“My suggestion? Park it elsewhere—your husband’s workplace—or if you’re feeling hard-core? Let the air out of the tires and call AAA when you need to get going. They’ll move on to easier marks, ’cause these kids—it’s all about easy.”
“What good is it if it’s not ready the minute I need it?” Meredith scowled, unhappy with Sylvie’s solution, but she coded in the release for the garage door. It rose smoothly, letting in warm sunlight and the green scent of newly cut grass, all the more pleasant for having been in a space that smelled of oil, metal, and corruption.
Sylvie shrugged as she stepped out. “Your decision, either way.”
“I could get my husband to sit up, hire a security service. . . .”
“I wouldn’t,” Sylvie said. “Best not to corner people you know nothing about. If you can divert their attention, that’s good. Confronting them? You won’t like where that ends up.”
It might end with her husband or the security guard passed out on the garage floor. It might end with someone steering the SUV over their unconscious bodies. Sylvie didn’t know how deep the sleep was, whether its victim could wake, but given the way she and Wright had gone down, poleaxed into unconsciousness, she could easily imagine the worst, that this magical sleep was deep enough that there’d be no fighting back.
She waved Meredith off, said, “I’m going to go talk to Bella Martinez now. Move the car. If you don’t, you’ve no one to blame but yourself if it goes wandering again.”
Meredith turned with a huff. The garage door rolled down after her. Another person ignoring perfectly good advice.
Sylvie rolled her shoulders, flapped the edges of her jacket, dispersing the heat trapped against her skin. A man, scraping grass clippings into the mower, froze, and Sylvie dropped the back of her jacket down over the gun. She waved at him and kept moving. Nothing to see here. Just a girl with a gun, common enough. Though maybe not in the Grove.
Sylvie walked up the long drive to Bella’s house, scuffing her feet in the gravel, enjoying the shade, and dawdling. There wasn’t going to be any good news here. Even if she hadn’t been darkening the Martinezes’ door, hunting glory-seeking burglars, she’d still be bearing the bad news of Bella’s pharmaceutical forays.
She climbed the limestone stairs to a shallow, tiled porch, framed by wrought-iron pillars wound about with jasmine, and rang the doorbell. She didn’t have to wait long; the Martinezes’ housekeeper opened the door, an old frown on a young face. She had always looked worried on the occasions Sylvie had seen her, so she tried not to feel responsible.
“I’m Zoe’s sister,” Sylvie said. She tested names in her head. Surely she could remember one woman’s name—this was her job, to recall the details that others forgot. Something old-fashioned. Ethel, Edwina . . .
“She’s not here.” Her voice carried a tinge of an accent, vaguely French, and Sylvie smiled. She remembered now. Eleanor. Haitian, working her way through med school at UM after her scholarship ran out. Eleanor’s dark fingers curled around the door, her arm a polite bar.
“That’s all right,” Sylvie said. “I really just wanted to have a word or two with Bella.”
“She’s sick.”
“Hungover?”
“Sick,” Eleanor repeated.
Sylvie leaned against the doorjamb, wistfully thinking of the cooler air inside; if she could get past the door, Eleanor would have to offer her coffee, a seat, a chance to soak up the AC. “Eleanor, I really do need to talk to Bella.” She pulled the pill bottle out of her purse and shook it.
Eleanor swore, a long ripple of Creole, snatched the bottle from Sylvie’s hand, and headed back into the house, trailing a plaintive cry, “They’re going to get me expelled.”
Sylvie took inattention for invitation and followed, her sneakers soundless on the smooth Mexican tile. “Get you expelled?” she asked. Scuffling noises came from down the hall, so she headed that way, found Eleanor ransacking her own room, loosing her temper on the only things in the house that belonged to her. She finally threw a book across the room, sat down on the bed, and put her face in her hands.
“You’re not dealing to her,” Sylvie said.
“Does it matter where she’s getting the shit? There’s a poor med student in the house, and the daughter’s got pills enough to give away. Who will be blamed? Tell me.”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “I still need to talk to Bella.”
Eleanor waved her upstairs. “About the drugs? Always in trouble.” She speared Sylvie with a pissed-off expression. “But it’s Zoe who gets her there.”
“Bullshit,” Sylvie said. “It’s Bella—”
“Believe what you will. Why listen to the maid—”
“Bella upstairs?” Enough of this. She’d come with a purpose. She wouldn’t be sidetracked.
“You won’t listen; why will I tell you anything?” Eleanor shut the door in her face.
Left on her own, Sylvie wandered the cool hallway, looking in on an immaculate kitchen, a living room that had been in Homes and Gardens. She followed the gentle curve of the house, running her hand along buttery yellow walls, as warmly colored as Florida sunshine, and took the tiled stairs upward. Where did a spoiled princess sleep? In the tower room, of course.
The arched dome of the upper hallway had the hush of churches, and dried flowers in the vases only added to the impression. A shimmer of chlorine blue through the plate-glass windows sent dancing shards of sunlight cascading over her skin like spotlights.
Sylvie opened the door to Bella’s room, found it dim and cool, the very thing for an invalid. The blinds were shuttered tight, blocking out the sun. Left to her own devices, Bella would probably sleep past two o’clock.
A whimper reached her ears; the bundle of blankets on the bed thrashed for a moment.
Maybe not. Maybe Bella was going to greet the world after all.
As minutes passed, and all Bella did was groan and whimper, Sylvie lost patience. She leaned against the elaborate footboard, white, wrought-iron scrollwork, sharp and cold against her hands, and kicked the mattress. The bed billowed, startling Sylvie—water bed.
“Wakey, wakeys,” she said.
Bella jerked up, hands clenching tight on the edge of the mattress, panting. She focused on Sylvie with slow awareness—alarm, familiarity, recognition, relaxation. Irritation. Everyone always got to irritation.
“Sylvie? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Need to talk to you.”
“Go away. I’m sick,” Bella said. She flopped back onto the mattress, tugged the blanket over her face.
Sylvie hopped down from the footboard, flipped on the overhead light-and-fan combo. Bella groaned but only hunched deeper into the covers against the sudden brightness.
In the moving air, Sylvie smelled Bella’s sour sweat, and sheets days past due for changing.
“C’mon, Bell—”
“No.”
Sylvie busied herself in the room, snooping openly, certain that would get Bella’s attention. She opened dresser drawers, found a pill bottle in the jeans drawers, another in her closet, a third under her bed, all nearly empty, all with their labels stripped off. She set them on the bedside table, kicked the mattress again. “Bella!”
The girl woke with a muffled shriek, a flailing hand, and Sylvie jerked back. She hadn’t really expected her to fall asleep again. They went through the whole panic-to-recognition cycle once more, then Bella scrubbed at her face with shaking hands. “Jesus,” she muttered. “I keep having the worst nightmares.”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Prescription drugs’ll do that to you. Especially if you’re taking them just for fun.”
Bella reached over, swept the bottles off the nightstand and into the Kleenex-riddled trash can with soft thumps and muffled rattles. “Happy now? Take ’em with you when you go.”
The girl did look sick. Bella hung over the side of the bed as if it were too much effort to lie back again; the arm propped against the side of the mattress frame shook, and her skin was greased with milky sweat; her eyes were dilated, the sclera nearly yellow.