Now we’re back to offer our weekly free Romance excerpt, and if you aren’t among those who have downloaded Curse Of Passion, you’re in for a real treat:
The ghost of la Llorona is said to haunt the riverbanks, always searching for her drowned child. She also haunts high school teacher Johanna Rios, whose own mother believed so deeply in the legend she tried to drown her daughters. And now the ghost has become real, a young woman murdered, and the safe world Jo created is falling apart.Since returning home from his last tour of duty to become a school principal, Ray Vargas has fought his attraction for his employee, the sensual woman who’d once been the girl next door. But the Llorona Killer will not stop until he claims his final victim—Johanna—and Ray will do anything to protect the woman he’s come to love. With a serial killer out to prove the curse is real, will Ray and Johanna’s future be drowned in the ghostly waters of the past? Or will the power of their love give them the strength to stop a killer…and heal their wounded hearts…?
And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
San Julio River, Texas
Present day.
Ray Vargas stood at the front of the small crowd, his face numb as he watched his long-time friend, Deputy Sheriff Derek Braido, bury his boots in the sludge of the San Julio River. Together, they stared at the dead woman floating in the river.
Correction. A dead girl, not a dead woman. Braido had called early, woken him up just as the sun rose, saying they had an unidentified drowning victim on the banks of the river. A female, possibly a teenager, with a San Julio High class ring on her finger. No one had called in a missing person’s report, so the ring was all they had to go by. But Braido had thought Ray might be able to ID the victim. As the principal of the only high school within fifty miles, this wasn’t the first time Ray had been asked to ID a kid. That was the main reason Braido had made him a reserve deputy.
Usually Braido called him to identify some kid trying to pull one over on the deputies, using an older brother’s driver’s license to buy booze. But not this time. This time a girl had been murdered.
What a way to start the day.
Ray peered down the embankment at the girl. Dark hair covered her face, fanned out around her head. River water muddied her white peasant dress . Her body was lodged between a mound of rocks, keeping her from floating away. Only her bare feet drifted back and forth in the swiftly moving current.
The current shifted, sweeping her hair off her face.
Breath rushed out of him and his mouth went bone-dust dry. Oh, shit. Oh, God, no. He knew her. Marianne Sandoval.
His daughter’s friend.
Bile churned in his belly. How could this have happened? He’d just seen Marianne three nights ago. What she’d done that night and how he’d reacted seemed almost surreal now. He struggled to breathe steadily.
“Recognize the girl?” Braido asked.
A sprinkling of water spattered Ray’s face. He looked up at the scudding clouds. Better than looking at the dead girl.
“I know her.”
Guilt pooled in Ray’s gut. He struggled to get hold of it. Three nights ago, his daughter’s eighteen-year-old friend had tried to tempt him, tried to propositioned him. He’d sent her away, but dammit, he should have driven her home. Should have called her parents and told them their underage daughter was drunk in the bar he and his brother owned.
For years he’d worried about his daughter’s friendship with someone as wild as Marianne, had hoped Eva would dump her friend. Had wished Marianne would take off—leave San Julio. His eyes burned—he hated himself for his thoughts.
He turned back to Braido, cleared his throat, and said, “Her name is Marianne Sandoval. Graduated from San Julio High in the spring with Eva. She was in El Charro a few nights ago. Drunk as all get out.” He didn’t tell Braido she’d come on to him. No sense humiliating a dead girl. “She left with some guy in a ball cap. That’s all I know.”
“When was that?”
“Tuesday night.”
Behind him, he heard murmurs. Braido’s staff had secured the area, but a few people stood behind the yellow crime scene tape. He recognized Braido’s partner, Deputy Adams, a woman in her early forties who’d settled in San Julio over five years ago but was still considered a newcomer. Next to her stood Dave McAllen, whose property they stood on. A San Julio alum, Ray recalled from the school files. He wondered if that’s who’d found the girl. He didn’t recognize the other people, but they wore official County jackets. Investigators. The medical examiner. Coroner, maybe.
He checked his watch. He had an hour and twenty minutes before school started. He knew the drill. Once Braido informed Marianne’s parents she’d been murdered, word would leak out and a frenzy of grief for Marianne Sandoval would start.
Small towns made for hotbeds of gossip—and shared pain. San Julio High students would remember her and care. Would grieve. So would her teachers—Johanna Rios in particular. Marianne wouldn’t have graduated without Johanna’s support. Ray had grown up with Johanna, known her as a quiet girl who’d become a strong and caring teacher. A woman whose beauty matched her brains. Though he’d never overstep his professional boundaries and tell her this.
Shit. He kicked at a mud clump on the ground. As soon as Braido allowed him, he’d have to inform his staff of Marianne’s murder, and he didn’t think he could bear to see the pain on Johanna’s face.
