Behind him, Aunt Rita leaned against the stair rail. She was smaller than I remembered. Her poofy red hair overwhelmed her thin pale face. Rita’s mascara trailed down her cheeks, cracking her face like a porcelain doll dropped one too many times. When she saw me, she began to cry in deep, shuddering gulps. She collapsed onto the bottom step with her head on her knees. Lesroy sat and put his arm around his mother. I knew I should join them, but I couldn’t remember why they were so upset.
I was standing there staring at them when Mike appeared. “Let me get your coat, Gracie.” He helped me out of my jacket and guided me to the den.
My mother wasn’t the sad, broken woman from the day before. Today, she was a mad lady straight from a Greek tragedy. Medusa-style strands of hair snaked around face, bobbing when she strode toward me. Instead of offering me comfort, she grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned in close enough for me to detect the faint odor of vodka.
“Your baby sister is dead, Grace. Murdered by that sick son of a bitch she married. You know that, right?” She didn’t give me a chance to respond. “Well, he won’t get away with it. He’s going to pay. We’re going to make him pay. Aren’t we, Grace?”
She stared at me with fierce eyes, and when I didn’t fill the terrible silence, she shook my shoulders, not hard, but with purpose. She spoke like a drunk determined to appear sober, but she wasn’t drunk. “You are going to help me make him pay.”
The rest of the evening was a blur for me. Rita talked Mom into taking a Xanax and lying down. Mike contacted the minister of the church he and my mother attended sporadically to discuss funeral arrangements. Everything was in the air since Stella’s body hadn’t been released yet. And, of course, there was Ben. Although he’d never been charged in connection with the drug ring’s operations, he’d represented most of the members at one time or another and was suspected of concealing information. That meant attending a stateside funeral would be a bad idea, assuming he let us bring Stella home.
Mike’s friend in Ecuador promised to check in with the authorities to see how they were classifying Stella’s death. He warned us not to get our hopes up. There were enough unsolved murders to tax the somewhat limited police force already. They would not be eager to send men to investigate the tragic, but most likely accidental death of a rich American.
Lesroy and I sat on the sofa watching people we didn’t know or remember stop by with casseroles, cakes, and pies. The kitchen counter was stacked two deep, and the freezer was packed.
“Are you okay?” Lesroy asked for the third time.
“I’m fine.” I’d been trying to think of something I could do, something to make things better. Only things weren’t going to get better. My sister was dead, my ex-fiancé was holding her body hostage, and my mother was acting like a character in The Godfather.
Mike came from the bedroom and sat beside me. “Your mother’s finally out. Rita’s sitting with her.” He ran his hand across his buzz cut. “I’ve never seen her like this. She’s determined to fly to Ecuador and confront Ben. Demand he give us your sister’s body to bring home. And if the police don’t charge him with something, God knows what she might do.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about Aunt Marilyn going because she doesn’t have a passport,” Lesroy said. “She talked about getting one to visit Stella but had trouble finding her birth certificate and said to hell with it.”
I didn’t know Mom had considered visiting Stella. I had accepted the fact that our mother favored my little sister, but I thought she’d been on my side when Stella stole Ben. Yes, she wanted me to forgive, but she had to understand I would never forget.
The muffled hum in the room reminded me of summers spent at the community pool with Stella. We pushed ourselves to the bottom to see who could hold her breath the longest. Even though she was smaller, Stella usually won. She was at home in the water, like a sleek little otter. Although I wasn’t much bigger, I was plagued by a heaviness, terrified that at any minute I might be pulled under by an unseen force. Now, instead of childlike fear, memories of my sister dragged me down like concrete blocks.
I wondered if Stella heard a murmur before she died, like when you’re a kid trying to fall asleep while the adults keep talking in the next room. You want to let go and drift into another state of consciousness, but you want to stay connected, too. Had my sister struggled to stay attached, to hold on to the sound until the very last moment?
My phone vibrated from inside my pants pocket. “Unknown caller.” Normally, I would have ignored it, but I felt compelled to answer. I excused myself and walked to the spare bedroom.
It was Ben.
“Grace! It’s so good to hear your voice. God, it’s been so long, and it’s been…” He gurgled. “It’s been so awful. I mean, it’s been bad for such a long time, but now with Stella gone. I just don’t know.”
Know what, I thought. Whether you’re going to get away with murdering my sister? Because at that moment, I knew he’d done it. Somehow, he was responsible for Stella’s death.
“What do you want?”
“Want? I don’t want anything, Babe, except to say how sorry I am about Stella and everything.” His words slurred together. “I was so stupid. It should have been me and you. If only—”
“Stop. If you’re really sorry, you’ll help us find out what happened. And help us bring her
