Underworld (8 page)

It shouldn’t have been a big deal. We were just an ordinary young couple, taking a late afternoon stroll through the cemetery.

I’d forgotten that, due to the “vandalism” that had occurred there earlier in the week, the cemetery gates (which John had kicked apart in a fit of temper) had been ordered locked twenty-four hours a day by the chief of police.

So it kind of
was
a big deal.

Still, that didn’t explain why one of the women — the grandmother, if her gray hair was any indication — took one look at my face, made the sign of the cross, cried,
“¡Dios mío!”
then passed out cold right in front of us.

D
ead?” I echoed. “She fainted because she thinks I’m
dead
?”

“Missing,” Mr. Smith corrected me. He sank down into the creaky chair behind his large desk and began to shuffle through some papers. “Presumed dead. Mrs. Ortega fainted because she thought you were a ghost.”

John, who’d been leaning against one of the cemetery sexton’s many metal file cabinets, straightened upon hearing this, bristling. “Why do they think Pierce is dead?”

Mr. Smith had known John for a long time, since dealing with the local death deity was one of the unwritten job responsibilities of the Isla Huesos Cemetery sexton. He’d gotten to know me only recently, however, and I couldn’t help feeling as if he didn’t care for me too much … or maybe it was that Mr. Smith didn’t approve of me, exactly.

“Well, there’s already been one young woman brutally murdered in this cemetery in the past forty-eight hours,” Mr. Smith said, giving me a sour look as he pushed on the center of his gold-rimmed glasses. “A young woman who happened to be Pierce’s guidance counselor, Jade Ortega. Now another young woman has disappeared. It’s a small community, what do you expect people are going to think?”

I was sitting in front of Mr. Smith’s desk. During all the commotion after Jade’s grandmother fainted, the cemetery sexton had smuggled John and me through the back door of the small cottage that served as the graveyard’s administrative offices.

I was having a hard time processing the fact that it had been my former guidance counselor’s family — of all people — that we’d surprised in the cemetery. They’d been arranging a place in the Ortega family crypt for her.

On the one hand, Mr. Smith was right — Isla Huesos was a small community, and Jade had died recently, so why
wouldn’t
we have run into her family in the cemetery?

On the other hand, I didn’t understand why anyone would want to bury their daughter in the same cemetery in which she’d been murdered.

Mr. Smith had explained that, as soon as Jade’s body was released from the coroner, her family wanted to place her remains close to where they lived, so they could “visit her often.” Jade had grown up in Isla Huesos, leaving it only to go away for college, after which she’d returned to work at Isla Huesos High School, so she could “give back to the community.”

“She gave back to the community, all right,” I’d muttered. “With her life.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me where you’ve been.” Mr. Smith lowered his glasses to peer at us over the frames. “Although if it was one of those horrible cheap motels up the Keys, I don’t want to know, actually. It will destroy all my romantic illusions.”

It was my turn to bristle. “Of course not!” I cried, feeling my cheeks turning red. “John took me to the Underworld, to escape the Furies.”

Mr. Smith’s skin turned the opposite of mine … not red, but a shade or two lighter. He grew very still behind his desk.

“The Underworld,” he repeated. “To escape the Furies. God help me.”

“What did you think?” John hadn’t liked the motel remark anymore than I had, but it didn’t make him blush. He looked angry, his dark eyebrows furrowed, his mouth tightening to a thin line. I saw that muscle in his jaw begin to throb dangerously. Outside, thunder rumbled … but this could have been an approaching rain band from the hurricane that must, judging from the darkening sky, still have been on its way. “You saw firsthand what happened to Jade. Do you think I was going to stand by and let that — or
worse
— happen to Pierce?”

Mr. Smith seemed to have trouble formulating his next sentence. “No, of course not. But I would have hoped — certainly, I can understand why, after what happened to Jade — and with Miss Oliviera’s uncle getting arrested — you were both upset … but
you
, John … I would think
you’re
old enough to know better.”