But that would be nothing compared to the pain he knew he’d see in Eva when he told her one of her best friends had been murdered.
Hell, he couldn’t bear the pain sitting heavily on his own chest.
At the river, the medical examiner and her team worked. The ME bent over Marianne’s body while a tech snapped pictures of the scene and another walked gingerly around the area, marking things with small cards. Another tech brought over a black body bag, its silver zipper forming a dull vertical line.
Ray’s gut twisted. Christ. He’d thought he was done with body bags when he left Afghanistan. Apparently not.
Forcing his breathing to remain steady, he turned to examine the body floating in the river. The dress and the fact that Marianne wasn’t wearing shoes didn’t add up. She had lived in low-cut tops and painted-on jeans. A peasant dress wasn’t something she’d be caught dead in.
Oh, God. Guilt, chagrin, and regret swept over him. Marianne had been a kid. Fresh out of high school. She hadn’t deserved to die. To be murdered.
Even in the wide-open space, suffocation took him over. He fought it back, breathing from his diaphragm the way he’d been taught in the military. Now that Braido had the ID, did he need to stay?
Ray turned to seek out Braido. He wanted to leave, needed to formulate his thoughts on what to say to his student body and staff, but his friend was speaking intently to Dave McAllen.
The deputy notched his head toward the river. “Know anything about that girl in the water?”
Dave shoved his cowboy hat up on his head and peered down at the body, his dark blond hair damp from the light rain, his buttoned-up suit and tie out of place out by the river. “No,” he finally said.
“Hear anything going on out here early this morning? Or last night?” Braido’s gaze shifted to the access road between Dave’s house and the next house, several acres over.
Ray knew the layout perfectly without having to look. He and Braido had sowed their wild oats out here, on the river banks. Not much had changed. A few sturdy farmhouses remained, while others had fallen into decay and near collapse. The earth around them was barren save for the clusters of trees close to the river and the brush clumped here and there. Around the bend and further down, a row of old fishing cabins had once dotted the river path.
He’d stayed at one of the old cabins with Eva once, on a fishing expedition. Strong girl. She hadn’t even squealed when he taught her to gut a fish. A few years ago he’d gone to rent one of the cabins again, but they’d all been torn down. Eva hadn’t seemed too upset by the news—by then she’d been interested in boys and fashion. Not in hanging out with her dad, gutting fish. She’d been ready to leave the innocence of childhood behind.
God, he wished he could protect her forever.
Movement caught Ray’s attention. Dave had taken a step down the embankment, as if to get a closer look, but Braido quickly blocked his path.
“You sure you don’t know anything about this girl?” Braido asked.
Dave shook his head, started to say something, then stopped. He stared again, furrowing his brows. “She looks a little bit like a girl my brother went out with once, I guess.”
Braido wrote in his notebook. “What’s your brother’s name?”
Dave cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”
Braido’s posture straightened. “Because I asked.”
Dave was a guy with a temper from what Ray could recall from the school files. He’d graduated before Ray became the principal, but Dave’s younger brother, Will, had sat across Ray’s desk a few times. Temperamental, too, but without the attitude.
Dave ran his hand over his chin again before folding his arms over his chest. “My brother is William McAllen. He works at the auto body shop. But I said she just looks like a girl he dated.”
So both brothers had elected to stay in San Julio. Most kids took off after high school and never came back. Others, like Ray, joined the military. A few stayed, choosing to live the small town, blue-collar life. That night at the bar, Marianne had bragged about how she was going to find a way to make it big in San Julio. How she never wanted to leave. Lifers, they called people like her—and himself, his brother Vic, Derek Braido, Johanna Rios, and Johanna’s sister, Carmen. With her wild personality, he would have pegged her as one who’d want to leave and never look back.
He’d guessed wrong.
Marianne and her murder would become lore.
“Deputy!” The medical examiner’s shout halted Braido and Dave’s conversation. She waved Braido over.
“Find something?” Braido called out.
She gave one succinct nod. Crouching down, she lifted Marianne Sandoval’s arm with gloved fingers. “A note. Pinned to her dress,” she said. “Sealed in a plastic baggie.”
Ray started. Could Braido have been wrong? Could it be suicide instead of murder?
They made their way down to the body as the guy with the camera snapped a series of photographs from behind the ME. When he was done, the doctor carefully undid the safety pin and slipped it into an evidence pouch. Then she opened up the zipped baggie and slipped out a square of paper. “It’s in Spanish,” she said after looking at it.
Braido pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and worked his hands into them. He took the note from her and scanned it silently, then read it aloud.
