November, 2017

Saturday morning had a biting chill to it and gloomy clouds looming overhead. As if it knew what a sorrowful encounter lay ahead for Ingrid. Caitlin joined her on the trip to the cemetery. Ingrid hadn't asked her, but she was grateful for the company even though she didn't know how she'd react. What she'd find.

The wind whipped at their bodies while they made their way along paved alleys between the headstones. Caitlin had a sketched map of where they could locate the particular one they were looking for.

"It should be somewhere around here," she said, scouring the surrounding fields. "Maybe you go left and I'll go right? We can cover more ground that way."

Ingrid nodded and turned left. She stooped to check every name, feeling numb and nervous at the same time. She'd brought tulips, Sofia's favourite flowers, and held them to her chest as if they were some precious offering.

"Ingrid!" Caitlin called out and waved her over.

Ingrid's heart tightened. Sucking in a deep, shaky breath, she made her way across and stood beside Cait. The girl put a soothing hand on Ingrid's back as she peered down at the headstone and the wilted bouquet at the foot of it on the grass.

"Do you need a moment?" Cait asked softly.

Ingrid gulped. "I'm good."

The letters on the slab of stone swam in her vision, refusing to line up and confirm that Sofia Ortega had indeed been laid to rest there. Sniffling, Ingrid dabbed at her eyes and crouched down. She arranged the tulips gingerly on the grass, moving the old flowers out of sight.

Then she brushed her fingers across the engraved name and registered for the first time the words written beneath.

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

CHERISHED ABUELITA

Ingrid felt suddenly, violently sick. She toppled backwards on the ground and shivered. Her heart threatened to burst out of her ribcage, her breaths came in quick, short spurts.

"Ingrid!" Cait knelt down beside her. "Ingrid, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Ingrid didn't answer. She let Cait hold her as she sobbed and wailed into her knees, let the imminent shockwave of grief crash into her, wash over her soul, lap at her toes. Once it passed, she crawled forward and stopped to sit cross-legged by the headstone. Cait lingered nearby, leaning against her.

"She never had any grandchildren," Ingrid spoke as if in a trance. "Or at least not that I know of. I highly doubt that her only son – the only son she managed to rescue from the slums, that is – who's a criminal rascal, to put it mildly, ever settled down enough to have a kid. Abuelita was my word. She was my adoptive granny and looked after me when I had no one else in the world. No one but her."

Her fingertips caressed each letter in turn, committing them to memory. A sense of peace settled in her troubled heart, thin and fragile, easily torn by the most unwelcome intrusion.

"I guess there is a God, after all."

Ingrid stiffened. The tobacco-thickened voice, the Latino lull of it...

"And He's been listening to my prayers."

Ingrid scrambled to her feet, dragging Caitlin up and shielding her from view.

"Qué tal, reina mía? Cómo estás?"

"Run," she whispered to Cait and turned to grab her by the shoulders, glancing back at Leon every few seconds.

He didn't approach. Instead, he watched them from afar with a slimy grin plastered on his face.

"Run, and don't look back. Call a cab, don't hail it, drive straight to the townhouse and lock yourselves in."

Regardless of how much of a dick he could be sometimes, Ingrid reasoned, she knew for a fact that Edgar would lay down his life for his daughter. Besides, Murphy should be home, too. They ought to be safe.

"Ingrid – "

"Do it!"

Cait bobbed her head into a curt nod and dashed off. With only her life to gamble, Ingrid mustered enough fierce composure to stare Leon down. He blabbered something in Spanish, but she couldn't be bothered to try and comprehend it.

"Speak fucking English," she spat at him through gritted teeth.

He gave a guttural chuckle. "Forgot it already? I thought you were clever."

Ingrid didn't dignify that with a response. Leon closed in, sizing her up.

"You look good," he said. "Very good. Widowhood... how do you say? Agrees with you, right?"

He advanced even more, Sofia's headstone the only thing standing between their bodies now.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he muttered. "I never... dared to hope."

Ingrid quirked an eyebrow. "But you prayed? Yeah, right."

His signature careless shrug, with one shoulder raised higher than the other. "A boy can dream. And, oh, how I dreamed..." He bit his lower lip, his eyes hooded.

Ingrid backed away from his predator's gaze.

"Have you no shame? This is your mother's grave!"

Leon laughed. "Shame? You talk to me of shame? Ay, hermosa... What do we know of shame, eh?"

