Vero glowered at Javi, ready to pounce if he volunteered.
“I’ll do it in the morning,” Ramón said. “It’s late, and I need to get that window secured if we’re going to get any sleep tonight.” Glass crunched under his boots as he went to get some plywood and nails from the garage.
“I’ll get the vacuum,” Gloria said.
Javi’s eyes cut to the newly installed chain locks and dead bolts on the front door. “How long has this been going on?” he asked Vero.
“Since before I got here.” She took the note from her mother and stuffed it into her pocket without bothering to read it, as if she already knew what it would say. “They’re the same kinds of messages I was getting back at Ramón’s.”
I shook my head. “Those notes might have been written by the same person, Vero, but they are not the same. Those earlier ones were just letters on paper. Not threats in spray paint or hate mail on rotten eggs. And definitely not a rock through a window. Someone could have been hurt tonight. We should report it to the police.”
“We’re not calling the cops,” she said stubbornly.
I looked at Norma for support, for some affirmation from the only other mature adult in the room that filing a police report was the logical thing to do, but she only shook her head. “Those messages… what they say, the things they accuse her of… they will only make her look guilty. Vero’s right. We should leave it alone. Ramón will talk to Sophia in the morning and ask her if she saw anything.”
Ramón came into the room carrying a piece of plywood and a hammer. Gloria brought the vacuum. Neither one of them said a word, though I was sure they had both heard my suggestion about calling the police.
Vero knelt behind her cousin, glass clinking quietly as she began gathering up the shards while he set the board over the broken pane. I looked pleadingly at Javi. He held the plywood in place while Ramón hammered. I knew Javi was no fan of law enforcement, and they were all just trying to protect Vero, but was I the only one who was worried these threats might continue to escalate?
And yet, as I remembered the note I’d found on her desk earlier, I couldn’t deny how all this could be twisted and used against her in court. Someone who knew her—had probably gone to schoolwith her, maybe even lived with her—believed Vero was guilty, with enough conviction to vandalize her home.
I knelt beside her and helped her pick up the glass.
When we were done, Norma tossed the rock into the trash can. “Come on, everyone. The capirotada is getting cold.”
We all took our places around the table as if the interruption had never happened. Norma pulled a bottle of schnapps from the cabinet while Gloria spooned out generous portions of dessert. I took a serving of bread pudding, but it did little to settle my nerves.
“It’s late,” Norma said. “We should all get some rest. Finlay, you shouldn’t drive home tonight. You can sleep on the trundle in Vero’s room.”
“I don’t want to impose,” I insisted. “I can stay at a hotel and come back in the—”
Ramón and Vero shook their heads in short, clipped movements, a clear warning in their eyes that it would be rude to say no. “That would be lovely,” I said. As soon as the words were out, the tension lifted from the table.
“Thank you for dinner,” Javi said to Norma. She answered with a curt nod. He held his palm out for my keys as he rose from his chair. “I’ll sleep in the van and keep an eye on the house.”
Gloria, Ramón, and Vero all pinned Norma with a look.
“You’ll sleep in the basement with Ramón,” Norma relented.
Javi’s jaw fell slack with surprise, and he offered a quiet “Thank you.”
Norma got up to clear the dishes. “Get some sleep, everyone. Tomorrow, we’ll look for Theo and make him tell everyone what he knows.”
CHAPTER 8
After dinner, Ramón confiscated the ladder outside Vero’s bedroom window and locked it in his work van. Javi collected our overnight bags from my minivan, and they both gave the yard a final check before coming inside and locking the house. When we’d all finally said our good nights, Javi and Ramón retreated downstairs, where Javi had made up the pullout sofa in the rec room beside the bedroom he’d once shared with Ramón. Norma and Gloria dallied in the kitchen, waiting for Vero and me to head upstairs before they turned off the lights and followed us to bed. Apparently, the fact that Vero and Javi were sleeping two floors apart wasn’t enough to reassure her mother that there wouldn’t be any hanky-panky between them during the night.
Their precautions hardly seemed necessary. Vero had shown him her cheek when he’d tried to kiss her good night, and she’d shut her bedroom door with more force than necessary. She knelt to pull the trundle from her bed. Norma had piled a stack of sheets and pillows into my arms, and I dropped them on the mattress, almost too exhausted to bother making it up. Vero and I each took a corner of the fitted sheet. When I looked over at her, she was smiling, and Iwas surprised to realize that so was I. I’d missed this, the mundane things we always did together: making beds, cooking, folding the laundry, eating cookies and ice cream on the couch after the kids went to bed. And it made me all the more determined for the task that lay ahead of us tomorrow.
She went to the window to draw the curtains and paused.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her as she turned and frowned.
“The window’s closed, but I swear I left it open. I know I did,” she said, raking her hair back from her eyes. “I was climbing the ladder when I heard my mom yelling in the hall. I had just enough time to climb through the window and run to the door before she opened it. I never went back to close it when we heard Ramón and Javi fighting outside. I left it wide open.”
“Maybe your mother closed it after dinner.”
“You and I were the only ones who came upstairs. I’m certain of it, Finn. Someone was in here.” Her eyes darted over every surface of her bedroom. “The rock came through the living room window. Whoever threw it was standing in the backyard. My window was wide open, and the ladder was right there. Wouldn’t you have climbed it if you thought there was a few hundred grand hidden up here?”
