Shutter(68)

“Yes, what?” Shanice grabbed my shoulder. “Come on, Rita. You need to eat. Try and bring yourself down. Come on, take a bite.” She dipped a napkin in her ice water and rubbed the blood beneath my nose.

Philip shook his head. “Remind me not to ever give you a blast again. I don’t think it agrees with you.”

I turned to the booth once more, but the ghosts had been replaced by a living family who stared at me in return, the youngest one clenching her mom’s arm like a snake wrestler.

“See, now you’re scaring children.” Philip spoke with his mouth full.

“You’re a Navajo that can see ghosts?” The Navajo’s ghost was suddenly at the table adjacent to us.

“Shut up,” Erma barked at the man. “When are you going to help us?”

I tried to concentrate on Shanice and Philip across the table, raising a fork full of tortilla and chili into my mouth. I chewed quickly and took a sip of my coffee. My head spun and I watched blood splatter in star shapes on the linoleum.

“Rita, your nose again.” Shanice handed me a wad of napkins. “Oh my God.”

“I definitely gave you too much. My bad.” Philip scooped another mouthful.

“Rita. Help them. Help them so you can go home.” I knew that voice. It was Gloria. There she was, sitting right next to me in the booth, her skin smooth and soft, and her hair shiny and long. “Rita, can you hear me?”

I felt myself smiling.

“There she is.” Shanice raised her coffee mug. “Philip, I think she’s coming out of it.”

“Oh, thank God. I was beginning to think you were brain damaged.”

A huge thud forced me to jump from my seat and step away from the table. Philip and Shanice looked up at me, terrified. I watched Judge Winters’s ghost slam his fists into the table a second time, so hard that the potted flowers and macramé slings around the table rocked back and forth. “Help us!”

Philip and Shanice stared at me, stunned by their moving plates. I had to get out of there. I hightailed toward the exit.

“Rita! Where are you going?” Philip called after me. “Rita!”

I didn’t look back. My body was exhausted in the worst of ways, but something pushed me on and kept one leg moving in front of the other. I ran full force through traffic, between cars and the morning rush of business owners and students, all the way home to Downtown Village.

When I reached the top floor, my door was already open. Mrs. Santillanes came rushing out of her apartment.

“Mija. Oh my goodness, I’m so happy to see that you’re okay. So happy.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, mija. I just heard the police here early this morning banging on your door. It was still dark outside, so it woke me. I was dreaming about my husband. Bless his soul.”

“Did they say what they wanted?”

“No. They eventually knocked the door in. They made such a ruckus. I didn’t dare come out. And neither did anyone else.”

We both looked toward my apartment. The lock was broken and the frame of my door was splintered. The apartment was completely torn apart. Every shelf was empty, every drawer pulled out and dumped on the floor. Three of my cameras, including the very first one I owned, sat by my workstation, shattered into a million pieces. My computer screen blinked, cracked right through the center. My digital archive was missing from my desk, and all the memory cards and backups were gone. Every photograph on my walls had been pulled down and torn apart, even my prints of home and my giant photo of Grandma. There was not one thing that had escaped untouched. I couldn’t even cry.

“Oh, mija. I didn’t know they were doing this.” Mrs. Santillanes took out an egg from her apron, rubbed it on her chest, and began praying in Spanish.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Santillanes,” I said. “I don’t want you to get involved. As a matter of fact, you better get home right now.” I had to leave, and quick. I had a feeling the police would come looking again since they didn’t find what they came for in the first place. Me.

“Shall I call the police?”

“No. Just get home and lock your doors.”

“Be careful, mija.” Mrs. Santillanes stood by the door. “If I hear anything crazy, I’m calling.”

In my bedroom closet, behind some sweaters I never wore, was a small door that I had made. I looked inside to find my other cameras still hiding there, along with a box of negatives of Mom’s pictures. Most importantly, my mom’s camera was untouched, as were my four backup hard drives. I pulled the cards from the camera I’d used at the party and hid them with a box of negatives, then put the drives right back where they were. When I came down from my perch and shut the door, I almost had a heart attack.

“Oh my God!” Shanice and Philip were standing at my bedroom door. “What in the hell happened here? Did you do this, Rita?”

“No. I didn’t do this. What the hell do you think?”

“Well, you were still flying high back there. You went sprinting into fucking traffic. Jesus, Rita! What in the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain on the way while you drive me to the station,” I said.

“Wait, I thought you got fired?” Shanice said as she and Philip followed me out.

It was just before 9 A.M. when we pulled out of the Downtown Village parking lot. “So, where are you staying?” Philip stared at me through the rearview mirror. “You can’t stay at your place. Did you call the police?”