Vivian Divine Is Dead (18 page)

Taking up most of the altar is a life-sized skeleton wearing a white wedding dress. Her grinning skeleton face is partially covered by a long black wig, and a bridal veil, held on by a thin white crown, drapes down her back and over her lacy white dress. In her hands are a mean-looking golden sickle and the rolled-up weaving of Mom’s face.
It’s Santa Muerte: Just like the tattoo on Nick’s back
.

Fear roots my feet to the ground when I suddenly realize I’m not alone. On the right side of the altar, almost hidden in the shadowy edge of the room, is a kneeling man. His head is tilted over his praying hands, and his shoulders shake gently as he murmurs rapidly in Spanish. Beside him, a ruby-topped cane leans against the edge of the altar.

I take a step backward, my heart thumping, and the wood creaks beneath my feet. Marcos snaps his head up. He grabs his cane, and wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. “So you made it home,” he says calmly. He wobbles to his feet and walks toward me, his ruby-topped cane knocking against the floor. “That’s what the
cempasúchil
path is for, my dear. It helps the dead find their way home.”

Don’t let him see your fear. Don’t give him that power.
I suck in my breath as I watch his cane scatter the petals in the marigold cross.
He can’t hurt me; I can always outrun him.
I try to look defiant and brave, but I can’t stop my lips from trembling as he reaches out and gently turns my chin up to look at him. Marcos’s pale gray eyes are almost translucent, and mirror my scared reflection back at me. “Santa Muerte,” Marcos says, nodding toward the statue of the skeleton in the wedding dress. “She has been with me since I was very small, since my father passed. The Saint of Death, some call her,” he adds, “but we call her Holy Death.”

Okay, psycho.

Marcos drops his hand off my chin and gestures to the rolled-up weaving of Mom in the skeleton’s hands. “A gift,” he says. “Santa Muerte has been very good to me.” Marcos draws a gold-tipped cigarette out of the front pocket of his suit, and lays it on the altar. Then he holds one out to me, and I shake my head. “One for her, one for me,” he says, popping a cigarette between his lips and lighting it on a gold candle. “I had the perfect gift for her,” he adds, “for your arrival, but I lost it. And such a beautiful pink diamond. I love roses, don’t you?”

“What did you do to my mom?” I ask softly.

“Shhh . . .” Marcos says, running two cold fingers in a cross over my forehead.

He inhales deeply on his cigarette, and then exhales the smoke all over me, from head to toe. “We’ll get to that later.” Marcos takes another drag of his cigarette, and blows smoke over Santa Muerte.

“Desired Death of my heart,” he chants, “we ask for your blessing.” He blows smoke over me again, and through the smoke, I see Scars step into the room behind him. “Do not abandon Vivian from your protection,” Marcos continues, gazing at the skeleton. “Guide her as you have guided me.” He reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a picture of me, and sets it on the altar.
He was praying over me? What the hell is going on?

“Thank you for bringing her to me,” he says to the skeleton, and then he turns, and his eyes lock on my face. There’s a glossy sheen in his unwavering gaze, as if he’s hypnotized.

I back up quickly, bumping into the altar. My picture falls off and floats to the floor. “Get away from me,” I snarl.

“But she’s been waiting for you a long time,” Marcos says, gesturing to Santa Muerte. “And so have I.”

“You can wait forever, you psycho!” I shriek. I turn around and shove the altar, and the skeleton of Santa Muerte tilts forward, tottering back and forth above us. Scars raises his gun in the air. Marcos tries to grab Scars’s arm, but he isn’t fast enough, and Scars slams the butt down on my head. There’s an explosion in my temple, and the world goes black. Before I descend completely into darkness, I hear someone screaming.

Chapter Twenty-Six

M
Y HEAD HURTS.
O
UCH
.

Pain shoots like razors across my skull. The throbbing in my temples won’t let me open my eyes, and the pain is making me feel fuzzy and unclear. I try to rub the lump on the back of my skull, but it hurts to touch.