“First. La ramera submerged the child in the river until there was only silence…”
A tornado of prickly chills went up Ray’s spine.
This was no suicide.
***
Shivering in her pajamas, Johanna Rios stood in her kitchen, glaring at her sister. She set down her mug of coffee with a thunk, tension twisting inside her. “We had plans for tonight.”
Carmen leaned against their kitchen counter, her hands gripping the lip of the Formica. She shrugged apologetically. “Come on, Jo. Will got the night off.”
Unbelievable. Jo leaned across the counter and snatched her reading glasses off the stack of student essays she’d read the night before, then grabbed her book bag. “So you’re standing me up, again. This guy must really be something.”
“He is.” Carmen wagged her finger. “You could try it, you know. Go out on a date, kiss someone. Fool around. Might do you good.”
An image of Ray Vargas flashed into her mind, and Jo felt her blood thicken in her veins. She had better things to do than let herself get wrapped up in the Cinderella fantasy. Easier to keep people on the periphery. Which she did with most people, except her best friend, Keisha. And Carmen, usually. But lately Carmen tended to disappoint her. She should be used to it, but each time Carmen pushed her away another hole grew in her heart.
She blew out a breath, grabbed the stack of essays and shoved them into the book bag, then stalked to her bedroom to get ready for work. She pulled her clothes out of the closet before realizing Carmen had trailed in after her. So much for ignoring her sister.
Carmen leaned into the dresser and examined herself in the mirror. She fluffed her hair, then turned around. “You have to stop dwelling on the past, you know. Meet a man. Get laid. Marry him and have his children.”
Right. No matter how appealing fairy tales were, Jo couldn’t believe in happily ever after. Not for her. “The Rios women don’t do marriage, remember? You’re kidding yourself.”
The corner of Carmen’s mouth tugged up in a slight smile. “I think I’ll chance it. Will may be”—her smile grew and her voice took on a serious tone—“the One.”
Jo hadn’t even met this guy, Will, and he was her sister’s soul mate? Someone her sister was thinking of marrying? Carmen was setting herself up for pain and heartbreak, and there was nothing Jo could do about it. She tried to smile, to be happy, but Carmen’s move toward independence meant Jo would no longer be the one to clean up her sister’s messes—or protect her. If she could bring herself to believe in “Happily Ever After,” that might be good. But the concept eluded her. Still, she made herself nod encouragingly. “Really?”
Her sister threw her boney arms wide, wrapped them around herself in a hug. “Yes. Everything will be just fine. No worries.”
And yet hadn’t Carmen just gotten over a fling with the pharmacist at the drugstore where she worked? Like all the men before, the pharmacist had dumped her, cold. Now suddenly Will was her future?
“That’s great,” Jo said, but she felt uneasy. Could he provide for Carmen? Protect her? Would he stay with her? “Just be careful.” She placed a sweater and dress slacks on her bed. “You’ve barely just met him. You know as well as I do that people are capable of all kinds of things. Take it slow.”
Carmen scoffed.
Jo stifled the urge to shove Carmen in the closet and lock her in to keep her safe. She’d spent her entire life trying to protect her, but she knew she had to let go. It was time. Carmen was a grown woman now. Thirty years old. She had to make her own mistakes. If only she didn’t lose herself whenever a man entered the picture.
Jo blew out a breath. At least her sister seemed happy. “When can I meet him?”
Carmen’s face relaxed and her eyes brightened. “Soon.”
“That’s great.”
Carmen moved to the closet and perused the clothes. She took out a jacket and slipped it on. “Can I borrow this?”
Jo glanced up. “It hangs on you.”
Carmen pulled it closed in front, the two panels hanging loosely on her. “It’s fine.”
Jo peered up at her in full protection mode. “You’re skin and bones. You have to eat, Carmi.”
Color stained Carmen’s cheeks. “I’m fine. Will likes me the way I am.”
“Yes. But—”
Carmen peeked in the mirror and adjusted the jacket. “My turn to mother you, hermana. You’re a hermit, staying in this lonely house all by yourself when I go out. You barely even live. You need to find yourself a man.”
As if finding a man would make everything all right. Jo bit back her sadness and frustration. In her sister’s mind, all Jo’s sacrifices—everything she’d done to keep Carmen from befalling the same tragic fate as their mother–had earned her was a bona fide nagging gene.
“Seriously,” Carmen said, heading for the door. “You found your calling. Teaching high school kids? I could never do it. If you’re not going to have your own kids, it’s good you can love someone else’s. You picked the right profession.”
“I give them back at the end of the day.” She hesitated. “No attachments. No obligations.” The words rang hollow in her ears. The truth was, she wanted the attachments. The obligations. She wanted to have a family and children of her own.
