Bruja Brouhaha Page 23

“Heard you need a place to live, Lizzie Bear.” He let go of my waist, turned me, and brought me back.

  “I’m looking at houses to buy,” I said.

  “With the bookworm?”

  “On my own.”

  “I knew you’d get tired of him.” He turned me again.

  I twirled and came back. “Wrong. Nick and I are very happy. I need an investment.”

  “Sure, Lizzie Bear. Whatever you say. Move back in with me. It’ll be like old times.”

  “I wouldn’t use old times as a selling point if I were you. Plus, think of how awkward it would be at the breakfast table when Nick sleeps over.”

  “Dump him. Come back to me,” Jarret said.

  I chortled. “You’re dreaming. Wake up.”

  When the band began to play “Just One of Those Things,” Nick tapped Jarret’s shoulder to cut in.

  Jarret gave Nick a mocking bow, swept his hand in the air, and stepped aside. “Of course. This must be your song.”

  “A rescue mission. Liz looks pained,” Nick said.

  “Why wouldn’t she, considering who her date is?” Jarret said.

  Nick thumbed over his shoulder. “Your rent-a-model is looking for you.”

  “Did you hit on her and get turned down, Nickster?”

  “Don’t take the cut-in so hard,” Nick said. “You have to be used to getting benched by now.”

  Neither one noticed when I left them exchanging verbal jabs on the dance floor, a show I knew too well and lacked the patience for tonight. Their bickering was a dance that had only a little to do with me. I craved familiar comfort. Sugar comfort, like the cake I missed at dinner. Nick and Jarret were still arguing as I detoured through the crowd and dodged behind the partition separating the kitchen door from the ballroom.

  I pushed open the leather-padded swinging door and spotted the walk-in refrigerator at the back of the empty room, beyond the length of stainless-steel counters, stoves, and sinks. Unsure if it would lock behind me, I used a small round bar tray to prop the heavy refrigerator door open then flicked on the light switch inside. Six plates of frosted white cake were lined up like toy blocks on a shelf in the back. I swiped a finger of frosting for a taste. Cream cheese—my favorite. I leaned my shoulder against the refrigerator door, tucked the tray under my arm, balanced my cake plate in my hand, and turned off the light to ease my way out.

  A voice echoed off the steel equipment. “Everything set? You know what to do?”

  “Set. Cruz gave Lucia the new medication at eight,” a familiar male voice said. “She’ll be disoriented for a few hours.”

  I stopped, rigid. The voice was Tony Torrico’s.

  The first voice again: “I’ll be back in an hour. Stay visible out there. Tell people you just saw me in the lobby. Where’s the cop?”

  “Talking to Carmen,” Tony said.

  “Watch the Cooper woman and the boyfriend. Stall them if they start to leave. I don’t want them showing up while I’m with Lucia. Got it?”

  “Just make it fast, Ray. I’ll call if they leave.”

  “Not if. Make sure they don’t. An hour, Tony. You keep them here until you see me back in the ballroom. You hear me?”

  My bare arm was going numb on the cold steel. If I let the door close, the handle click would make noise. It was too late to walk out and pretend I didn’t hear them. My shoulders began to shiver. I tried to turn my back to the door and let my dress act as a buffer between the metal and my skin. My body went from shiver to shake. The tray under my right arm bumped the door and slipped, bouncing to the concrete floor with a clatter.

  The voices stopped. The refrigerator door flew open, throwing me off balance. A hand caught my arm and Raymon Cansino pulled me into the kitchen. Tony swore under his breath.

  I held up the cake plate in my hand. “Whew, thanks. All that for a piece of cake. Thought I’d be trapped in that damned refrigerator for the rest of the night.” I took a step toward the door. Cansino held my arm in a vise grip.

  He took the cake plate and gave it to Tony. “Here’s your excuse for being in the kitchen. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  Tony cocked his head at me. “What about her?”

  “Oh. She can go back into the ballroom and tell her friends everything she heard. What do you think, you moron? I’m taking her with me.”

  “No.” I tried to wrench my arm from his grip. He held tighter.

  “Let her go. I can’t be part of this anymore,” Tony said.

  “Bullshit. You’re in too deep to stop,” Cansino said.