When I finally open my eyes, I’m lying on a canopy bed in a dimly lit room, staring up at the mosquito netting hanging on all four sides of me.
Where am I? What happened?

Then it all floods back in, trembling through my body and shaking me at my core: skeletons surrounding me, calling my name; trying to get past Marcos at the Santa Muerte altar; Scars hitting me on the head with the butt of his gun; tattooed hands forcing a pill down my throat, something that made me so sleepy I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

My head swimming with fear, I sit up on the bed, push aside the mosquito netting, and stare out at the pale yellow room. It looks like a little girl’s bedroom. The dresser has a miniature tea set and a dollhouse, and there are stuffed animals piled up under the window.
Whose room is this?
White-hot fear presses down on my heart. My body feels paralyzed for a moment, like in those nightmares where you know you’re dreaming but you can’t wake up.

I slowly put my bare feet on the floor and get up on shaky legs. Beneath my feet, the red carpet muffles the sound of my unsteady footsteps as I walk to the window. I pull back the curtain, and thick iron bars cut my view of the cemetery into stripes of dark night.
I’m still in the funeral home. I must have been asleep all day
. It still hurts to swallow from Scars’s tattooed fingers pressing the pill down my throat.
What did Scars make me take?
There are only a few people left in the cemetery, gathered around a shiny marble tomb, playing a song on their guitars and singing in rough voices.

I have to get out of here.

I cross the room, silently pry the door open, and poke my head out into the long, red-carpeted hallway. It’s lit by several small crystal chandeliers, hanging every few feet from the gilded ceiling. The hallway ends at the staircase, where Scars is standing watch, facing away from me.
Maybe I can get out of a window? They can’t all be barred.

Keeping my eyes locked on Scars’s back, I tiptoe across the hall and quietly open the first door on the left. It’s just a bathroom, with a huge marble tub, but no windows. I step back into the hallway and shut the bathroom door silently, grateful that the thick carpet muffles my footsteps.

Holding my breath, I tiptoe across the hallway to the last doorway.
Please let there be a window without bars.
Scars doesn’t turn around as I open the door.
I’ll just climb out and run down to the shore. From there, I can find someone to take me across the lake, to safety.

I slip into the room and gently pull the door shut behind me. Even though it’s dark in here, I can tell by the size of the room that I’m in the master bedroom. But there are only two windows in here: one is close to me, above a small altar striped with moonlight, and the other is on the far side of the room, near a bed covered with a mosquito net, like the one I woke up in.

Praying no one’s sleeping in the bed, I tiptoe to the closest window and quietly pull the curtain aside a few inches. The moon glimmers off the thick black bars.
How am I going to get out of here?

Under the window, there’s a small table set up as an altar. The table is covered with a floor-length white sheet, and on the sheet is a large black-and-white photograph of a woman, several small sculptures of Santa Muerte, and a red velvet box, propped open in a patch of moonlight.

When I get closer, the smell of peroxide stings my nose. I look inside the box, and terror runs through me. In the box, there’s a gleaming white skull.
But whose? Could it be Mom’s? Is this what Paloma wanted me to find when she told me to follow the marigold path to the funeral home?

I shove the thought out of my mind.
No! I won’t believe it.
My hand touches something stiff on the altar, and I get another whiff of peroxide. As I pull my hand back, I see a filthy rag and a grimy bone with five smaller bones protruding from it.
Toes.
Dirt still clings to the edges.

Someone’s been cleaning these bones.
I shudder, but quickly bite my lip, resisting the urge to scream.
Breathe
, I tell myself, and force a breath in and out
.

What now?
I look across the room toward the other window
.
I don’t want to go anywhere near the veiled bed, but the only other way out is through Scars
. I have to try.

I move forward slowly. My chest has a solid rock in it, trying to pull me backward.
What if someone jumps out and attacks me? What do I do?
I try to recall the judo moves I learned for
Zombie Killer
: Two fingers in the eyes. Flat hand across the nose, and up, so it goes through the brain.
Please don’t let me have to use them.