Carmen didn’t seem to sense her hesitation. “But they love you. I run into your old students all the time at the drug store.” Carmen primped in the mirror, patting her hair. “They say we look almost like twins.”
Jo patted her curvy hip. “If it weren’t for the twenty-pound weight difference.”
Carmen ignored her. “And I always say the same thing—our looks are the only good thing our dearly departed mother gave us.”
Jo restrained herself from unleashing a torrent against their mother. They didn’t owe a damn thing to the woman. Nothing. Not their brains, not their appearance, nothing.
A minute later Carmen was gone. She knew her sister would hook up with Will later. And Jo would whittle away her Friday night with a glass of Shiraz and a hot bath. Alone.
If Carmen did end up with Will, that would leave Jo permanently on her own. Living an empty life.
But that’s the way she wanted it, really.
She checked the clock—6:46 AM. She had to hurry. Grabbing underwear and a bra from her dresser, she tossed them on top of her clothes and hurried to the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, she emerged from the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. She headed to the bed to get dressed—and stopped short.
Her bra and panties were gone.
She stared at the bed, a sliver of anxiety working through her. No way would Carmen have borrowed her underclothes. First off, her sister’s butt was a good two sizes smaller than Jo’s, and her C cup breasts would never fit into Jo’s B cup bra. They shared a lot of things, but not their lingerie.
A clacking sound caught her attention. The gentle morning breeze caught the edge of the wooden blind, batting it lightly against the window frame.
She had not left the window open.
A cold chill crept up her spine as the realization hit. Someone had been in her house. In her bedroom. The cocoon she’d wrapped herself in all these years wasn’t as protected as she’d thought.
Chapter Two
The final bell of the day rang, and Jo turned her back on the last of the eleventh graders leaving her classroom. Dead. Marianne Sandoval was dead. Murdered. Jo had been told hours ago, but she still couldn’t process it, couldn’t understand it. When Ray Vargas had pulled her aside in the hall and told her the news, she’d felt her knees go out from under her. She’d wanted him to hold her and comfort her just like he had after she’d fallen from her tree house when they were kids.
But this time he didn’t rush over, scoop her up, and hold her close. He’d simply stood there in his suit and tie, his black goatee neatly trimmed, looking as haggard as she felt. He’d shoved his hands in his pants pockets, reciting the facts in monotone while she struggled to keep her emotions in check.
Act professional, she’d told herself. She was already on the verge of collapsing, and looking like she needed Ray to bolster her wouldn’t help anyone.
Hands shaking, she picked up a fuzzy eraser to clean the day’s Spanish lesson from the whiteboard. Furiously, she worked at getting the colored marks removed, making herself steady her hand and calm her breathing. She hadn’t lost control since Mama died. She wasn’t going to start now.
A burning started deep behind her eyes and Jo blinked the sensation away. It would have been easier to blink away sand. Gritting her teeth, she dropped the eraser and turned around, letting her head loll back against the dry-erase board. The effort of remaining in control throughout the day was taking its toll. A raging headache hovered just behind her temples, ready to break loose at any second.
Some days she hated the San Julio River. It took without mercy. Drownings happened every year—both accidental and on purpose. Her own mother had followed la Llorona to her own watery grave. And now the river had swallowed the life of a teenage girl, one of her former students. But not because of an accident. Not because of suicide. No, this had been murder. Shaking, she wrapped her arms around herself, unable to get warm.
The school intercom beeped, shocking her.
“Johanna Rios, please report to the principal’s office.” The secretary, Mrs. Marsh, repeated the order. Air rushed harshly in and out of Jo’s lungs.
Derek Braido and his partner had been meeting with Marianne’s friends and former teachers for most of the day. Gathering information on Marianne. Now it was her turn to tell them what she knew.
Which was what? That Marianne had been boy-crazy and was known to smoke pot and get shit-faced drunk? That Marianne had intelligence but lacked drive? That underneath everything, she’d been a good kid following a very misguided path? That Jo had held out hope for her anyway?
The anxiety somersaulting in her stomach wouldn’t subside. Her former student—a girl with her whole life ahead of her— was dead.
She bent over to slow her breathing. Control. Keep it together. She counted to five before heading for the office. Fragile. Life was too fragile. Another reason she’d never have children of her own. There was no guarantee against bad things happening. No children of her own meant her heart would never break beyond repair.. And it meant that the curse against the Rios women would stop. She couldn’t do to a child what had been done to her and Carmen.
She wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes over Marianne. Carmen was right. She loved her students as if they were her own.
