Alex had managed to say the entire thing without looking up at her. If he’d seen her face, he might have noticed it in her eyes. The memories.
Danny and Alex.
They used to be inseparable, the scholarship kids who rode the bus for an hour every day from Receida to the posh suburb of La Cholla. Always hanging out after school in the kitchen, Danny goofing off, Alex writing songs for their band, Trash Dogs. Laughing, easy, together. All that ended the day Danny died.
The roar was getting louder. It was now or never. If she hurt his feelings, she’d have to make up for it later. Better than letting him see her have a full-blown panic attack.
“Okay, sure. Yeah, I’ll come, thanks,” she mumbled. With immense relief, the key finally clicked, and she swung open the door, pointedly stepping inside.
“Great.” Alex smiled.
“Sure.” Ana nodded.
“See you.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
Oh, god. Ana pushed the door firmly shut and stood for a long moment, her back to the jamb, listening to her heart beating fast and hard, willing it to slow down.
The room was dark; strips of faint light from the road sign flashed through the crooked blinds, alternating red and yellow lights catching the edges of the bed, the nightstand, a single chair backed against the wall. It was basic, utilitarian stuff, dated and unbearably stuffy but private, nonetheless. Grateful for the space, Ana switched on the lamp and pulled the blinds shut.
Flinging her bag onto the floral bedspread, she headed for the bathroom. A blisteringly hot shower should fix her right up. She just had to keep busy. She could do that. She was an expert at keeping busy.
Turning on the shower, she adjusted it to the hottest setting she could bear. Then she flung her clothes in a pile and stepped into the steaming water, gasping with shock as it singed her skin. It was good; it was what she needed.
Ana tilted her whole head back under the water and let it form rivulets down her face, along the sides of her nose, her chin. She stood like that for a long time, until the heat made her body protest weakly, tempting her to slump down and melt onto the tiled floor. But she wouldn’t. She had spent enough time curled up on the floor this past year. She was stronger now. The grief had forced her to grow up.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.The vivid images caught her, flashing before her eyes. She pushed them away.
Keep busy, her head warned her.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped up in a stiff pink towel. Wiping the steam off the mirror, she looked at herself. Her distinctive hazel eyes stared back.
In all ways but one, the twins took after their mother. Carmen Reyeshad grown up in the Dominican Republic, moving to California the day she turned eighteen, in search of new adventures. She got one more than she planned when shortly after arriving, she got pregnant and began her brand-new life as a single mom.
The twins had inherited their mother’s easy nature and good looks with thick, wavy hair and a wide smile. But their eyes were the one thing they got from their father. Every time Ana looked in a mirror, she saw a piece of him. A reflection of the stranger from a lost night seventeen years ago. Unlike their mother’s warm brown eyes, his legacy was absorbing and ever-changing—brilliant hazel eyes that took on the myriad colors of the world around them, blue, green, gold. Danny’s eyes.
Ana looked away.
Turning on the faucet, she filled her cupped hands with refreshingly cool water. The hot shower had irritated the burn scars on her palms, turning them a brilliant red. They appeared raw and angry, the way they’d looked in the hospital when the bandages had first come off. She held her hands under the running water for a few long moments, turning them around and around until the painful itching subsided.
The mirror had misted up again, making her reflection a blurry haze of pinks and browns. Something dark caught Ana’s attention at the top of the reflection. She turned around and checked for the source.
There it was, in the top corner of the bathroom wall. A small black dot, no bigger than a pencil eraser. Whoever had put it there wasn’t very subtle. Against some trim or behind the shower, it would have been impossible to see, but in the corner between the pastel walls, it stood out easily.
A bad feeling in her stomach, Ana walked up to the corner, clambering onto the rim of the tub for a better look. Light reflected off the small round object recessed in a tidy hole. Its black mesh surface was shinyand, unlike everything else in the motel, appeared to be new. It wasn’t a camera—maybe some kind of tiny microphone? It was carefully embedded in the wall, silently listening to everything she was doing, to every sound she made. She recoiled, almost losing her balance, instinctively pulling the towel up tight around her.
This was not good, not good at all. It could only mean one thing.
Someone was spying on them.
4
Alex
