“Sorry, Mama. It just happened.” I went to Silvia’s side. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the tat. Dom is working and Carlos isn’t going anywhere near you.”
“Carlos?” Mama made a tart expression. “He’s not good, Mija. You wait for Dom.”
“Okay.” Silvia climbed into the bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. She seemed so innocent right now, but I knew better. She had a dirty side as well. I’d like to think I had a part in breaking her out of her shell.
“I’ll go start the arroz con pollo.” Mama stopped at the door and peered at Silvia. “Call me if you need anything, Mija.”
“Of course. Thank you, Mama Virgie.”
Finally, my mother was gone, and I could breathe.
“She’s a lot, right?” I knew my mom was, but I hoped she hadn’t overwhelmed Silvia. Should things continue with us, I’d want the two most important women in my life to get along.
“She’s wonderful. I can’t wait to eat the arroz con pollo.”
“You lied to her about not feeling well, right?”
“Sort of. I am tired. But I know I can’t leave the property with Miguel’s men searching for me. What are you going to tell her? Someone might show her my picture. Maybe I should go tonight.” Her forehead wrinkled and fear poured out of her brown depths.
“Let me worry about it. Take a nap and I’ll check on you later.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have club business to take care of.” Including making a call to Skillz for an update on GQ. Then meet up with Quino for an update on Javi. And of course, Miguel wasn’t far from my thoughts. Surely, the search for Silvia was heating up. I needed to put out the fire before all Northern California went up in flames.
“Okay, I’ll just be here, waiting for you to come back.”
I kissed the top of her head. “I won’t be long.”
“And lock the door, please. I don’t need Yoli interrupting my beauty sleep.”
I snorted at beauty sleep. “That would be a crime.” But I gave her props for having a good head on her shoulders. My girl was always thinking of possible dangers and obstacles.
Closing the door and setting the automatic lock, I paused there for a second. I just realized I called hermy girl. Sure, nobody else had heard it, but I thought it and that was all that mattered.
Silvia Avila was mine.
My top priority was making sure she would be safe while I was gone. Which meant, I had a lot to do before the run to Canada.
12
Silvia
I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sister Theresa and Sister Lupita lying in a pool of blood. The scene felt familiar, like when I’d found my mom naked and covered in blood. Everything else about that day was fuzzy.
Sometimes I’d have a memory of someone else being in the pool house with her. A dark figure I couldn’t get clear in my head. For years, Tonio had told me I’d had a horrible nightmare. I believed him until he took me to a therapist to help me with my depression and insomnia.
During my sessions, I started remembering details, like Tonio had been the one to find me. He’d heard me screaming, whisked me away and drugged me. When I finally woke up the next day, I cried for hours over my mom being hurt, over what I believed I’d seen.
Tonio had tried to help me, assuring me I hadn’t been there, but I knew what I saw. Or thought I knew. Eventually, I suppressed the memories. That period of my life had haunted me ever since.
I had never fully recovered, though I tried to move on with my life. There had just been too many missing pieces to the puzzle of my mother’s murder. Like why and who? The authorities nevercaught the perpetrator and called it a cold case. I had my own thoughts about who, but I had no idea why.
One thing was for sure; I wanted him to pay and experience the same brutal death my mom had suffered—nineteen wounds from a switchblade.
When I was in high school, there was a girl I noticed watching true crime shows on her laptop during lunch. She had headphones on so no one had really noticed. She seemed to be alone, so I befriended Mavis hoping she’d let me watch with her.
But what I really wanted was to use Mavis’s laptop to search up my mom’s case. My brothers had monitored my devices and wouldn’t let me have access to the Internet. The only information I knew had come from them, and I hadn’t believed their version of what had happened. Even now, at twenty-two, I was kept in the dark.