He stepped around the headstone and she continued her retreat.

"You abandoned me," he growled. "I set you free and you left me to rot. You left us to rot."

"You've got some nerve," she retorted, her voice trembling. "Word on the street is you let your own mother die! Hell, you might have even orchestrated the whole thing yourself just to get a boost in business – "

His fingers gripped her upper arm, digging vice-like into her flesh.

"She loved you," he hissed in her face. "I loved you! Who do you think kept your dickhead husband high and happy, huh? Who do you think pumped him full of drugs, so he couldn't send you flying down the stairs or fuck you senseless against your will?"

Ingrid's eyes widened.

"Yeah... you thought I didn't know? When you came back from that wedding and I watched my mother hold you as you cried... When she told me what the bastard had done to you, I had to punch a wall to keep from doing his fucking face in. To keep from throwing him out the fucking window."

Ingrid felt her knees give in and he wrapped his arms around her to hold her up.

"You patched up my bloodied knuckles the next morning, remember? You cleaned them up and I wanted to run away with you, beat that shithead to death and escape with you. But I couldn't. There was too much heat on my tail and I fucking couldn't. Had to bide my time. Had to put up with the asshole, until – "

"No," Ingrid whispered, incredulous. "No..."

"Yes – yes!"

He smiled and she saw him again for how evil he really was.

"Yes, mi alma." He grinned. "Moon of my life. We could have been together. I would have made you happy!"

"You killed him?" Ingrid gulped. "You murdered him?"

His eyebrows rose. "Murder? No... no, he wanted to do some lines and I got him the snow. He climbed up on that bridge himself. I only, you know... might have nudged him a little when he couldn't make up his mind to jump."

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Everybody had guessed it, everybody had known it and even though, deep down, she'd entertained the idea herself, she'd always refused to believe it outright. Did his confession maybe also mean...

"What about..." She swallowed her reluctance. "The witness. Did you... did you nudge him, too?"

"Well, that's just silly! I was in prison, remember?"

Ingrid snorted. "Right."

He snickered. "So you are clever, aren't you? I didn't nudge him myself, no. But you made me consider freedom. I'd resigned myself to life in prison. Had started to build my turf, earn loyalties. But you, my green-eyed angel, you made me see the light. I... might have asked a friend to see if Tito wouldn't change his mind about testifying."

"Let me go," she pleaded, squirming in his grasp. "Let me – "

He shut her up with a forceful kiss and shoved his tongue into her mouth. She strained to push against him, to no avail, until a familiar Irish-accented voice boomed behind her.

"Sir, put your hands up and step away slowly!"

Leon looked up at Murphy pointing a gun at him. His arms rose from his sides and he backed away from her. Murphy closed in, pulling Ingrid towards him.

"Head for the exit, ma'am," he advised her. "I'll be right behind you."

Ingrid was too scared to run off on her own. She slalomed between headstones, never too far from Murphy's protective reach. The ex-military chauffeur retreated cautiously, his aim on his target never wavering. Only when they'd put enough distance between them and Leon did he lower his weapon and quicken his pace.

The car had been left running by the graveyard entrance. Caitlin sat behind the wheel, but she jumped outside when she spotted the two, rushing to hug Ingrid.

"Get in the car," Murphy instructed them sternly. "Who knows what he's getting up to."

"Right."

Cait ushered Ingrid into the backseat, opening the door for her, then slid in beside her. Murphy hopped behind the wheel and kept his gun close by.

*

Ingrid holed herself up in her room with Caitlin, avoiding Edgar's concerned queries. She'd warned Murphy not to call the police and he begrudgingly complied. The cops wouldn't be able to help. And besides, she didn't trust herself not to blurt out anything about the two murders Leon had just confessed to.

"I want to be alone," she told Caitlin after finishing her cup of very sweet Earl Grey.

"Ingrid, come on, I – "

"Please, Cait." Her voice scratched at her throat. "Please go away. Leave me alone. Please."

The girl said nothing and squeezed Ingrid in a hug before she got up, picking the empty mug up on her way out.

Ingrid walked into the bathroom and peeled off her clothes with limbs made of lead. She ran herself a hot bath and stepped in, pulling her knees up to her chest as she sat in the steaming water.

Knuckles rapped on her door. "It's me," Edgar's voice followed. "Can I come in?"

She made no response.

