughter. Rage drives me to the top of the stairs and down the balcony corridor, past the chuckling men and the slurring women leaning dangerously close to the railing and waving their jeweled hands and corset-squeezed breasts over the edge.

In the far corner, another hallway leads away from the party below. Those rooms were empty last year. I charge toward them, not caring if anyone sees me. These people are all too pleasure-drunk to notice anything but their own ecstasy.

I turn and start down the hallway. The first door is locked. I rush to the second, which is locked too. The farther I go, the darker the hallway, the shakier my hands are. Locked, locked, locked. I close my eyes, and there's Papi again. If he goes free tonight, it's on me. Did I really think that through? Is it my fault there's not justice for Yolanda Rojas? If Marcel sets fire to the yacht and Papi's business is decimated, does that mean Papi will never hurt anyone again?

The volume of each question inches higher and higher until my mind is screaming so loudly it hurts. When does the daughter of a monster become a monster herself?

I turn back the way I came, but this time I don't look down at Papi. I push through the throng of balcony revelers again, to the far west side of the building. An identical hallway of locked rooms stretches along that side too, but this hall is not as dark as the other, or it starts that way, but lightens at the end. I walk the length of it, trying the locked doors just to be sure. When I get to the end, the hallway turns and ends at a door with a window, starlight streaming through. An emergency exit. Praying it doesn't set off an alarm, I open it and step out onto a small balcony.

Fresh air.

I catch the door with my hip before it slams shut. Getting locked out here would not make this nightmare any better, but there's nothing to prop it with. I take off my right sandal and wedge it between the door and the frame.

There.

Something like a sob shakes my chest, but I don't make a sound. I only let it happen once. I wrap my arms around myself, gripping my ribs, letting the breeze fill my lungs. I didn't know seeing him would be this hard.

I focus on the thin line of the horizon, where inky water meets charcoal sky. It's all black, but it's not all the same. My eyes float along the surface of the water, pulled southward by the palest glow. I can't see around the king palms at the edge of the estate, though. The marina isn't far—two miles maybe, but it's too early. Marcel said he'd start the fire at eleven. I take my phone from my purse. It's only 10:35, and I haven't missed a call. He said he'd call.

But the glow is intensifying before my eyes. It's either a fire or an apocalyptic sunrise, the way that violent orange is seeping over the night and singeing the sky. The faintest tang of smoke hits my nose. I walk to the rail, rise onto the ball of my single stilettoed foot, and lean forward. I can't see from here. The coastline curves inward, hugging Coconut Grove with the marina in the middle. I take a deep breath, and this time the smoke is unmistakable.

The yacht is burning.

He did it. Could it be that simple? I only have to make sure my sisters leave, that Papi leaves, and then it's all over? But maybe Papi shouldn't leave.

I turn away from the ocean, slip my shoe back on, and make my way back to the party. Before I even round the corner, I sense the change. Something is sour. But the music is the same, and the women and men on the upper level are still cackling and chortling just as loudly. They're only five minutes drunker. It's the party below that has changed.

I reach the overlook and stare down into the ballroom. Papi is gone. Renaldo, Jose, Fernando, and the others clumped around him before—they're all gone too, their places absorbed by the throng. It's not so simple, though. I look closer and see that among the oblivious there are some worried faces, furtive movements, people being pulled close and ears being whispered into. People are trickling out.

I need to find my sisters.

Lola and Ana. Ana and Lola. I turn slowly, scanning bodies and faces, and the colors melt, one vibrant gown into the next, into the next, into the next until it's a giant amalgam of satin-glitter-cleavage-curls.

I don't see them.

Does it matter now, though? The skeleton of the party has clearly left, which must mean the raid is off. Pulling away from the nest of the party, I follow the arcade around the perimeter of the room, ducking out onto the balcony at the first set of doors. Burning oil hits my nostrils. The yacht. I wish I could see it. I can imagine orange flames enveloping it, licking it up and pushing it down, all my memories being strangled and drowned with it. It makes me sick. And it makes me happy.

I look down into the ocean, where the breakwater stands waiting to block the next storm. A stoic limestone barge carries the burden of stopping the waves, but it's the ring of statues surrounding it that I've always loved. They rise out of the water with rippling musculature and stalwart faces. Those statues weather hurricane winds.

From thirty feet away I recognize the slope of Ana's shoulders and the curve of her slightly-longer-than-attractive neck. She's at the water's edge, staring out at the row of brave figures with the sky burning behind them. That impossible combination of gawky and poised, that can't be anyone else. The dress—a tight, iridescent tangerine sheath—must be new, but the jeweled clip holding up her hair is familiar. She's got her phone to her ear, and I can hear the soft murmur of her voice.

