The Sanctity of Sloth Read online

  "Sure." He handed her the envelope and walked her to her car.

  "I'm sorry you had to drive all the way over," she said.

  "Not a problem. I needed to come this way anyway." Which was a lie, but he was trying to win over Mimi Jackson.

  "I'll call later. Promise." She waved a hand out her window as she drove away.

  He stood for a moment watching her car disappear and hoping this wasn't a brush off. He wanted this property, and not just for economic reasons. His fingers itched to dig into its dirt. He wanted to bring that dying garden back to life.

  One of the Rojo trucks was parked out front of the office when he got there. He looked at his watch. It was early, one o'clock. Too early for the guys to be back.

  The smell of burned coffee and bubble gum hit him as he entered. The lobby was empty. Good. He could sneak into his office before Gab stopped him. He wasn't in the mood to deal with all the stuff she ought to be able to deal with herself. Like which brand of copier paper to buy. Or, who should empty the trash, her or the night maintenance man.

  Before he closed his office door, he heard her voice coming from the kitchen. "I don't believe you." She was angry, and something else. Afraid?

  Carlos jogged toward the sound. A man growled too quietly for him to catch the words. A crash. A yell. The shatter of glass. Carlos raced through the doorway.

  Gab had one arm raised over her head like the Statue of Liberty. Her face was fierce. Kneeling in front of her, head in his hands, was Armando.

  "Carlos." The fierce expression slid off her face when she saw him. She tiptoed over the glass, crossed to him and buried her face in his chest. He hadn't seen her cry since she was six years old. He and Roddy, her brother, wrecked her favorite jump rope. They'd been playing sheriff and train robber, and Roddy turned it into a noose.

  "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said between sobs.

  "What's going on?" He patted her hair. She'd dyed it last night. It was darker than it had been yesterday, but it didn't seem like a good time to mention it.

  Armando stood, blood gushing between his fingers. "Your crazy cousin threw the pot at me."

  "Why?" Carlos said. Gab wasn't the best office manager in the world, but she'd never thrown anything at anybody before. At least, not that he could remember.

  "How do I know? Esta loca."

  "Why did you hit him, Gab?"

  She pulled away, and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. Mascara ran down her cheeks in black lines. "I don't know. I lost my temper I guess."

  Lost her temper? That didn't ring true. He'd known Gab his whole life, and yes, she was scrappy, but throwing a carafe at someone was extreme. "What happened? You don't have to protect him."

  She hiccupped twice, and looked him like she didn't know what he was talking about. "Nothing. It's okay."

  Carlos glared at Armando, who was still sitting on the floor, head in hands. He must have come on to Gab. That was the only reason Carlos could think of to explain her behavior. Anger and protectiveness boiled up inside him.

  Armando took one stumbling step toward the door, tripped on a chair and fell into the lunch table. "I'd better get him to the hospital." Carlos inspected Gab's face. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded.

  "Take the rest of the day off. We'll talk about this tomorrow."

  Carlos jerked Armando off the floor and grabbed a handful of paper towels on his way out. When they got to the truck, he threw them at Armando. "Don't get blood on my seat."

  ***

  The emergency room at Mission Hospital was crowded, but when the admitting nurse saw all the blood on Armando's face, she sent him to an exam room. Carlos stayed behind to do the paperwork. When he finished filling in what he could, he handed the clipboard through the window. "He'll have to do the rest."

  She nodded. "Do you want to go into the room with him?"

  Carlos said, "No." He was Armando's boss, not his family. And he wasn't going to be his boss for much longer. He planned to fire Armando as soon as his head was stitched up. He wasn't going to put up with sexual harassment in his company. Especially not against his cousin.

  He saw one chair all by itself near the entrance. It was as far away from the coughs and sneezes as he could get without leaving the building. He hated hospitals. Hated doctors’ offices. Hated the smell of the cleaning stuff they used to cover up the smells of worse stuff. Hated to be anywhere a needle might show up. He wasn't crazy about blood either. He was a grown man, a Latino man, but he fainted like one of those Victorian ladies when he got a blood test.