  “But they’ll look for her. What if someone saw her come in here?” Tony said.

  Cansino shrugged. “So? They won’t find her. Just get out there and cover for me.”

  When Tony opened the kitchen door, I drew in a breath to scream. In a flash, Cansino had my back to his chest with his left hand clamped on my mouth. He knocked the air out of me with a kidney punch. My knees buckled. He half dragged me to the service elevator as I kicked and pulled at his hands. The elevator door opened. Cansino pushed me inside. I bent over, wrapping my arms to my waist to ease the pain. Lucia’s protection bracelet rubbed against my ribs.

  I pulled the bracelet off my wrist and tossed it into the kitchen as the elevator door closed, hoping Nick would find it and connect it to Lucia—unlikely, but it was all I had. Cansino slapped me so hard my teeth jarred.

  “Not anymore.” His words were flat, without expression, like he was disciplining a disobedient dog.

  “What are you going to do to Lucia?” I said.

  “If I were you, I’d be worrying about myself.”

  The service elevator opened onto an unlit side street. Cansino covered my mouth again and dragged me out onto the sidewalk. A black Escalade with tinted windows idled at the curb. The bald, barrel-chested driver got out of the car and opened the back passenger door. Cansino forced me inside.

  Victor Morales sat hunched in the backseat, unshaven and haggard under the dim interior light. His jaw looked swollen and bruised. His veined hands gripped the tops of his thighs.

  The door slammed shut. The light went out. The door locked automatically. Cansino and the driver got in, and we pulled away from the curb.

  I touched Victor’s hand. “What happened to you?”

  He looked at me through hollow eyes. “They’re going to kill me and commit Lucia.”

  “Correction, Vic,” Cansino said from the front seat. “Both you and your friend here will be alive until Lucia signs over her power of attorney to you, so you can sell me her building and sign the papers to commit her. After I deduct the five thousand cut everyone will assume you demanded before you disappeared, there will be enough cash from the sale to pay for a nice psychiatric hospital for the few days she has left.”

  “You’re crazy. You won’t fool anyone.” I leaned against the door, pulled the handle, and pushed to no avail.

  “Correction. Everyone knows Lucia Rojas is crazy. Her ridiculous hex made it easy for me. Her neighbors, along with Tony, will confirm to Social Services that she’s unsound. And the law can’t dispute the sale her respected doctor made using her power of attorney before he left town. I think nervous breakdown for Lucia, don’t you?”

  “No. I’m thinking insane greed.” I turned to Victor. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “Vic here was our guest at Cruz’s apartment,” Cansino said. “We kept him busy. It would have been a shorter stay if you and your boyfriend would have left Lucia alone for me to complete my business with her.” He turned to me from the front seat. “I think I might enjoy having you killed. You cost me time and money, Liz.”

  “How do you know who I am? I know Lucia didn’t tell you.”

  “Oh, Tony told me everything about you and your family,” he said as the car sped west on 7th Street.

  And we know all about you, Cansino.

  “Cruz DeSoto works for you?” When Cansino didn’t answer me, I turned to Victor. “How did they convince you to hire her?”<
br />
  “Tony gave me her résumé with Father Nuncio’s falsified recommendation. Like a fool, I trusted him instead of checking her out myself. I believed him.”

  I chastised myself for ignoring my original instincts about Cruz. But criticism or regret wouldn’t save Victor or me. I needed a plan. I wanted to keep Cansino disengaged from thinking about what he was going to do with Victor and me.

  “What were the papers you went over with Lucia after the wake?” I said to Victor.

  The confusion on his face confirmed Cruz had lied. The driver stopped for a light. I pulled back the button to open the blackened window. Locked.

  “Through the miracle of good drugs and Vic’s selfless cooperation, Lucia will sign papers tonight,” Cansino said.

  Victor said to me, “Tony called me to the clinic the night of Paco’s wake. He offered me a five-thousand-dollar bribe to sell her building. I flat out told him I wouldn’t do anything so unethical. We argued. I asked for his resignation. He pushed me, and knocked me out. I woke up in ropes in an apartment.”

  “You should have said yes,” Cansino said.

  “Have you been calling Lucia? Was that you who hung up on me Saturday?”