John glanced at me. I looked back at him, concerned. I could tell John wanted desperately to stomp out of the cemetery sexton’s office, but I didn’t think that was the best idea. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Mr. Smith might have been close to having a stroke. He showed all the signs — incoherence of speech, staggered breath, sudden change in color.

“Mr. Smith,” I said anxiously. “Could I get you a glass of water, or something?”

“It’s just,” the cemetery sexton burst out, “this isn’t ancient
Greece
, John. You can’t simply whisk a girl off to the Underworld, and not expect there to be
consequences
.”

The muscle in John’s jaw twitched some more. It was surprising to hear the word
consequences
from someone’s lips other than John’s. He used the word quite a lot, especially in reference to my behavior.

“I’m aware of that, Mr. Smith,” he said.

“I don’t think you are,” Mr. Smith said chidingly. “Because if you were, and you
had
to do it, as you claim — which I don’t believe you did, so I’m in no way condoning your behavior — you’d have shown a little more discretion, and the outcome wouldn’t be
this
.”

Mr. Smith had found what he was looking for on his desk. He held up a copy of that day’s paper. Most of the front page was devoted to the storm, which was very definitely on its way.

Mandatory evacuation for tourists
, screamed the headline.
Schools closed. Football game may be canceled.

Underneath was a montage of color photographs of downtown business owners boarding up the plate glass windows of their restaurants and shops in preparation of the hurricane.

I couldn’t see what any of that had to do with us. Probably he really was having a stroke.

“Do you see it?” Mr. Smith demanded, tapping the paper.

Farther down, in letters almost as large, was a headline about Jade’s murder. There was no photo of my uncle Chris, but I knew he was the “local man” who’d been picked up for questioning, thanks to a tip. Also that the “tip” had been an anonymous phone call that my uncle had been seen in the area around the time Jade was believed to have been killed, even though he’d been home, asleep. Uncle Chris had been released, but was still considered a suspect, in spite of the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to connect him to the crime or to the victim. Some tip.

“I’m sorry, no. I really don’t see what any of this —” I started to say.

The cemetery sexton tapped the paper again, impatiently.
“Here,”
he said.

I looked where he was tapping.

Local Girl Missing, Feared Dead.

Beneath it was a photo of me — my most recent school photo.

“Oh, no.” My heart filling with dread, I took the paper from Mr. Smith’s hands. “Couldn’t they have found a better picture?”

Mr. Smith looked at me sharply. “Miss Oliviera,” he said, his gray eyebrows lowered. “I realize it’s all the rage with you young people today to toss off flippant one-liners so you can get your own reality television shows. But I highly doubt MTV will be coming down to Isla Huesos to film you in the Underworld. So that can’t be all you have to say about this.”

He was right, of course. Though I couldn’t say what I really wanted to, because John was in the room, and I didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did.

But what I wanted to do was burst into tears.

“Is that about Pierce?” John looked uneasy. Outside, thunder rumbled again. This time, it sounded even closer than before.

“Yes, of course, it is, John,” Mr. Smith said. There was something strange about his voice. He sounded almost as if he were mad at John. Only why would he be? John had done the right thing. He’d explained about the Furies. “What did you expect? Have you gotten to the part about the reward your father is offering for information leading to your safe return, Miss Oliviera?”

My gaze flicked down the page. I wanted to throw up.

“One million dollars?” My dad’s company, one of the largest providers in the world of products and services to the oil, gas, and military industries, was valued at several hundred times that. “That cheapskate.”

This was all so very, very bad.

“One million dollars is a lot of money to most people,” Mr. Smith said, with a strong emphasis on
most people
. He still had that odd note in his voice. “Though I recognize that money may mean little to a resident of
the Underworld
. So I’d caution you to use judiciousness, wherever it is that you’re going, as there are many people on this island who’ll be more than willing to turn you in for only a small portion of that reward money. I don’t suppose I might ask where you’re going? Or suggest that you pay a call on your mother, who is beside herself with worry?”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. Why hadn’t I thought of it? I felt much better already. I could straighten out this whole thing with a single conversation. “I should call my mom —”

Both Mr. Smith’s cry of alarm and the fact that John grabbed me by the wrist as I was reaching into my book bag for my cell phone stopped me from making calls of any sort.