She exited her wing of the high school, walking through the breezeway that connected two sections of the vast building. It was open on one side, and the wind that had been gentle this morning had picked up a notch. She could smell the storm coming, a heavy, moist odor that permeated the air, and she shivered under her too thin pants and light sweater. Damn it, why hadn’t she brought her coat? It was November, unusually cold for the area, and it had been sprinkling on and off since yesterday.
Stupid. She hadn’t been thinking that morning, clearly. After she’d realized someone had broken into her house, her thoughts had become convoluted. She’d hurriedly gotten dressed, gathered her book bag, and left for work, numb and unable to focus. By the time she’d driven halfway to school, she’d talked herself out of calling the police, wondering if she’d only thought she’d put her underwear on the bed.
After all, who would break into her house only to steal some lingerie?
But now, as she walked down the breezeway, she suddenly felt like she was being watched.
Either that or she was losing her mind.
She prayed the police wouldn’t take long with her. She wanted to get away from the school. Wanted to not be alone. Damn Carmen for standing her up. She’d call Keisha and see if her friend wanted to go out for drinks. Help her get the day’s nasty taste out of her mouth.
Thunder clapped and she startled, looking up to the darkening sky. Ominous, just like the day. At the opposite end of the breezeway from her classroom, she opened the door to the staff room and caught the time on the wall clock. Three twenty-three. She headed straight through the staff room, ignoring the whispering teachers, sure they were talking about Marianne. It was all anybody had talked about today. The almost excited chatter made her uneasy.
She slowed as she approached the principal’s office. Mrs. Marsh nodded a melancholy greeting when she stopped at the secretary’s desk.
“They in there?” Jo asked.
“Two deputies. And Principal Vargas.”
Jo angled her body so she could peek into the principal’s office through the narrow vertical window alongside the door. Deputy Sheriff Derek Braido. She’d known Derek most of her life. Had grown up with him, even played with him when they were kids. He and Ray Vargas had been friends forever. Like her and Carmen, Derek and Ray had both chosen to keep their roots in San Julio.
He stood at attention, the patches on his beige uniform, the knife-edged creases in his pants, and the utility belt holding his weapons and radio reminding her of his authority. Braido had always been serious, even as a kid. There was no denying his intensity now.
She didn’t recognize the female officer, but the woman looked like she meant business. Turning back to the secretary she asked, “Have they been interviewing people all day?”
Mrs. Marsh nodded. “Hardly a break. You’re the last.”
Jo snuck another look, dread settling in her gut. “Do they know anything?”
The secretary shrugged. “Hard to say.”
Jo reached for the door handle, but hesitated. She didn’t want to do this. Wanted to wake up and realize this was all a bad dream and that Marianne was just fine.
Mrs. Marsh’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Package came for you this afternoon.” She pointed to a cardboard box on the countertop
Jo blinked, wondering what could be in the box. Finally, it came to her. “East of Eden,” she said. “The books got here fast. I’ll get them on my way out.”
“Watch your back when you pick it up. It’s heavy. Did you order bricks, too?”
“Paperbacks,” she responded automatically. She’d have to return the books if they were hardback. No way could she expect the school to pay the cost of hardbacks.
The door to the principal’s office opened abruptly, pulling her attention back to the task at hand. Ray Vargas stepped out. He scanned her quickly, cataloguing every last detail about her in the two-second perusal.
“Ms. Rios.”
She refrained from reminding him to call her Jo. He never would. After high school, he’d gone into the ROTC program, finished graduate school, and had done two tours in Afghanistan. When he had returned to San Julio, she’d expected to see the boy she’d once known. Instead, she’d found a man closed off and emotionally isolated, save for the love he showed for his daughter. Jo had been Eva’s Spanish and English teacher and she’d thought Ray might open up to her during parent-teacher conferences, but even then he hadn’t. . After he returned to San Julio and accepted the position of principal at San Julio High, he’d acted as if they didn’t know each other.
As if she’d never seen his naked butt skinny-dipping at night in the San Julio River.
As if he hadn’t been the one, so many years ago, to egg her into joining him in the water, only to have to calm her down when she panicked afterward, thinking about the curse and that she’d somehow, inevitably, end up drowning in the river. “Don’t fight it,” he’d told her, wise even back then. “Swim at a diagonal with the current.”
But he’d changed. Become surrounded by an invisible barricade of his own making. Maybe his formality came from the years he’d spent in the military. Maybe it was his way of keeping his distance. Self-preservation after seeing so much loss in the war and after his wife walked out on both him and his daughter. Whatever the reason, she hated it when he called her Ms. Rios. But today she wouldn’t argue.
She swallowed and looked past him, into his office. Derek Braido had moved to Ray’s chair and the other deputy, a woman in her forties, now sat next to the desk. Jo’s stomach felt like it was trying to ingest a pound of pebbles. Her jaw clenched tighter at being questioned about Marianne’s death.