I've missed her. I knew it, but I didn't really know it until now.

There are only a few men on the patio, and none of them looks my way as I walk down the steps to the water's edge. She turns around, and I can see in her face that she doesn't recognize me. But then she does. I walk faster.

She puts her phone in her purse and waits for me to come to her. That squint is familiar and that stance—arms straight at her side—is familiar too, and it finally feels like I'm home. When I reach her, I throw myself into a hug. She catches me, but she's stiff arms, hairspray, a crinkly dress. Not much more. I feel tears coming.

“Where have you been?” she murmurs into my hair.

I pull back and wipe my eyes, embarrassed. Ana isn't emotional. “Away,” I say.

She steps back, and her dress makes a disapproving
scritch, scratch
. Skin rubbing taffeta. “It's been four months. You owe me more than that.”

“I . . . can't. I . . .”

She waits. I don't finish. She should know better than to think I'm suddenly going to confide in her. It's been years since that happened. After a few moments of waiting for nothing, she reaches out and smooths my wig like she's petting a doll. It's affectionate, but misleading; her face says I'm not forgiven. “Nice costume.”

“I didn't want anyone to recognize me.”

“Then why are you here?”

To rescue you.
But I never considered she wouldn't want rescuing. Smoke tickles and stings my lungs. I cough.

“Something must be on fire,” she says, glancing over her shoulder and above the grove of palms. Now a black plume is bleeding over the orange sky like octopus ink.

“Where's Papi?” I ask, eying the growing spill.

“He got a phone call and left. Or at least that's what Lola said.”

“You don't know where he went?”

“Since when do I keep track of Papi?” she says irritably. “It's not like anyone ever tells me what's going on. I don't even know where you've been hiding out, but from the looks of your skin it must've been somewhere lame. Seriously, Valentina, you need to spend a week on the beach in a bikini.”

“Good to know you've been worried about me.”

She snorts. “Is that why you took off? So everyone would sit around and cry?” The fire-stained sky lights up her hair, making the black flash metallic orange as she twists her head to look back to Vizcaya. “We didn't have to worry—Papi said you were fine.”

“You didn't wonder how he knew?”

“Papi knows everything. But you found out all about that, didn't you? Isn't that why you ran away?”

She knows.

“I left because I . . .” I trail off as everything in my mind slides around.

Of course she knows.

The sky, the ocean, Ana—my world is rubber and Technicolor. It's stretching and bending, barely recognizable. Ana and Lola have known for a long time.
I've
been the naive one.

“You left because you found out where the money comes from and decided to throw a tantrum about it,” she says.

I sway a little. I train my eyes on a limestone statue, but my center is being pushed and pulled by the waves lapping its base. If she'd seen what I'd seen from Emilio's closet, she wouldn't be so unmoved. She wouldn't be okay. She wouldn't be standing here so calm under such a violent sky. “How long have you known?”

She shrugs and turns her head in the direction of the fire. Hell is seeping over us, but she already knew.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I ask numbly.

“Papi told us we couldn't.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“You mean because you're the favorite?” she challenges, thrusting her chin out. Ana's face has always been a little less than symmetrical, but this pose—chin cocked, jaw set—offsets it. It's her strongest look.

“That's not what I said.”

“It's what you meant.”

My pulse rings in the soles of my feet, the waves of blood surging and ebbing. “So what if I am the favorite? How is that my fault?”

“It's not. It is your fault that you responded like such a child, running away like that. So some of the art is stolen. Get over it.”

My breath catches.

“Sad, though, finding out the special hobby Papi shared with
just
you was actually smuggling masterpieces.”

Smuggling masterpieces. She doesn't know? I'm too confused, and then I'm too relieved to talk, because it's so much better for her to believe the cover. It means she doesn't knowingly live in a bloodstained mansion, spending bloodstained money.

Ana smirks. “He said you were too young, too sweet, but he was really just worried you'd run away like Mama.” She ends with a laugh, a disingenuous
ha
that gets swallowed up by the slapping of a wave against the barge.

My crime. Mama's crime. Laid side by side and examined by Ana's discerning eye, they don't look all that different.

“I'm not like her,” I say.

Ana's face is hard and shimmery, a clear surface for the light to play on. “You don't know that. You don't even remember her.” She shakes her head, like she's bored of this conversation, like it isn't the most substantive one we've ever had. “What did Papi do to get you to come back? What did he buy you?”

“Nothing. He doesn't even know I'm here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody knows I'm here.”

She reaches into her phone and pulls out her purse. “When he finds out, he—”

Before she can press anything, I step forward and snatch the phone out of her hand. She wobbles and steadies herself, but doesn't try to grab it back. She's too shocked.