I finally make it to the window, staying several feet away from the bed. But when I flick open the curtains, the same bars close me off from the outside world.
I only have one choice now: to try to make it past Scars.

I let the curtains fall shut, and turn to tiptoe out of the room, but I can’t stop myself from glancing at the bed.
What if Marcos is in it, asleep, or waiting for me to come close enough to grab my ankle and pull me under the bed?
I squint through the mosquito netting, and shapes start forming out of the darkness: the curve of a skinny knee under a sheet, an arm hanging off a mattress.

Staying an arm’s length away, I step carefully up to the canopied bed and pull the mosquito netting back slightly.

It’s Mom.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

U
NTIL NOW, WHEN
I
IMAGINED
my mom dead, she looked just like she did when she was alive, except maybe with a little more makeup. Since Mom never left the house without looking her best, I thought she would look that way in death too. I imagined cherry-red lipstick painting her lips into a smile, smoky eye shadow bringing out the pink tones in her skin, her cheeks powdered to a rosy peach color. Of course, I tried not to think about it. But some images keep coming back to haunt you.

Like this one.

Mom’s face is ashen and bloodless; her Adam’s apple gouges out of her skeletal neck. Her wan lips droop into a creased frown, and her eyelids are crossed with tiny blue veins. A flowered bobby pin clips her hair back, so that her heart-shaped mole stands out against her pale white face. Diamonds circle her neck, her wrists. Every finger has a diamond ring, and from her ears hang giant drops of emeralds. She is still beautiful. But she is not my mom anymore: she is completely
lifeless.

Time slows to a standstill, and it’s just me, alone in this room. I only feel something squeezing out of my eyes, wet and tingly, and streaming into my mouth. My head begins pounding the same unsteady beat as my chest, and my ears ring like a bomb just went off.
Mom’s dead.
My knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor.

I am aware of only a few things:

My dress is bunched around my waist.

The red carpet is itchy on my thighs.

My mom is dead.

With my cheek against the dense carpet, I gaze out at the endless expanse of red, not really seeing anything.
Maybe the earth will open up and swallow me. I can hope for that.

I have no idea how long I’ve been on the floor, waiting for the earth to swallow me whole, when I hear Isabel’s words in my head:
Someday the pain ends and you stop being so afraid.
I push my palms against the red carpet, forcing myself to sit up, and then pull my dress down over my legs.
You only fear what you think you can’t handle.

Maybe I can handle this.

I have no idea if I can, but some of the strength Mom told me about is pulsing through my veins, and I’m starting to believe her:
I’m stronger than I think
. I made it all the way across Mexico, survived Nick’s betrayal, and got away from Scars (twice).
I can handle this.
I crawl onto my knees, and then waver to my feet, gripping the bed frame so hard my knuckles are turning white.
I have to survive this. For Mom.

When I’m standing over her, the mosquito net dark and forbidding between us, with sorrow filling every inch of me, I hear something, or at least I think I do: a gasp, or a sigh, or maybe a creak in the floor? I can’t tell. I stare at her gaunt face, searching for any sign of life, but I can’t see any.
If she’s dead, I will survive, I will move on with my life, somehow.
I hear the noise again, a faint shudder, like wind seeping under a door
. But what if that wasn’t the wind? What if she sighed, or gasped, or . . .

I slowly reach toward Mom, pushing past the dark netting, and let my finger hover over her wrist. Tears dribble off my nose and dissolve in her blond curls.
Just find out.
I reach farther, until I feel her cool skin with my fingertip, but I’m afraid to get closer, to break the moment like an egg and see all its yellow insides drain out. After what feels like hours, I rest my index finger on her exposed wrist.

And feel a pulse.