Ray ushered her through the door. “Come on in.”
She went first, noticing as she passed him how broad his shoulders were under the well-cut suit jacket, how the white of his shirt sleeves peeked out at the edges of his jacket sleeves.
Ray and Braido had to be the most desirable men in San Julio, but Ray never gave her a second glance. She’d flirted a bit when he first took the job of principal. She hadn’t wanted a relationship, but she’d thought for a time that maybe Carmen’s repeated mantra of her needing to get out more was right and that all she needed was some fun. Sex. A night of abandon.
Rumor had it that after his divorce, Ray hadn’t wanted another relationship. It was the perfect scenario—neither of them wanting commitment—except that he was her boss. Ray hadn’t taken her up on her sexual hints. She’d ended up embarrassed and still alone.
She bit her lower lip as she looked at the deputies. They studied her every move. But their scrutiny didn’t unnerve her the way her boss did. The only time she saw any lightness in him was when he was around his daughter, Eva, or spoke of her.
There was no lightness about him now. His gaze bored into as he leaned against a wall, one leg crossed in front of the other, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his slacks. His presence filled the room and Jo was hyper-aware of him watching her.
He gestured toward a chair and she sat.
Derek nodded at her, indicated his partner. “This is Deputy Adams.” His face turned grim. “Johanna. I’m sorry about your former student.”
At least Derek called her Johanna. At least he seemed to remember that they had history. A shared childhood. She nodded back. “Thank you.”
“You know, of course, that we need to talk about Marianne Sandoval.”
She nodded again. “When—” She paused to make sure her voice remained steady. “Do you know what happened?” All Ray had told her was that the girl had been found in the San Julio, drowned. Murdered.
Derek shifted in his chair. His neat-as-a-pin uniform was loose on his long and lean body, his reddish-brown hair finger-combed to the side. He was handsome, but paled in comparison to Ray Vargas.
“We know what happened, just not how,” he said, but the intensity in his eyes told her quite clearly he was here to solve this murder and he wouldn’t stop until he did.
Good. Marianne didn’t deserve her fate. Control flowed through Jo, a protective wall shooting up and around her emotions, triggering her need to help. She’d do whatever she could to get justice for Marianne.
“Ray’s already told you the basics,” Derek said. “We know she’d been held hostage. Raped. Murdered by drowning. Her parents were out of town, but said they returned home Wednesday to find the screen off her bedroom window and the window open.”
A shiver swept over Jo. Exactly like she’d found her window this morning. She released a ragged breath, trying to shake some sense into her thoughts. Marianne’s murder and her break-in couldn’t be connected.
But the feeling she’d had a little while ago of being watched intensified. She ran her fingers through her hair, fanning out the mass over her shoulders in an attempt to rid herself of the creepy-crawlies, and looked over to Ray for—what? Reassurance? He wasn’t looking at her, though. His jaw had gone tight and his gaze was fixed on the soccer field, outside the window. He hadn’t known Marianne the way she had, but the pain of losing a student to murder was intense, no matter what the relationship had been.
“Miss Sandoval was your student, we understand,” Derek continued, bringing her attention back around to him. “In your Spanish or English classes?”
“Both, actually.” She’d taught Marianne for four years. “She wasn’t a model student, not particularly focused, but she got decent enough grades. Good enough to allow her to graduate and attend the local community college.”
“Is there anything you can tell us that might help throw some light on her death?” Braido asked. “Anything at all, no matter how insignificant, might help.”
“I’ve been wondering about that all day, but no, I can’t think of anything.” She shook her head. “She graduated last June. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Deputy Adams spoke up. “Boyfriends that you knew of? Any problems with other students?”
“She had quite a few boyfriends when she was a student here.” Jo paused. “I remember her spending a lot of time with…” She tapped her thigh. The name was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t set it free. It almost felt as if she was on the verge of ratting someone out, but she couldn’t make sense of that feeling, either.
She swallowed that ridiculous thought and racked her brain, flashing her gaze to Ray. His gaze on her was intent. The name rose to the surface of her mind. “Danny Malone,” she said. “Before school was out, she was dating Danny Malone.” She thought she saw Ray’s eyes narrow, but she blinked and they were back to normal. “I’m pretty sure it ended,” she added.
Deputy Adams wrote down the name while Derek nodded. “And there’s nothing more you can tell us?”
The clouds shifted outside and the office seemed to grow darker. A chill settled inside the heated office. “She shouldn’t have died…”
“Did she run with a good crowd?” Deputy Adams asked, impatience lacing her voice. “How about the rest of her friends?”