  “There was a gun to my back,” Victor said. “They made me say things to keep her trust but make her seem delusional to you and Nick. They threatened to hurt Carmen if I didn’t do what I was told.” He knitted his brow. “How is she? How is Lucia?”

  “Carmen’s good. Lucia is tougher than she seems.” I turned to Cansino. “Why tonight?”

  “Thanks to the fund-raiser, I know where Lucia’s friends are for a few hours. No one will be making another surprise visit.”

  Suddenly I understood his bizarre introduction to me earlier. He was making sure Carmen, Nick, or I saw him there to use us for his alibi.

  “The power of attorney and transfer of deed are pre-dated,” Cansino said. “See, everyone will be told that Vic sold me the building the night of his buddy Paco’s wake, deposited his finder’s fee in his bank account the next morning, and then . . .” He spread his arms and shrugged. “Disappeared. The same way you’re going to disappear, Liz.”

  Cansino didn’t know his ruse wouldn’t hold. I found the building deed days after the alleged transfer. Nick would know the dates were falsified. Cansino’s next real estate transaction would be a move to jail. I just had to stay alive to enjoy it.

  “You murdered Paco and Teresa for a building?” I said.

  “I don’t murder people,” Cansino said with his finger to his chest. “I present my men profitable opportunities to remove obstacles for me. Paco was stubborn and too old to live. The Suarez woman should have minded her own business instead of opening her mouth to you.”

  Tony. He must have been listening in the hall while Teresa and I talked. “Tony took your letter to Paco from Victor’s office.”

  “Oversight that, thanks to you, Tony caught. He’s a good man,” Cansino said.

  Good man my ass. “What’s in this for him?”

  “You’re damned talkative for a dead woman,” Cansino said. “Tony will get his cut.”

  The driver stopped the car in front of Botanica Rojas. I looked across the street for Tattoo Neck and his friends, supposedly watching the building for Nick. The sidewalks were empty. I couldn’t see anything in the dark mini-mall lot past the cement wall. And the chance of Nick finding Lucia’s protection bracelet, deciphering the clue, and then finding me was next to nil.

  Cansino said to the driver, “Stay close and out of sight. I’ll call you when we’re done. Meet us in the back.” He dialed his cell phone. “I’m outside, Cruz. Get ready to buzz us in.”

  Appealing to Cansino’s conscience (he didn’t have one) or his compassion (he lacked attachment) wouldn’t save Victor, Lucia, or me. I climbed the steps to Lucia’s apartment with Cansino’s gun pressed to the small of my back.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Cruz flashed Cansino a questioning look when she saw me behind Victor on the stairs.

  “Get inside and do what you’re told.” Cansino pushed the gun barrel deeper into my back and we filed into the dark apartment.

  The votives surrounding Paco’s photo, his ash-filled urn, and a massive porcelain bowl on the altar shed the only light in the room. The flames flickered when Cruz shut the door behind us. Lucia slumped in a chair at the dining table. Her head lolled as she tried to look up. Victor rushed in, kneeling at her side. Cansino pushed me into the armchair.

  “Why is it so dark in here? Turn on a light and get me the deed before she passes out,” Cansino said.

  Cruz flipped the switch on the wall next to the desk, flooding the room with overhead light. She opened the desk drawer and handed Cansino the yellowed paper.

  Cansino removed another packet of papers from his inside jacket pocket and sat next to Lucia, touching her sleeve for attention. “Hello, Lucia. It’s Ray. Paco’s friend. This won’t take long then you can go to bed. Victor is here. He’s going to take care of you now. You do what Victor tells you, and everything is going to be okay.”

  Lucia seemed bewildered, her face sallow under the glare of the overhead light.

  The phone was footsteps from me on the desk, but Cruz stood sentry in the middle of the room. I had ten pounds on that wiry thing with a smug smile. I knew I could get her out of the way to make a leap for the phone. But the gun hidden at Cansino’s side was the big fat neutralizer.

  “Who are you? Who’s here?” Lucia slurred her words, squinting at Victor, Cansino, and then at me.

  Cansino pressed the gun to Victor’s back.

  “It’s Victor, Lucia. I’m here.” He brushed a strawberry curl off her forehead.

  She gave him a loopy grin, then glanced over his shoulder at me. “Is that Teresa?”

