Category Five, page 17
The three men filled them in on what had transpired. Her uncle had sent one officer to find Captain Torres, but he hadn’t returned yet. They didn’t know for a fact it was him yet, and he wanted the bulk of the force here, on the event grounds.
Of course, Lupe wasn’t surprised that the elder Torres looked like the culprit. And after their little car ride, she knew he hated her enough to stab a heart through her car seat. Lupe looked at Hernán with empathy. “I’m sorry about your father, Hernán.”
The young officer looked at her, his eyes glassy. “He isn’t a kind man, my father. Especially not to me. But I always tried to make him proud anyway, you know?”
She nodded. “I do know.” She knew what it was like to have parents who disappointed you, though her father was trying really hard to straighten up.
For a moment they all watched the comings and goings, the crowd swelling, increasing with each ferry’s arrival, the staff hustling around, preparing the event. The police skirted the edges, equally as helpless.
An officer came to the edge of the bandstand and called the chief over. She whispered something in his ear. Esteban came back to the group. “Where’s Sam?” he asked. “His father is looking for him.”
“He went to get a document or something that he thinks will help,” Lupe offered.
Javier sneered. “Document. How will a piece of paper help? We need people willing to fight, not … Coward.”
Lupe turned to him. “Actually, if you paid attention in history class, documents are at the heart of any significant change in history since humans could write!”
“Well, he should be here. His father started this entire thing, after all, and—”
“He is not the same as his father! You of all people should—”
“Children!” Esteban’s bark made them both jump and silence fell over their group. Except for Marisol’s quiet snickering at his chastising. She sure was having a good time.
“Tío, they’re going to try to privatize all the beaches!”
“What? No, that’s not possible.”
“But it is! I think that’s part of what Sam is trying to prove—”
The radio crackled to life, and a voice came out of the small speaker. “Um, excuse me—”
“Quiet!” But he wasn’t saying that because he was trying to listen to the radio. “Do you hear that?” Esteban was leaning forward, head tilted, listening to … the now-full audience?
Lupe listened but could only hear the murmur of the crowd … but then she heard something else. They all seemed to hear it now, a shushing, whispering sound on the wind.
The radio squawked. “Chief? I think we’ve got a problem.”
And another voice broke in. “Um, Chief? You’re not going to believe this.”
Voices overlapping, reports from all edges of the property. Dávila grabbed on to the side of the grandstand and swung himself up, climbing to the highest step.
“Tío!” Lupe called up in a loud stage whisper. She didn’t know why she was bothering to whisper when they were surrounded by thousands of people. “What do you see?”
Esteban stood up tall, his eyes wide. He swung down and spoke into the radio. “Is that what I think it is?”
Squawk. “Yep. I can see dozens of them. Maybe hundreds! And they’re … glowing.”
“Here, too. And transparent.”
The third voice just started reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish.
The radio silenced as the chief pressed the Talk button. “What are they doing?”
A silent beat, then. “They’re just … walking.”
“Walking where?”
Another silent beat.
A crackle.
Finally, a shaky voice broke in.
“Toward the event.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Javier
“JESUS.” CHIEF DÁVILA called his staff toward him, giving them directions to spread out. His voice was low, but Javier could make out what he was saying. “We have to find the bomb before those ghosts get here. When the crowd sees them, it will be total chaos.” He turned to Javier, “Son, could you lead an officer through that maze of a basement to where you found those materials? See if there is anything else in that basement that might give us a clue as to what’s being planned and where? I’ll send one of my officers with you, but I need someone I can trust. In the meantime, I’ve got to convince these people to evacuate the bandstand without causing a panic. They’re arguing with my officers. Arguing!” The chief seemed uncharacteristically flustered.
Hernán stepped forward. “Chief, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to go with Javier.”
Dávila just looked at the young patrolman.
“I know what you’re thinking, he’s my father, but that’s exactly why I want to go. He has been acting weird lately, and I think he needs our help. My help.”
Dávila looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Come right back. The events are due to begin at eight p.m. sharp.”
Both nodded and headed back around the building toward the rear entrance to the basement. As they passed the entrance to the private beach, (Javier was never going to get used to calling it that—island beaches were not supposed to be private) Hernán stopped.
“Wait. I think I saw someone near the water.”
Javier squinted, but the setting sun lengthened the shadows. “Who?”
“I don’t know, but it might have been my father.”
“The boat!”
“What?”
“Last night I saw your father pulling a boat into the trees.”
Hernán paused, then said, “I’m going to check it out, I’ll meet you in the basement.”
Javier nodded and ignored the burning in the pit of his stomach. He made his way back to the stairs’ entrance. The longer shadows made sneaking easier. The stairwell lights were off, and he decided not to turn them on and alert the captain, if he was down there, to his presence. His sneakers made no sound as he made his way down the hallway, stopping just outside of the small room where he’d found the makeshift workbench. He stood there breathing for a moment, and was considering waiting for Hernán when he noticed the mumbling sound. He listened closely.… It was praying, the Hail Mary in Spanish.
