Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(35)

Her imitation was so good it made my heart sore. “That’s irreverent.”

“Ralph was irreverent. He was also right about a lot of things.”

I pulled myself up next to Maia as best I could without jostling her. I kissed her forehead. If I didn’t look down, I could almost imagine that she wasn’t pregnant. Like old times—before everything changed.

Ralph’s death and my decision to marry Maia were not as simple as cause and effect. But they were connected emotionally. We both knew that. They resonated from the same terrible winter week.

“I miss him,” I said.

Maia’s breath was sweet and warm. Our forearms touched. The storm outside wailed steadily. I felt my eyes closing.

“Try to sleep,” Maia told me. “You need the rest.”

“Wake me up in an hour?”

“I will.”

I drifted off, imagining Ralph Arguello grinning above me, telling me I was a pretty sorry piece of work.

In my dream, I was sitting on the back deck of Peter Brazos’s house in Port Aransas. It was nighttime, New Year’s Eve. Lights from the houses across the channel reflected like oil fire on the black water. On the edge of Brazos’s dock, a little candy skull glittered.

Peter had his computer in his lap, a vodka Collins in his hand. He was talking to me casually, telling me about his case against the drug cartel.

I wanted to warn him. I knew his house would explode any minute, but my dream self felt it would be rude to interrupt.

“It’s all about emotional leverage,” he told me. “What do they fear worse than their bosses? What makes them crumble inside? Find that, and they’ll tell you what you want. They’ll testify to anything.”

Peter had dark glittering eyes like the little skull on his dock. His skin was pale in the moonlight.

When he lifted his glass to his lips, I said, “Shouldn’t you get your family out of the house?”

He glanced behind him. “Too late,” he said sadly. “You can’t control everything.”

Then I noticed the building behind us wasn’t Brazos’s house. It was the Rebel Island Hotel. And as the windows flared red, I realized that it wasn’t Brazos’s family in there. It was Garrett and Maia.

“Here’s to leverage.” Peter Brazos lifted his glass to the flames. “Happy New Year, Tres.”

“Tres.” Maia was shaking my shoulder. “Tres, I can’t get up. You need to get it.”

Someone was banging on the door. “Navarro!”

I had no idea how long I’d been out. My eyes still burned from the fire in my dream. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door.

Chase was standing there, looking like the ghost of keg parties past. “We went for ice.”

I blinked. “Chase, as direly important as that information is, why did you wake me up?”

“We found him.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I think you’d better come see.”

20

Jose heard yelling from the floor below.

“It’s in the kitchen,” Imelda said.

“Yes,” he said. “We will stay here.”

She bolted for the door, but he caught her arm. “It can wait, Imelda. We have enough trouble.”

She slumped down miserably on a stack of folded sheets. The linen closet was almost the size of a guest room. In the illumination of his flashlight, the shelves of folded sheets and towels reminded Jose of mummies—small bodies wrapped in white. He’d seen things like that in Mayan villages, long ago, in the Mexican army. He didn’t like the memory coming back now.

“Señora Navarre asked for tea,” Imelda murmured. “I told her I would bring her some.”

“Will she give birth here?”

“I don’t know.” Imelda shivered. The twenty years they had been married, they had lived in only hot places, but Imelda was always cold. Jose told her it was because her heart was so warm. Back home in Nuevo Laredo, she once cared for a dove with a broken leg for a month before it finally died. She would cup moths in her hand and release them outdoors rather than kill them. And the children…the last day they had gone to school, she had buttoned their shirts and fussed with their hair and slipped iced oatmeal cookies into their lunch bags.

“Jose,” she said quietly. “We can’t—”

“Don’t say it,” he warned. “It’s your own fault.”

A tear traced her cheek. He didn’t like being harsh with her, but the truth was the truth. Imelda had brought them so much trouble. Her warm heart again. She would never understand that some broken birds would not heal. They would die whether you cared for them or not. It was no mercy to prolong the pain.

He knelt beside her and took her hands. “We will survive this, mi amor. The storm will pass over.”

She met his eyes, but he couldn’t tell if she believed him. It seemed cruel to him, that she had suffered with a husband like him. He was not worthy of her. He had known that since the day they first met, at the dance at Señor Guerrero’s ranch. They had talked under the orange trees and watched the stars. She had been beautiful in her white dress. She had seemed to him like an empty cup, waiting to be filled with his stories. She found him fascinating, rough, perhaps a bit scary. She thought she could change him, make him into a good man. She had never given up on that idea. And he had married her anyway, knowing he would only bring her pain.