The clammy air slides down my throat and unties the knot in my chest.
She’s alive!
“Mom!” I push the mosquito netting aside and crawl onto her bed, wrapping my arms around her and pressing my head to her chest. She doesn’t move, but I can feel the steady beating of her heart. “Mom?” I put my hands on her shoulders and shake her lightly, but there’s no response. “Please wake up, Mom.”

“She can’t hear you, I’m afraid.” Marcos’s smell rushes ahead of him, a mix of cologne and cigarette smoke.

My blood stops pumping; my entire body stills so completely I can feel each beat of my heart. It feels like someone pressed the brake, and I’ve shuddered to a stop.

In the doorway, Marcos’s eyes are pale silver, and he is gazing at me with the same obsessed look he had in the chapel. He’s still wearing his red silk suit, and he leans heavily on his cane.

“I’m sorry about that,” Marcos says as he walks across the room, dragging one leg behind him. Scars follows him like a feral dog, ducking his head to get through the doorway. “Scars has anger issues,” Marcos says calmly. “But he has learned his lesson.” When Scars raises his head, he has two long knife cuts down his face. “He cannot be allowed to act like an animal, wouldn’t you agree?” Marcos asks. As he moves closer to me, the pressure in the air thickens, building an invisible wall between us, and the tension almost flattens me against the bed.

I jump off the bed, and each word bleeds out of my mouth, filled with confusion and rage. “What did you do to my mom?”

Marcos studies me carefully, as if he’s honestly considering the question. “We are very close,” he says, “your mom and I. If she were awake, she’d tell you so herself.” From a few feet away, Marcos’s albino alligator shoes, so rare even Dad can’t afford them, glimmer against the red carpet. “But someone may have given her a little too much.” He glowers at Scars, his anger burning across the room. Marcos steps up to the edge of the bed, places his finger on Mom’s eyelid, and gently lifts upward. It’s white underneath. “Just sleeping pills. She should wake in a few hours.”

I know all about sleeping pills. Pierre takes them to get a few hours of sleep before his shoots so that he won’t have bags under his eyes. Mom always refused to let me take them. She said that they weren’t anything to mess with; an overdose of sleeping pills could kill you. “What do you want from us?” I ask, flinching as the question pops out of my mouth.

“The question isn’t what I want from you,” Marcos says, “it’s what you want from me.” He leans down and strokes Mom’s cheek with the back of his hand. “I just want to love you, and I hope that you will do me the favor of loving me back.” He twirls one of Mom’s curls with his fingers, tilting his head at me curiously. “What do you want?”

“I want to go home.”

“So did your mom,” he says fondly. “She wanted so much to be freed, to be back with you and your . . .” He scowls as he says the word “
father.
” He shakes his head. “Your mother hasn’t learned to love me yet, I’m afraid, but she will. She just can’t see what’s good for her, stubborn woman,” he says. “She’s fought to go home like a
toro
, a bull. But then again, she had you to go home to. What do you have to return to?”

What do I have?
That’s a good question. I used to have everything a girl could want: famous parents, a superstar boyfriend, a best friend, and a loyal bodyguard. But once everyone thought Mom was dead, I lost it all: Dad tried to kill himself, Pierre cheated on me with Sparrow, Mary sent me down here to die.
But I still have Mom—if I can get her out of here alive.

“I have money,” I say, my voice trembling, “and if you let us go, I’ll pay anything you want.”

“This isn’t about money,” Marcos says, one lip lifting up into an insulted grimace. “The more you have, the less it matters, I’ve found,” he says, inspecting the ruby on top of his cane. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

A crazy one who kidnaps movie stars and keeps a drugged woman in his bedroom?
I scoot farther around the bed, keeping the mattress between us. “Why were you at Isabel’s?” I ask.

“Looking for you,” he says, stepping closer to me. “When you and Nicolas didn’t show up, I sent Scars to find you. And when Scars’s car . . .”

Marcos turns his hand upside down, and I remember flipping over and over, glass shattering around me.

“. . . I went looking for you myself.”

“Stay away from me.” I shuffle behind the bed’s headboard, gripping the bedpost like a shield.