  There was a stack of magazines on a side table next to him. He shuffled through back issues of People, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Highlight, until he found a Popular Mechanics. Not his favorite read, but better than the others. Five minutes into an article about hubcaps, his eyes closed.

  Slam.

  He woke up, but didn't know where he was for a second. Then he saw two paramedics pushing a gurney through the front entrance and it came back to him. The hospital. Armando. The gurney rolled by. He tried not to look, but his eyes were drawn to the victim's face.

  Carlos jumped out of his chair, dropping the Popular Mechanics to the floor. It looked like. . . But he couldn't be sure. A nurse in blue scrubs opened the door to the exam rooms, and the paramedics rolled through. He hurried after them and caught the door just before it closed. The admitting nurse frowned at him. She opened her mouth, probably to tell him he couldn't go inside, but he didn't give her a chance. He pushed through the doorway and broke into a jog. "Hey. Hey."

  One of the paramedics looked at him with eyes such a pale shade of blue they were almost white.

  "I know that man," Carlos said.

  The gurney slowed and Carlos caught up. Recognition slugged him in the chest. The man's face was covered with dried blood and pinched with pain, but it was him. It was Paul Travers.

  "Are you a relative?" The white-eyed paramedic said.

  "He's my girlfriend's father."

  "Can you reach her? We'll need to speak to a family member."

  Carlos didn't answer. It was a tricky question. He had to think about it. "I can get hold of her tonight," he finally said.

  "The sooner the better. He's going to need surgery." The other paramedic, a short, dark-haired woman, said. The gurney started rolling again and reached a set of double doors, doors he couldn't follow them through.

  "What happened?" he asked before they disappeared. "His daughter will want to know."

  "Car accident," the woman said.

  "Is he going to be all right?"

  The white-eyed paramedic stared at him for a second. "He's in good hands." Then they were gone. The double doors clicked shut behind them.

  Carlos stumbled out of the hospital into the glare of the parking lot. A hot wind whipped his hair into his eyes. He felt sick to his stomach. How was he going to get to Abby? He thought about that all the way home, and completely forgot about Armando.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 10:10 PM

  "ABBY." A WHISPERED voice nudged her awake. Had it been part of a dream? She stared at the ceiling waiting for it to come again. It did. "Abby."

  "Carlos?" She scrambled to the squint. A waning crescent moon hung low on the horizon. The little light it gave glinted off his black hair. A mix of joy and consternation filled her when she saw him. "What are you doing here? Where's Dad?"

  "I have bad news."

  The joy fled. "About Dad?"

  Carlos nodded.

  "What's happened?"

  "He's been in an accident. He's at Mission Hospital.

  Abby's throat seized up, but she managed to choke out a question. "How bad?"

  "I don't know, but you have to come. I'll take you."

  "Did you bring a crowbar?" Carlos's eyes narrowed in question. "I can't get out unless you pry one of the stones loose."

  "You've been trapped in there all this time?" Disbelief rang in his tone. "What if there'd been a fire? An earth
quake?"

  "There wasn't." Abby's words were terse. "You need a crowbar if I'm going to get out of here."

  He snorted like an impatient race horse. "I'll be back."

  Abby watched Carlos recede through the shrubs. He disappeared the same way the men who'd dropped the girl's body did three nights ago. Was it only three nights? It felt like a lifetime.

  Anxiety crept over her. She hadn't asked anything about the accident. Where it had happened. How it had happened. The questions would have to wait until she was on her way to her father.

  She looked around the anchorhold as if seeing it for the first time. She should pack. She shouldn't leave things here for people to find. She wouldn't be returning, and it no longer mattered. Only her father mattered.

  She dropped to her knees and began gathering up the few things she'd brought with her. She shoved the candle, matches, and her books into the backpack with her clean clothes. There were only two protein bars left in the box her father had brought her. She threw them into the backpack too. Food would attract rodents and rodents would attract Mission staff members.

