Chapter Three #2
When the car reached her, it stopped, and Ana felt real, hot panic pulse in her chest. She glanced to her left, but there was nothing but cliffside—a steep drop-off, maybe twenty-five feet to the water, and it was probably too craggy and shallow to jump.
She looked forward toward the house on the hillside, but it was still so far away—too far for Ana to run if she had to.
Besides, this man had a car, and Ana didn’t even have shoes.
She couldn’t possibly outrun him. She was trapped.
She wondered if she screamed, if anyone in the house would hear her, and if they did, if they would come to her aid.
Ana swallowed and reluctantly looked over at the car—a sleek robin’s-egg blue convertible. The driver was a young man—late twenties, early thirties—and he was jeering at her.
Ana hugged her arms across her chest, trying to cover as much of her bare skin as possible. She couldn’t let him know that she was afraid.
“Get a good look, you fucking pervert?” Ana shouted. “This isn’t a free show, you know. Get lost.”
She started to walk again, at a brisker stride this time.
The car started to move, too, keeping pace with her.
Ana could hear her heart thudding in her ears.
Fuck. She needed a way out, but she couldn’t think of one.
She willed another car to drive by, but she could see a good way in either direction, and the road was empty.
“My apologies,” the man said. “I promise, I wasn’t laughing at you; it’s more the situation. Let’s just say you’re not the first young woman I’ve picked up on this road dressed only in her underwear.”
Ana stopped cold. She looked over at the man. What was he talking about? He made a habit of picking up young women in their underwear on the side of the road?
“You must be Saoirse’s new caretaker,” the man went on, by way of explanation. “She’s done this sort of thing before. You didn’t drink the tea, did you?”
The fear that had filled Ana only a moment ago was gone in an instant, replaced by white-hot anger.
“She put something in my tea?” she asked.
“Benadryl,” the man said. “Hardly lethal, but it will knock you right out.”
“Fuck,” Ana muttered.
“Count yourself lucky. The last girl got a snake in her bed,” the man said. “I’m Salvador Santos, by the way. Saoirse’s tutor.”
“Ana,” she said. “Ana Rojas.”
“Well, Ana-Ana Rojas,” Salvador said, “here.”
He reached into the back seat of the car and grabbed a jean jacket that was lying there. He tossed it to her.
Ana caught it reflexively.
“Thanks,” she said. She slid one arm in and then the other and pulled it tightly closed over her chest. It was far too big for her, running past the tips of her fingers and halfway down her thighs, and she was glad for the cover, to no longer be nearly naked in front of this complete stranger, kind though he may be.
Salvador reached across the car and unlocked the passenger-side door. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride to the house. I’m headed back there myself. I just borrowed the car to run some errands in town.”
Ana crossed the street quickly and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“Thanks,” she said again as she buckled her seat belt.
“Don’t mention it,” Salvador said. He winked at her. “Us help have to stick together.”
He had a kind and attractive face. Almond-colored skin; dark, wavy hair; warm chocolate eyes, with swirls of gold around the edges. She couldn’t fathom what Ransom had been thinking, hiring a tutor for his sister who looked like that.
“I can’t believe I fell for her nice act,” Ana said, pressing the back of her head into the headrest. “They warned me what she would be like—and still! I feel like such an idiot.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Salvador said. “Saoirse puts everyone through the wringer.”
“Yeah?” Ana said. “What’d she do to you? Whoopee cushion on your chair? Frog in your desk?”
“Something like that,” Salvador said with a smile as he turned down the drive to the Towers home.
His English was very good, but there was something about the intonation of his voice, how he sometimes stressed the end of the word instead of the first syllable, and a slight, almost undetectable roll of his r’s, that betrayed that English was not his first language.
“And she just gets away with it?” Ana asked.
“Well, I’m sure if Ransom finds out, he’d do something to punish her,” Salvador said. “Take away some privilege to vex her, give her a firm scolding whenever he does come back into town, though who knows when that will be.”
“And Mrs. Talbot?” Ana asked.
“You won’t get any help from Mrs. Talbot. She likes to do all of the hiring for the house, and she’s none too pleased that Ransom took things into his own hands for this position. She’ll be rooting for you to fail.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Ana said.
She was on her own, then. That was all right. She had been on her own for a long time.
As they approached the front of the house, Ana reached for the handle of the passenger-side door.
“Let me out here, if you don’t mind,” she said.
“Mrs. Talbot prefers that we use the—”
“I know,” Ana said. “But I prefer to get out here.”
“All right,” Salvador said. He stopped the car.
“Do you mind if I return your jacket to you tomorrow?” she asked.
Salvador smiled at her, and she felt her stomach drop, but not in an unpleasant way.
“I guess I know where to find you if you don’t,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”
He had done her a great favor, really. He had confirmed who her enemies were.
She got out of the car and marched up the grand stone steps to the front entrance, where, just that morning, Mrs. Talbot had shut the door in her face.
But this time, she wouldn’t knock. She wouldn’t ask for permission and wait for it to be granted.
She had done that routine most of her life, and it had gotten her exactly nowhere. She was tired of being told no.
“Ana,” Salvador called to her, and Ana paused at the top of the stairs, her hand on the doorknob, and turned around.
“Yes?”
“What will you do?” he asked. “About Saoirse, I mean?”
“Why?” Ana said.
“It’s just, you seem upset, and I know from experience that acting on impulse when you’re angry rarely leads to a good outcome.”
He acted like Ana’s anger was something to be afraid of, but, on the contrary, Ana found anger to be a very useful emotion.
It filled you with fire; it spurred you to action.
Rage instilled in a person a sense of power.
It was so much better than grief or fear, which drained you and left you feeling powerless, like a victim.
Ana refused to be a victim. She had agency, and she would use it.
“Saoirse’s brother, he can be a bit hard on her,” Salvador went on, when Ana didn’t say anything. “Especially after what happened with all the other caretakers—well, it probably wouldn’t go so well for her if he were to find out.”
“Don’t worry, Salvador,” Ana said. She wanted to tell him that she had known rage a long time.
It was a familiar friend. She no longer allowed it to course through her veins unchecked like a drug, driving her to actions that were both reckless and counterproductive.
Her rage was a tiger on a leash, sitting obediently at her heel, waiting for the command to strike.
She was the master of it. “If Ransom finds out about Saoirse’s tricks,” Ana said, “it won’t be from me. ”
She gave Salvador a friendly smile to reassure him.
“I’ll see you around,” she said.
Then she turned and opened the door and stepped over the threshold into the house.