  Paco’s photo on the altar behind her gave me an idea. Manipulative, but I was desperate. “Yep, it’s me, Teresa,” I said. “Paco brought me up for dessert.”

  The hopeful light in her eyes and the sweetness in her smile choked my lying heart with guilt.

  “Paco?” Lucia pressed her hands to the table and tried to stand. “Where? I can’t see him. Paco?”

  With my heart breaking and my nerves shot, I said, “He doesn’t want you to sign any papers.”

  Cansino bolted out of his chair. He pulled me up and squeezed my chin between his thumb and forefinger, his face so close I felt the spittle of his hiss. “Shut up or you’re out the window with a bullet in your head.”

  Odd thing, knowing he would kill me anyway: defiance overshadowed fear.

  “How messy, Ray. Who do you think would get to the front door first? Your driver or the police?” I said.

  He pushed me into the bathroom and held the door closed until I heard something shoved under the doorknob.

  I flipped on the bathroom light and leaned against the door, shaken. I couldn’t just stand there, cowering. Cansino needed Victor and Lucia to sign the POA and deed. I was an unnecessary and inconvenient liability.

  I wasn’t going to wait for Cansino to come in and shoot me. My only hope was to rile Lucia enough to delay his plan until, or if, Nick and Dave figured out where I was. Fat chance. Nick was probably still arguing with Jarret. If I made enough noise, maybe I could prevent Cansino from getting what he came for—signed papers. Then what? Didn’t know. Didn’t have time to think about it.

  No window. Damned old bathroom had no window. The medicine chest. I rifled through bandages, toothpaste, mouthwash, Paco’s shaving cream, plastic razors, and came out with Lucia’s long metal nail file. In the cabinet under the sink I found Epsom salts, boxes of soap, a heating pad, and an aerosol can of men’s extra-strength deodorant. I tried the spray nozzle. A failed drizzle. Back to the medicine chest for a safety pin. I scraped the nozzle hole with the pin, rinsed the nozzle, then tried again. A hearty spray.

  A metal pole rested between the walls in C-shaped slots and held the shower curtain over the tub. I took off my shoes, stood in the tub, lifted the pole o
ut of the slots, and removed the curtain. The pole was too long to use as a weapon, but I had the curtain to work with. They don’t teach this stuff at scout camp.

  With deodorant in one hand and the file in the other, I started talking through the door. “Lucia, remember the hex. The hex brought Paco’s killer here. Don’t trust anyone, Lucia. Don’t listen to them.”

  I heard Cansino. “Cruz, shut her up. Now!”

  A chair scraped across the floor. Footsteps. I held the deodorant can and braced the door so it wouldn’t push open. I didn’t want skinny Cruz. I wanted Cansino.

  She pushed against the door. I pushed back, shouting, “Get help, Lucia. Don’t trust them.”

  I heard a rustle, another chair scraping, and footsteps crossing the room. Cansino came closer, swearing. I moved to the side and flattened myself against the wall in case he shot through the door. The door flew open. I hit the deodorant nozzle, releasing a stream of extra-strength in Cansino’s face.

  He groped at his eyes. I jabbed the nail file into the hand holding the gun. I grabbed the loose shower curtain off the sink. I threw the open curtain on him and shoved him into the hall with all the strength I had. He lost his balance and fell. I darted for the desk phone, three steps away. Cansino tore off the curtain and lunged for my ankle. I pitched flat to my stomach, kicking at his head and shoulders with my free leg.

  The gun skidded across the floor. Victor went for it. Cruz got there first. She pointed the gun at Victor, and he froze.

  “I said no more.” Cansino yanked me by my hair to my feet.

  Lucia slowly pushed herself up from the table. She reached for the porcelain dish on the altar. I struggled against Cansino to distract him and the others. With hands shaking, Lucia swung the dish against the back of Cruz’s skull. Cruz stumbled forward. Victor wrenched the gun from her hand. He aimed the weapon at Cruz and Cansino.

  Cansino whipped me around and locked his forearm against my throat. Using me as a shield, he stepped toward Victor. “Put the gun down.”

  Victor didn’t move. Cansino pressed tighter against my throat, edging me forward. I couldn’t breathe. The room began to swirl.