Eva, Ray’s daughter, had been Marianne’s friend, but Jo kept her mouth shut about that. Ray needed to be the one to tell Derek. She didn’t know if Eva and Marianne were still friends, anyway. “I don’t know. They were mostly okay, I think.”
“You taught her for four years. Is there anything else you can think of? How did she present herself?”
Jo braced herself as she said, “She was a bit boy crazy. Always trying to attract their attention. Only wore tight jeans or shorts, or those little barely-there skirts. Tops that exposed her…” She bit her lip, hesitating. Yes, Marianne had dressed provocatively, but that didn’t mean she’d been a slut. It felt wrong to talk about the girl as if she somehow could provide insight into a young woman she hadn’t seen in a year, as if how she dressed might have justified her murder.
“Good,” Derek said. “That’s the sort of information that helps us. There are pieces of the puzzle we need to put together to find her killer. The fact that she consistently wore that kind of clothing is one of those puzzle pieces.”
“How do you mean?”
“She was found with no shoes and in one of those gauzy, white embroidered numbers they make in Mexico. From what you and Ray have said, that wasn’t her normal clothing.”
An invisible vice suddenly squeezed Jo’s head and her breathing went shallow. Surely she’d heard wrong. She knew she hadn’t. “A peasant dress?” she asked, the words barely slipping past her lips.
The deputy studied her. “That’s right.”
The room spun, memories whirling through her mind like the wild, crashing eddies in the San Julio. Her. Carmen. Her mother.
The curse. Like Mama.
“La Llorona,” she breathed.
Ray suddenly surged toward her. “What was that?”
His movement spun her out of her reverie. Control. She needed to stay in control. Those weren’t words she’d meant to speak aloud. “No. Nothing. Never mind.”
“What did she say?” Adams asked, looking baffled.
Ray answered before Jo could wave away the two words that seemed to hang in the air in front of her. “It’s an old Mexican legend,” he said, holding Jo’s gaze, his dark and brooding. “A ghost story. La Llorona. She’s called the Crying Woman.”
The weight of air pressed in on Jo’s head. On her chest. She looked away from Ray, turning back to Deputy Adams.
But Adams prompted, “And?”
Jo resisted fidgeting. “The dress—it reminds me of la Llorona. Yo-ro-na,” Jo repeated, pronouncing the name phonetically. “That’s her Spanish name.” A shudder washed over her. She cursed herself for letting her control slip and speaking aloud. Now she was stuck explaining her demon. “She’s said to haunt rivers, crying for her drowned child.”
“Jo, what about this case reminds you of la Llorona?” Derek asked quietly.
She went rigid. The legend had forever changed her life. Become her focus. Haunted her. She hated that she couldn’t get la Llorona out of her head. “I did my master’s thesis on the legend,” she said. “There are four distinct stories surrounding the Crying Woman.”
“What’s she crying about?” Deputy Adams asked, leaning forward with interest. As a newcomer to San Julio, she probably hadn’t heard of the legend. But Derek and Ray had. She looked to Derek, who nodded for her to continue.
“The versions are different in significant ways,” Jo said. “All but one of the legends has her killing her own child or children by drowning them in the river. All have her drowning herself. As a ghost, she wanders around the river where she died, in her simple white dress and without shoes.”
Derek started, quickly flipping back a few pages in his notebook. He studied the page for a moment, then looked to Ray, whose face had gone gray and tight.
“I want to read something to you, Jo,” Derek said. “Because you studied the legend, you might be able to help us out here. A note was left on Marianne’s body.”
“About la Llorona?” she asked, inadvertently seeking out Ray again. He looked at her, his jaw pulsing, but he didn’t acknowledge that he remembered how her mother had died or what she’d gone through as a child, haunted by a legend. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest, keeping his gaze firmly locked on Braido.
“Maybe.” Derek cleared his throat, looked at her, then read, “First. La ramera submerged the child in the river until there was only silence…”
Jo’s pulse ratcheted into high speed, she heard her labored breathing as if she were outside her body, felt heat prick its way over her skin. “La ramera,” she breathed.
She felt Ray’s eyes on her. Sensed him move closer, and then his hand touched her shoulder. A lifeline. He did remember, and just like that, she caught her breath, dragging air into her lungs again.
Derek asked, “Does it mean something to you?”
Her thoughts crowded in on each other. Yes, it meant something! La ramera. The harlot. One of the names for la Llorona. She shook her head as a debilitating thought crashed into her brain. The gauzy dress Marianne wore. No shoes. Even the way she looked, with her long dark hair and her olive skin. Just like the legend said la Llorona had looked, and some said, how she had died.
The passage from the note hovered in her mind. “La ramera is one of the personas la Llorona was known by.”