“But I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispers, and I can’t tell if he’s talking to Mom or me. Then he leans down and rearranges the flowered bobby pin in Mom’s hair, clipping her bangs back from her face. “There,” he says. “Much better.” He hovers so closely their lips are almost touching, and then he moves his lips away from hers, and kisses her heart-shaped mole. “Still so beautiful,” he says, leering at Scars. “Even like this.”

Scars scuffles toward Marcos nervously, his shoulders hunched and head down.
“Lo siento, señor
.
”

Marcos glares at Scars, and then he kneels down beside Mom and runs his hands through her hair, a look of crazed adoration on his face. “Pearl always liked to look her best,” he says. “She used to say, ‘Don’t ever let me leave the house without my best face on!’”

I grew up hearing the same thing. How did he know that?

“Get away from her!” I snap, and before the last word is out of my mouth, Scars leaps to his feet and grabs both of my arms in one giant hand. I try not to cringe from the pain in my wrists.

“
No es necesario
,” Marcos says to Scars, glancing up from Mom’s lifeless face and staring directly at me. “Vivian isn’t going anywhere.” Marcos gazes back down at Mom, but Scars doesn’t let go; he just squeezes tighter and tighter, until my wrists start to pulse with pain.

“Ow,” I whimper.

Marcos glances up, and then he’s on his feet, grabbing Scars around the neck and squeezing. The gashes across Scars’s face turn scarlet and bulge out, his snake tattoos squirm and writhe under the pressure, and his breath becomes raspy and urgent. “
¡Idiota!
” Marcos snarls at him.
“¡No toque!”
With his arm extended, Marcos lowers Scars to his knees. “Never touch her again!
¿Comprende?
” He lets go, and Scars falls forward, crumpling to the ground by Marcos’s feet.

As Scars lies on the floor, gasping for breath, I retreat behind the headboard, rubbing the skin around my aching wrists. “Did that guy work for you too?” I ask, my voice shaking as I point to the red velvet box on the altar. Between the black-and-white picture and the small sculptures of Santa Muerte, the skull glistens in its red velvet grave.

Marcos walks across the room and pushes aside the white sheet draping off the altar. On the floor beneath the altar, there are two wooden crates full of bones, laid out perfectly side by side. “That’s
mi madre
,” he says sadly. “Your mother, she’s been cleaning them, preparing Mama for her eternal rest.”

“Why?”

“Because they dug up
mi madre
, and she needs cleaning before returning to Santa Muerte,” Marcos says. “And because your mother wants to please me, of course, after everything I’ve done for her.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand,” I say to Marcos. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know her.”

“Don’t know her?” Marcos says, returning to Mom’s bedside. “Don’t know her? I loved her!”

“You didn’t love her,” I say, suddenly seeing Marcos clearly for who he is: a rich, crazy stalker who fell in love with Mom on TV, like a million other men have, and thought he couldn’t live without her. It’s not unheard of. A man stalked Sparrow’s cousin for months, claiming he loved her, and locked her up in his cellar until the police broke her out.
But somehow, I don’t think the police are coming this time.
I look down at Mom’s limp body. “You may have seen her movies, but you don’t know who she really is.”

“I don’t know the woman who betrayed me, who ruined my life?” Marcos slams his fist against the wall near my head, and his hand makes a loud cracking sound as it crashes through the wall. He yanks his fist out of the hole, drywall crumbling with it, and his hand’s bleeding like crazy, but he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s dripping blood all over the bed. It’s like Marcos has split in half: his calm, in-control side disappears, and a hysterical madman takes his place. “The woman who let me rot in prison for fifteen years,” he yells, “while she married that man you call your father?”

What is he talking about?

“I don’t know the woman who took everything from me?” Marcos continues, his voice now an unrestrained roar. “Who took my freedom? My life?” He shakes the headboard so hard it rattles against the floor, and drops of his blood fling around the room. “I don’t know the woman who stole our daughter?”