If I knew my cousin at all, then she had traveled all this way for retribution.
It was Isadora who managed to herd us indoors from the prying eyes of the other hotel guests. Somehow, she’d figured out my aunt’s room number and led us all to the second floor. Amaranta took charge then, using a brass key to unlock the door to their suite. My aunt was inconsolable, stumbling as we all helped her inside. I barely took in the surroundings, dimly registering the suite resembled the one I’d just vacated. It, too, had a comfortable seating area that led into two bedrooms.
“Please tell us what happened,” Tía Lorena said in a watery voice, mopping up her streaming eyes. “I haven’t been able to sleep or eat since I found out.”
I glanced at Amaranta, who had remained coldly silent, arms folded tightly across her chest. I knew her well enough to know that anger made her quiet. From her pale face and lips, her drawn eyes, and the black she wore from head to foot, I knew she was raging on the inside.
Isadora reached for my hand and squeezed and then murmured, “I’ll be right outside.” Without another word, she left, closing the door behind her.
I licked my lips, unsure. I couldn’t tell them what I dreamt of every night—Elvira’s blown-up face, the blood staining the gold sand underneath her head. “She was murdered,” I whispered finally. “By one of my mother’s associates.”
My aunt—who hated wrinkles in her clothing and untidy hair, and whoalways carried a handkerchief—slumped to the carpeted floor in a heap of black cotton. I didn’t know how to help her, what I could say to lessen her grief, and when I took a step forward, Amaranta snatched my arm, tight, her fingernails digging into the sleeves of my shirt.
“Don’t,” she seethed. “Don’t you touch her again.” She released me, recoiling sharply, and then swooped down to help her mother stand. In a hushed voice, she coaxed her mother into one of the bedrooms. My cousin reappeared a moment later and sat in one of the high-backed chairs, her hands tightly laced in her lap.
“Sit down, Inez,” she said through gritted teeth. “And tell me everything.”
So I did, in fits and starts. Amaranta never interrupted me, listening intently, a frown pulling her dark brows into a straight line across her forehead. Her expression only changed when I came to the part about Elvira’s kidnapping. All the blood drained from her face.
“Your mother sacrificed my sister?” she asked in a flat voice. “To save your life?”
Mutely, I nodded.
Her voice remained emotionless. “Continue.”
I got through the rest, a hard knot at the back of my throat. Once again, I sensed that she wouldn’t appreciate any display of emotion. When I finished, Amaranta was silent for a long time. Then she speared me with her dark eyes, a sharp contrast to her pale, drawn face.
“Your mother needs to die.”
My lips parted in surprise.
“She has to pay for what she’s done.” Amaranta leaned forward, the iron line of her spine finally bending. “Do you hear me, Inez? What are you going to do to make this right?”
I flinched, my guilt creating a yawning pit deep in my belly. “I’m going to find her.”
“And then?”
“You and I want the same thing,” I whispered. “I want my mother gone.”
Amaranta studied me, running a critical eye over every line and curveof my face. “This is your fault, and I will never forgive you. But if you do this, my mother might be able to tolerate the sight of you one day.” She stood up. “I want you to leave now.”
Shakily, I got to my feet, leaving without looking in her direction. I understood then that I could never go back to Argentina until I made things right. My aunt wouldn’t want to see me, and Amaranta would make it very clear that I was unwelcome in my own home.
I couldn’t blame her.
Isadora waited for me in the corridor, rigidly composed. She had been looking better in my care, but now she resembled the withdrawn figure from a few days ago. Ihatedthat.
“They aren’t happy with me,” I said. “With good reason. Amaranta wants—”
“Our mother dead,” she said. “I know.”
Her face rippled with an expression I couldn’t read. We stared at each other silently, and I wished I knew her well enough to ask how she felt. My cousin’s words had shocked me, and I could only imagine Isadora having mixed feelings as well. Her words from an earlier conversation swept through my mind—and I realized that she’d rather her mother be in prison than buried underground.
The feeling was mutual.
I hated my mother, but I didn’t want her to die. She loved me, in her twisted way, and I couldn’t stand how that meant something to me when it shouldn’t matter at all. But it did, and so I wouldn’t kill my mother.
I wasn’t a murderer like she was.