Someone had set a scene. Oh, God. Marianne’s death had been made to look like la Llorona.
“The harlot,” Ray muttered.
He knew Spanish. Of course he would know the word. She couldn’t say anymore, couldn’t say that Marianne Sandoval was a harlot, couldn’t even stand to think about the thoughts flicking around her brain. Ramera wasn’t even a modern word. Still…
Derek folded his notebook, shoved it in his front pocket, and stood. “Maybe the Llorona legend holds the key to Marianne’s murder. If Marianne was considered…well…a harlot, then it could be someone killed her out of jealousy, or had her killed. It’s been known to happen.”
Jo swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. Derek’s assumption made sense. Marianne had played the part of a slut. Jealousy did strange things to people. So did envy. And hatred. And loneliness.
She knew this was true. She knew it because of her mother.
***
Carmen stood in the little bathroom of Will’s apartment, holding the empty box she’d just bought from the San Julio Pharmacy in one hand and staring at the little pink plus sign in the window of the white plastic stick. Positive.
Pregnant.
Her stomach lurched at the very idea. She’d suspected. Ah, hell. She’d known. Her boobs tingled and had grown already. The smallest little bump marked her lower belly, not that anyone else would notice. Probably not even Will. He never looked at her that closely, which at the moment was a good thing. And her cycle? She couldn’t remember how many months had passed. More than the time she’d been dating Will, which wasn’t good.
She dropped the box and buried her head in her hands. Oh, God, how could this have happened? Well, she knew how, she just couldn’t believe it. A million thoughts went through her mind, starting with how Will would react when he found out she was carrying another man’s baby, and ending with what Jo would say. Her gut clenched. She seemed to continually let Jo down, no matter how hard she tried to be responsible and dependable. But things just…happened, and then once again her sister was flashing her that look that said Are you ever going to grow up, Carmi?
A baby would certainly make her grow up—whether she wanted to or not.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Carmen, you in there?”
Will. Her stomach coiled tighter and a wave of black circled in her head. She didn’t want to face him right now. Couldn’t tell him.
But she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret for very long. She put her hand on her belly, concentrating. Searching for a movement. Some sign from her baby that would give her strength.
Nothing.
“Carmen?”
“Just a minute.” She shoved the wand back into the box and buried it in the middle of the trashcan, working through what to say. She could just blurt it out. Tell him and get it over with. She knew he loved her, and so by default, he’d love her baby. So what if it meant moving faster than they’d planned? They could get married, they’d start their family, and she’d get the happily-ever-after she’d been dreaming about since she was a little girl.
“Carmen, I’m going to break down the damn door—”
“Just a sec,” she said, but instead of flinging the door open, jumping into his arms, and telling him the news, she washed her hands and slowly opened the door.
Will stood there, and she was surprised to see his brother Dave by his side.
“Didja get lost in there, or what?” Will asked. His brother tipped his cowboy hat at her, a knowing smile on his face.
She forced herself to laugh and pasted on a grin , but inside she cringed. God, did Will have to embarrass her in front of his brother? She’d only met Dave once before, and she still wasn’t sure if he liked her or not. And she desperately wanted Will’s brother to like her. So they could all be a family. She looked over her shoulder at the bathroom. “Doing the usual, you know,” she said.
“Well, come on.” Will encircled her wrist with his hand. “Don’t need to stand in the hall.”
Dave gave Will a little shove. “Give the girl some privacy. It’s not like she’s in there with some other guy. It’s a bathroom.”
“Shut up, man,” Will muttered.
“Just hurry up, Will,” Dave said. “You were supposed to be ready when I got here.”
“Ready for what?” Carmen asked.
Dave folded his arms over his chest, his mouth in a scowl. “Will’s going to help me fix the fence along the riverbank.” He refocused on Will. “I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions with your girlfriend.”
Will spun around. He released his hold on her, but his face turned beet red. “I’m headed out. Stay here. I’ll be back later.”
She heaved a silent sigh of relief that Dave had come to pick up Will, letting her off the hook. She’d tell Will about her baby later. Much later.
Dave just shook his head, a ghost of a smile erasing the frown. It was as if he knew he’d given her some time.
Her palm pressed against her belly again, the nerves still twisting. If Will took the news poorly, telling him later only prolonged the blow up, and that was almost worse than getting it over with.
Maybe Jo was right. Maybe everything she ever did would be tainted by what their mother had done.
No. She blinked away the black spots behind her eyes as Will shrugged an oilskin slicker over his shoulders, then disappeared out the front door with his brother.
She stared at the door after it closed. No way. Her mother was not going to win. Will could be a hothead, but she could tolerate it if it meant she’d have stability and a family.
Couldn’t she?