  She folded her blankets and put them in the bag of dirty laundry. She rolled up the foam mattress, but couldn't squeeze it into the bag. She stood and surveyed the space. She'd have to leave the toilet, broken chair, and mattress. Get them after dark tomorrow. Or on the next night. She didn't like leaving the toilet. Didn't want the smell to attract attention. She had just replaced the disinfectant tablet, but there was an odor.

  Abby pondered that for a long moment, then pulled a spoon from her backpack. She moved to the corner where the dirt was loosest and began digging. She managed to scratch out a cup or two of soil, just enough to bury the waste inside. When she was done, she closed the lid and rubbed her hands on her jeans.

  She reached for the laundry bag, pulled out a flannel shirt, and wiped down the exterior surfaces of the camp toilet. She picked up the broken chair and swiped at the metal supports. She did the same with the bars of her squint and the rough stone walls.

  It was unlikely anyone would find this space, but if they did, and if the police heard about it, they might wonder if the person in this room had anything to do with the dead girl. Abby worked in a school. Her prints were on file in some database somewhere. Wiping everything clean was probably an unnecessary precaution, but it set her mind at ease. A little bit, anyway.

  By the time Carlos returned, Abby had done everything she could to erase her presence. "I got it." His voice was hushed.

  "Go to your left. Over by the Great Church wall. I'll slide out the bottom stone," she said.

  A moment later, Abby heard the crack of grout as Carlos pried at the wall. A second stone fell, and the opening widened. She slid the backpack and the laundry bag through, then dropped to her belly and crawled out.

  Carlos grabbed her with rough hands and helped her to her feet. A chill of night air embraced her. The world felt huge, a place without borders or fences. Opposing emotions tore through her. She wanted to return through the hole in the wall to the protection of the shell she'd left behind. She wanted to run into open spaces, giddy and drunk with freedom.

  She turned toward Carlos to hug him. They hadn't seen each other in a month, and she wanted the comfort of his strong arms. But he stepped back, avoiding her embrace. "We should hurry," he said.

  A stab of rejection hit her, but worry for her father followed quickly and dampened all other emotions. She couldn't think about Carlos, about their relationship, not while her father was in the hospital. "We have to put the stones back," she said.

  "Your dad will be out of surgery soon."

  "I know, but someone might notice."

  Carlos squatted by the wall. He pulled one stone into place and balanced the second on top. "I can come back some night soon and grout them, but this should be okay for now."

  Abby followed him through the shrubs. He knelt at the foot of the wall separating the Mission from the world outside. She stepped onto his knee and hoisted herself to its top. Before dropping to the other side, she caught a glimpse of the squint. Its bars were dark slashes against the gray inside.

  ***

  Abby and Carlos stood without speaking all the way up the elevator. The doors slid open, and the overhead lights of the hallway made her eyes ache. She turned right, then left, then right again following the arrows on the wall like a tourist in a foreign land.

  "Excuse me." Abby's voice sounded unnaturally quiet in the busy hive of scrubs and electronic beeps. She was unused to talking. The only conversations she'd had for the past three and a half weeks had been with her father, and most of those were held in hushed tones. She cleared her throat. "I'm here to see Paul Travers. Is he out of surgery yet?"

  A thin faced woman typed on a keyboard. "Not yet. Third door on your left is a waiting room. I'll make sure the doctor knows you're there."

  "How much longer?"

  The nurse glanced up from her computer, sympathy in her eyes. "I can't say." She continued her typing. That was no answer at all. Abby opened her mouth to say: Could you find out? But Carlos took her arm and steered her away.

  After guiding her onto an orange and green couch next to a coffee table littered with magazines, he said, "Can I get you something? Coffee?" She shook her head. Her stomach was a mess. Putting anything into that swirling sea of acid seemed a recipe for disaster.

  Her eyes wandered to the television mounted on the wall. It was tuned to a telenovela. She didn't understand the language but it was easy to imagine the plot. Two melodramatic actors spat Spanish invectives at one another, slapped each other's faces, and fell into a passionate embrace. It could have been Days of our Lives, or As the World Turns, the soaps her grandmother used to watch.