“You can’t use your phone,” Mr. Smith said. “The police — and your father — are surely waiting for you to do just that. They’ll triangulate on the signal from the closest cell tower, and find you.” When I stared at him for his use of the word
triangulate
, Mr. Smith shook his head and said, “My partner, Patrick, is obsessed with
Law & Order
reruns.”

I looked at John. He glanced down at my wrist, around which his fingers were tightly wrapped, and slowly released his hold.

“I’m sorry, Pierce,” he said, his tone as apologetic as his eyes. “But Mr. Smith is right. The last thing we need right now is more people knowing we’re here. In and out. That’s what we agreed this visit had to be. We’re only here to help your cousin Alex. Remember?”

“Of course,” I murmured, lowering my gaze in the hopes that he wouldn’t see the disappointment his words had brought to my eyes. I don’t think I’d realized until that very moment how much I’d been counting on seeing my mother, even if it was only a glimpse.

“Unless, of course, you
want
your father to find you, Miss Oliviera.” Mr. Smith’s voice cut through the tension in the air like a knife blade. He’d folded his hands on his dark green desk pad … but he didn’t sound as calm as he looked. I noticed that his fingers were shaking. “Is that newspaper article accurate?
Are
you being held against your will?”

“What?”
I glanced at the paper and saw there was another photo, farther down the page from the one of me. It was a grainy screen grab from a video camera.

A video camera hanging from the ceiling of an outdoor breezeway at Isla Huesos High School.

I actually hadn’t thought things could get any worse.

I was wrong.

“That’s you,” I said faintly to John, pointing to the large shadowy figure prominently depicted in the video still. “You
do
show up on film. Not your face so much. But the rest of you.”

John looked over my shoulder at the photo.

“And you,” he said in an unhappy voice. “You’re even wearing the same clothes.”

It was true. In the photo, though John’s image was blurred, I was clearly distinguishable in my black dress. What was worse was that I appeared to be in a great deal of distress. The much larger figure of John was carrying me away. It didn’t take a great deal of imagination to make it seem as if he was doing so against my will. My arms were flung out in the air, and I was screaming. For anyone who did not quite get the message, the paper had helpfully identified John in the caption beneath the photo as the
alleged kidnapper
.

What had been cropped from the photo was the image of the person at whom I’d been screaming and flinging my arms, from whom John had been dragging me away: my grandmother.

I felt a chill pass over me. It had nothing to do with the fact that the air-conditioning in Mr. Smith’s office had been put on at such a high setting, condensation was forming on the windowpanes.

“This photo has been altered,” I said to Mr. Smith, feeling outraged on John’s behalf. “It didn’t happen like that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Smith said. “That photo has already been on most of the twenty-four-hour news shows and plastered all over the web. Mrs. Ortega, Jade’s grandmother, was only the first person to recognize you. Fortunately I convinced her that it was a case of mistaken identity, and the rest of the family was so busy dealing with her, they didn’t even notice you. But I won’t be around to do that for everyone. And I’m not convinced I should.”

“My grandmother was standing
right there
,” I said, tapping the spot on the photo where her image had clearly been removed. “She was trying to kill me. And I was trying to fight back, only John wouldn’t let me, because he was afraid I’d get hurt —”

“Miss Oliviera,” Mr. Smith said, in the same snippy tone he’d been using since we walked into his office. “Please. I know John is … special … to you. But if you want me to help you, it’s very important that you tell the truth.”

Suddenly I realized what it was in Mr. Smith’s voice: disapproval. Disapproval and, of all things, fear. He was afraid. Not for me.

Of John.

Which made me feel colder than ever, and a little bit fearful myself.

“I
am
telling the truth,” I said, just as John said, “What are you talking about? You can see for yourself she’s not hurt —”

“Well, someone is hurt. Very hurt. Pierce’s grandmother is claiming to have severe facial lacerations,” Mr. Smith said. “As she tells it, it’s because you struck her, John, as she was trying to keep you from abducting her beautiful, innocent young granddaughter, whom you have probably killed, or at the very least —”