Praying?
He peeked his head carefully around the corner and saw the captain standing over the table, his head bobbing, the prayer tumbling from his lips like drops of water. Javier stepped around the corner, quietly. He wondered if it was wise to think it, but nothing about the captain seemed threatening at the moment. In fact, he felt a pang of pity: the man looked sad and alone.
As if sensing Javier’s presence, the captain spun around and saw Javier’s form standing in the shadow of the doorway. “Who’s there? Hernán? Is that you?” The hum of thousands of voices and the tinny sound of piped-in music pressed in from the outside, but in the still basement, his voice was clear and loud.
Javier stepped forward. “No, sir. It’s Javier Utierre. The chief sent me.”
“Oh.” The man seemed disappointed and not the least bit alarmed.
“Did … did you set this up?” Javier asked, indicating the table of bomb-making equipment.
The captain spun around as if he’d already forgotten Javier was there. “What? No. No, of course not.”
Javier wondered if he was lying. He had to find out what was planned. He stepped closer, wondering again if it was a wise choice, knowing it really wasn’t. “Captain Torres, can you tell me what’s going on here? Is something bad going to happen at the event?” He looked at his phone out of reflex. The concert started in ten minutes. They were almost out of time. As he waited for the man to answer, he realized he didn’t have a clue how to approach this. Why hadn’t he paid more attention in psychology class?
“Yes, I think something bad is going to happen.” He picked up the remnants of a clock and turned around to face Javier.
He thinks?
Javier stepped up until he was only a few feet from the captain, and as he did, the man’s eyes shot up. Had he made a mistake? Was Torres a serial killer and going to attack him?
“I found the boat, and the unconscious officer,” the captain said. “I’ve suspected what you were doing for weeks now, suspected what you were. But I didn’t want to believe it, so I tried to protect you. But I was wrong, and I’m going to stop you, I have to,” he whispered into the still air of the room.
Javier had no clue how to handle this. He coughed, then said, “Sir, I saw you with the boat. I haven’t ‘done’ anything, and I don’t need protecting—”
Then there was an explosion, the sound ringing off everything in the basement, and Javier reflexively put his hands over his ears and bent over with the pain in his head. Had it happened? Had the bomb gone off? Was he too late? He looked up at Captain Torres and saw his face was pulled down in shock, his glazed eyes staring over Javier’s shoulder, a dark stain spreading on his crisp uniform shirt.
What?
What was happening?
Javier was about to spin around and look behind him when something struck the back of his skull, and suddenly the basement floor was rising to meet him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Marisol
THEY COULD TELL the minute the crowd of ghosts met the event crowd. There were choruses of gasps, then screams, then waves of panicked movement. Complete chaos was coming their way. Marisol could feel the burn of anxiety rising from her belly. Since the hurricane she had been in so many situations and crowds, protesting for those left homeless, and the feeling of being in the center of an emotionally elevated crowd was becoming way too familiar. It was a sense of complete and total helplessness in the middle of earth-shattering disaster. And here it was again, like an unwanted guest. Just throw in supernatural elements and a human threat and you got today.
Even though they were outside, it was like the air had been sucked out of the space. She longed to just step away toward the beach for a moment and catch her breath. She looked over in that direction and saw a uniformed figure in the main building’s shadow.
Wait, wasn’t that the captain’s son? Hernán? Where was Javier? Hadn’t they left together?
Marisol turned to tell Lupe, but her friend was engulfed in the maelstrom that surrounded her uncle. As she knew from her volunteer work, strong leadership in these kinds of situations was crucial. And if anyone could get them all through this nightmare it was Lupe’s uncle. She looked back and saw Hernán moving across the grassy expanse, toward the shore.
He was totally up to something.
She rushed over, leaving the bedlam behind her, and her breathing started to come in normally. It felt good to be free of the crowd’s push and she liked having something to do.
She followed him to the back, working to keep sight of him in the dark. There was some ambient light from the festivities, but not enough to see by. She caught sight of him skulking over to the beach and pulling a small boat from a hiding place in the brush toward the water. And a sea launch with no witnesses.
Except her!
But wait … He was pulling something else back into the brush. Was that … a body? Could that be Javier?
Oh hell no.
She took off in a stealthy run and got to the beach just as he pushed the tip of the boat into the water. She jumped and threw her body on him, tumbling them both over the canoe and tackling him to the ground. He was not all that much bigger than she was, slight and not very tall, and she had been working very hard, but he was a professional with a gun at his hip and she had to move fast.
Hernán was stunned for a second, but then he came to life and started punching at Marisol, and they became a tangle of limbs and fists. He might be trained in hand-to-hand combat, but she was strong now.
And she knew how to fight dirty.
She brought her knee up to his crotch, but he managed to maneuver away so that all her knee met was air. He used that chance to roll them around on the sand until he was on top, trying to pin her arms down. She was a pinwheel of arms and legs and she managed to get him off her enough that she could make a fist and pull it back.