  The round wall clock had only moved seven minutes since she'd sat. Time was doing that thing again. That thing it had done in the anchorhold, staggering forward one slow second at a time, like an arthritic old man. She closed her eyes and tried to pray.

  An eternity later, she felt Carlos's hand on her shoulder. A woman only a few years older than Abby came into the room. She was in a full battle gear: pale green scrubs, cap, booties, face mask dangling around her neck. "Abby Travers?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm Dr. Trudeau. I'm your father's doctor." She didn't hold out a hand. "We can talk in here." She gestured to a room leading off the waiting room.

  Abby dragged herself from the couch. Her limbs felt weighted and stiff. With Carlos following, she walked ten feet into the other room and reseated herself, this time in a hard chair pulled up to a laminate-topped table. It seemed a waste of energy. Why couldn't the doctor have spoken to her in the waiting room?

  It wasn't good news. That's all Abby could think. Not good news. If the doctor had good news she'd have told her straight out. Dr. Trudeau didn't want Abby to make a scene in public. The telenovela stars were paid to make scenes, but Abby had to be shuffled her into this little room with the closed door.

  "The injuries from the accident weren't as extensive as we'd feared—three broken ribs, some lacerations, no internal bleeding. Your father should recover from them just fine."

  Relief washed over Carlos's face. It was such a guileless, little boy look it almost broke her heart. Abby knew the bad news was coming. If this were all the doctor had to say she wouldn't have brought them in this private room. She would look happier.

  "However." She paused. Abby tightened, prepared. "There was some head trauma."

  Abby didn't respond.

  "There's only minor swelling, but we won't know the extent of the damage until he's awake. He did regain consciousness briefly before the surgery, which is a good sign."

  "When will he wake up?" Abby said.

  "When he's ready." Dr. Trudeau gave her a guarded smile.

  Abby and Carlos followed the doctor's directions to Paul's room. It was as dim and quiet as a cathedral. The soft inhale and exhale of a compression device and the occasional blip from an array of monitors were the only sounds
. At the center of it all, buried in a tangle of wires and tubes, was a figure swathed in pale blue and white.

  Abby stepped closer. All she could see of her father, his face and the arms that rested on top of the blanket, were a mass of purple bruises. Her legs felt weak. "Dad." She whispered the word.

  Carlos moved behind her, a solid, reassuring presence. She wanted to lean on him, feel his arms around her, but she stayed still. "He's going to be okay, Abby. The doctor said it wasn't as bad as they thought."

  "But he looks. . . He doesn't look like himself."

  "He's been in an accident. He just got out of surgery. Give him time."

  Abby covered her face with her hands, and gave herself over to the emotion she'd been holding in since she'd first heard about the accident. Had he been so distraught over the events of the past three days, so distracted by having to lie to the police, it had made him careless? Could this have been avoided if she'd left the anchorhold when he'd asked her to? Guilt, grief, and loss washed over her in waves.

  She felt a tentative hand on her back, then an arm moved around her shoulders. She turned and pressed her face into Carlos's chest. She cried for what felt like a long time, but it didn't bring relief.

  When she was done, she pulled away and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her flannel shirt. "I don't know what to do," she said.

  "There's nothing you can do. Go home. Get some sleep. Take a shower."

  "What if he wakes up?"

  "There's a staff of nurses and doctors who'll take care of him."

  "He'll wonder where I am."

  "You'll be spending plenty of time here, and you're going to have to make lots of decisions. You're not in any condition to do that right now."

  Abby gazed down the length of herself. She hadn't realized until that moment how ragged she was. Her jeans, her shirt, her hands were all brown with dirt. She could imagine what her face looked like after her crying jag. Her hair hadn't been washed with shampoo in almost a month, and neither sun nor makeup had touched her skin in the same amount of time.

  The weariness that often comes after strong emotion enveloped her. Carlos was right. She had to rest, had to get cleaned up. She'd come back in the morning.