"I'm coming in," he announced a minute later and cracked the door open. He didn't go all the way in, hovering instead by the doorjamb. "Are you okay?"

She rested her head on her knees and stared up at him sideways. There was nothing she could tell him that wouldn't implicate him in this mess. Encouraged by her silence, he shut the door and shuffled closer, crouching by the tub.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked, softly. "Anything at all?"

"Can you get in with me?"

He smiled, compassionate. "Of course."

"I don't want... I just – I need you to hold me."

He'd stood up and halted as he began to pull off his shirt. "Should I keep my clothes on?"

She chuckled. "No, don't be silly! You can take them off, just don't... you know."

He nodded and discarded his garments into the laundry basket. Ingrid scooted forward in the tub, to make room for him behind her. Edgar climbed in, one foot at a time, and lowered himself in the water, stretching his legs to frame her own. Ingrid reclined against his chest and once she'd made herself comfortable, he brought his arms around her.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, "I never meant to put Cait in harm's way."

"You've got nothing to apologise for. She's safe and sound."

"Yeah, but she almost wasn't. He's always been dangerous and I should have known this road I chose to go down on would eventually lead to him. I should have never involved Caitlin."

"Can you tell me about him?"

Edgar reached up to stroke her hair, while his other palm remained flat on her stomach underneath her own hands.

"Trust me, it's better you don't know much about him."

"As you wish," he conceded, kissing her head. "But I think it'd do you good to let it out."

Ingrid sighed. "He's a gangster, Edgar. A proper, ex-con, criminally insane gangster. It's why I didn't want the cops... They would've done jack squat. I wouldn't even be surprised if he's got some of them in his pocket by now."

"How did you meet?"

Ingrid pressed down on her left breast, as if that could still her wild heart.

"I visited him in prison. His mother... She was our housekeeper, while I was married to Jack. She was an undocumented immigrant, though, and couldn't visit him herself. So I volunteered to go after I got my driver's licence. Then when he got out, I... I convinced Jack to hire him. As... handyman or gardener or whatever. As a favour to his mum, mostly. He was the only family she had left. But no good deed goes unpunished, does it?"

He cupped her breast, like she had earlier, without a trace of erotic intent. Her hand covered his as her heartbeat thudded into his palm.

"Did he hurt you?"

Ingrid pondered. "No, not really. Not at first. In fact... he saved me. From my own madness. Jack was an all-round lousy husband. Showering me with money could only work for so long. I learned pretty quickly that not all that glittered was gold and the loneliness set in. My abuelita, the housekeeper, Leon's mother, became my dearest and only friend and the trips to Rikers every other week or so made for an exciting change in my otherwise dull life."

As she spoke, she dragged his hand from her breast down between her legs. She felt him harden against her buttocks.

"If Jack had at least been good in bed... Well, he was to begin with. Very... diligent. He fingered me when he proposed, that must have..." She gulped. "Must have prompted my affirmative answer. But all of that was just smoke and mirrors. Soon as I had his ring on my finger, he slacked off to the point where he didn't even bother to try anymore. Enter Leon Ortega."

She tilted her head to let Edgar kiss her neck. His fingers hung in limbo, waiting for her to guide them.

"He was like... a thunderstorm after a drought and no one... no one has ever come quite close to him since."

"No one?" Edgar muttered into her skin.

"That's right, love," she snickered, "not even you."

"I'm curious now."

"No, don't be. For your own good. He... he made me feel so many things, he... He gave me drugs. And not just weed. Man, sex on LSD was out of this fucking world..."

Her eyes closed on the recollection and she pushed his middle finger into her.

"But he became possessive," Ingrid breathed. "He'd snap at me if I didn't want to go to bed with him, or share a joint when Jack was at home. He took to glaring daggers at Jack in a way that... frightened me. His temper... he'd lose it sometimes, yell at his mother. As good as he could make me feel, towards the end he just scared me. So I ran away after Jack died. I fled across the ocean, put all that mess behind me. Now I've gone looking for it and he found me and I don't – "

She choked up and he withdrew his hand, keeping her locked in a hug instead.

"I don't want to fall down that rabbit hole – or rather, into the lion's den. Not again. Not now, just as I'm starting to get my shit together."

"You won't," Edgar spoke in her ear. "I won't let you."

*

song of the chapter: alejandro by lady gaga

https://youtu.be/ZhlDfJUZxZY