She punched him in the jaw, and his head flew back with a spray of spit and blood. As she brought her fist back again, he reached around and grabbed her hair, yanking her backward. She felt as if patches of flesh had been ripped off her skull, but she worked to regain her control. But with the hair move, he got the upper hand again and pinned her once more to the sand, his knees on either shoulder, his other hand on her throat, and as he squeezed, the stars started to dance behind her eyelids. She tried to swallow, tried to take a breath, but there was no room in her throat to get the air through. What she was seeing became more stars, so much more that they were crowding out her sight, and she wondered if she was going to die on that beach.
As difficult as her life had been, she wanted desperately to see her friends again.
To help the people of the island.
To live.
Chapter Thirty
Javier
JAVIER STAGGERED DOWN the near-dark basement hall, feeling the wall hand over hand in hopes it would lead him out. He basically fell up the stairs, his brain barely able to get his beaten body to move, a deep throbbing in his head making him grateful for the dark. It was too much like when he used to wake up the morning after getting high, when it felt as if the drugs had yanked out parts of his insides, leaving behind raw, throbbing wounds. Yeah, he’d rather skip that feeling. It wasn’t as if he needed a reminder of why he’d gotten clean.
I’m only doing what you wanted. You told me again and again that the gringos took the heart of the island, and you seemed to hate them for it.
A weak voice, watery sounding. No, you misunderstood. I don’t hate anyone. A rattling cough. And it was you that took my heart, you that broke it.
Very poetic, old man. I just did what you couldn’t, what you didn’t have the guts to do.
Was this a conversation that had happened while he was passed out? While Captain Torres died? But how would he remember it? No, it had to be a dream he’d had while he was knocked out on the floor. But if it was a dream, what had actually happened?
He worked to slow his breathing and prepared to head back into the crowd. But before he took another step, he saw movement in the greenery on the far side of the resort property, and a glowing blue light illuminating the undersides of the palm fronds.
He knew that light.
They were coming.
Hand on his head, he staggered back toward the grandstand and his friends. He had to get to the chief and tell him what was going on. But as he walked, it was as if he were on a ship, the ground bucking and swaying, and he thought he was going to puke. He pushed forward and heard the chaos before he saw it. The hum of the crowd had become screams, the mass of people pressing backward toward the building and the grandstand of VIPs. Someone was calling for calm on a loudspeaker, but it was having no effect. Javier could see the blue light flooding the edges of the event area like water, pushing against the crowd, the empty eyes of the ghosts boring into them.
He heard Dávila before he saw him, so he threw himself in that direction. He must have looked bad, because the first policeman he came across stepped aside and let him walk through to the chief without a question. That’s when Javier put his hand in front of his face and saw the blood.
“Jesus Christ, Utierre, are you all right?” Lupe’s uncle took him by the arms and looked into his eyes, probably searching for signs of concussion since he clearly had suffered a head wound.
“A little dizzy, but I’m all right. Chief, I think it was Hernán!”
“What? The captain’s son?”
“Yes! He shot his father right in front of me, then knocked me out. I think he put a bomb in the grandstand.”
“No, impossible. The bomb squad has swept the entire area and found nothing.”
Lupe appeared at his side. “Javi! What happened?” She started fussing over him. Even through the pain, he kind of liked it.
A young officer came up to the chief, her hands shaking slightly as she held up her smartphone. “Chief, you’re going to want to take this.”
Javier expected him to tell her now wasn’t the time, but something in how or what she said seemed to make him realize he had to take it. He held the phone up to his head.
“No, sir, it’s a FaceTime call, from La Salle.”
“What? Like, a video?”
Her gaze caught Javier’s and she fought off a small smile. “Yes, sir.”
Esteban held up the phone. “La Salle, you there?”
A man’s face appeared on the phone, the image distorted as he held it in front of him as he walked. “Yeah, Chief. I was patrolling the village of Isabel Segunda as you asked, and a neighbor tipped me off on some weird goings-on around this house.” The camera swung around, and an abandoned house surrounded by beat-up metal fencing appeared on-screen.
“I know that house!” Lupe yelled. “It’s across the street from where old man Carter was killed.”
La Salle’s voice again, narrating what was on the screen. “You’re right.” The camera swooped again, and now a dilapidated little house appeared.
“He owned half the island and that’s where he chose to live? Damn.” Javier realized after he said it that the timing for that comment was probably bad, but the chief didn’t even seem to notice.
“Get to the point, La Salle. We’re kind of busy here.”
Javier snorted. This time he earned a look from the chief.
The camera started moving around the fence and into the darkened interior of the one-story concrete home. “It’s in here that the weird shi—stuff is.”
The interior of the house was fairly dark, the only light a bare bulb in the corner, but as the camera lens adjusted, it came into focus. It was an empty room, with a single bare mattress in one corner and a small sink in the other. “Someone’s been staying here, but look at this…”
The image swung again—it was kind of dizzying—and then a flag came into view. A Puerto Rican flag. Javier was about to ask what was so important about that when the blue triangle that should contain the star appeared. In the center of it was a patch of an anatomically correct heart, sewed in place.
