Exposed (Calavera Hotels #4)

Prologue-Alma

PAST

Los Angeles, California

Investigators reported signs of forced entry at the residence.

The Los Angeles Police Department is reviewing current and pending cases in which Nevarez was involved as a confidential informant, though officials have not confirmed whether the shooting is connected to his cooperation with law enforcement.

No arrests have been made, and no charges have been filed. The family declined to comment.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Los Angeles Police Department. Tips may be submitted anonymously.

“I don’t know why you keep reading that trash. Ain’t gonna bring the son of a bitch back,” Nan says from the recliner in the living room.

She’s smoking with her oxygen in again, not that I’m surprised. Nan never has had much enthusiasm for life what-so-ever. Even less now that her only daughter has passed away, and she’s stuck with me—the granddaughter she never wanted.

Nan’s full name is Encarnación. One of many names that gives ode to the embodiment of the Virgin Mary. Despite the nine-thousand statues crammed into this trailer, there’s no sign of those saint-like qualities inside of Nan. Motherhood isn’t her strong suit.

My mother, Missy, ran away from home at sixteen and never looked back.

Not until she got sick last year. Her need to make amends brought us back here with Nan.

We weren’t necessarily received with open arms, but when treatment failed, Nan kept her promise to watch over me, which she proceeds to remind me every day while also adding that I’ve become more trouble than I’m worth.

A loud knock sounds from the front door of the trailer. Nan stands, but her coughing starts up strong. Don Cheetos, her loyal tabby cat, glares up at me.

“Don’t just sit there. Get the damn door!” she snaps.

On the other side, I find a slender woman in a dark blue business suit.

Nan is slow but grabs her shotgun from behind her rocking chair and aims it at the woman.

Nan has always been very vocal about her distrust in white women.

Having one show up on her doorstep isn’t just a bad omen, it’s a death sentence.

“No need for that ma’am. I promise I come in peace. My name is Detective Jill Johnson. I’m here to speak with your granddaughter if that’s okay with you.” She pulls back the lapel of her suit jacket, flashing a shiny badge.

“Does she need a lawyer?” Nan asks while returning the sawed-off shotgun back to its resting place.

“No ma’am. I don’t believe a lawyer is necessary.” Detective Johnson flickers between the gun and the oxygen tank briefly before her eyes return to mine. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Alma. I’m with the Los Angeles Homicide Unit. We need to bring you in for more questioning.”

I notice the man in uniform standing behind her on the porch. I remember him from the night Esteban died—the night I’m still trying to make sense of. Nan looks at me for a brief moment, then sits back down, unmuting her novella on the TV.

I’m whisked away in the back of a cop car, the interior too clean and far too silent for my liking.

Every home in the trailer park has someone watching from the window.

Curtains pull back, wandering eyes peering out, curious to catch a glimpse of me.

Most people in this neighborhood have had their eyes on me since my name first appeared in the newspaper a week ago.

Somehow, in seven days, I went from the sweet girl down the street who babysat their kids to the snitch’s untrustworthy girlfriend.

The entire week has been a blur to me. I attended the funeral, watched them lower the casket into the ground, but I was completely and utterly numb to life.

Esteban’s death was just another part of the never-ending loop of my existence.

I’m starting to see why Missy ran away so much.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling having to face the world’s judgement of you.

I want to roll down the window and scream my defense.

I didn’t know!

He lied to me too!

But it’s useless. I don’t have the energy to explain when I’m still processing the fact that in the six months we’d been dating, I didn’t know shit about Esteban.

Not his favorite song, his favorite color, hell, I didn’t even know his middle name until I saw it in the obituary.

I don’t feel like the grieving girlfriend the media has made me out to be.

I know grief well, and oddly, I’m not processing Esteban’s death the way I processed Missy’s.

When my mother took her last breath, it was as if my very soul went with it.

Sadness spread through me, and every cell in my body felt her absence.

That pain was sewn into the very seams of who I was and everything she was to me.

But with Esteban, every time I tap into my emotions, there’s nothing.

Out the window, bodegas flash by with their metal gates halfway open, and teenagers watch us from the street corners.

When we reach the closest police station, I’m taken into a small room.

The scent of stale cigarettes hits my nostrils, and ironically, it’s comforting to me.

Like Missy could appear any moment down the hallway, a cigarette in her hand, humming a song.

But Missy isn’t here. Instead, seated in front of me is Detective Johnson, rummaging through papers.

There’s a large mirror on the wall in the interrogation room, and behind it, eyes are watching, and ears are listening. My chair scrapes loudly across the floor as I slide closer to the table. A manila folder is placed in front of me, a nude manicured index finger tapping it once.

“Miss Gutierrez, we need you to walk us through the other night again. From the beginning, before you even went to bed. Anything you can remember?”

My eyes stay glued to the fluorescent lights humming overhead.

The room is bare, but a recording device with a blinking red light catches my attention.

My hands are clasped tightly in my lap as I search my memory for something, anything, from that night.

All I ever see any more when I close my eyes is blood.

Red pools surrounding me, covering me like a blanket.

And Efren.

I still see Esteban’s younger brother, Efren, standing above me and staring down at me.

His dark eyes are glued to mine. I can hear him yelling at me to leave, but I don’t.

I just stay there, frozen in place, holding Esteban, looking down into his lifeless eyes and crying as he bleeds out in my arms. My eyes begin to water at the memory, and I don’t try and hold the tears back.

It’s useless. A warm hand reaches for mine, and a kind smile embraces me.

“I know this must be hard for you, but I need to know if anything else has resurfaced since you gave your original statement,” Detective Johnson asks.

“I already told the officer at the hospital… I was with Esteban earlier that night. We were at his house. We’d been drinking. I stayed the night, then… I don’t know. It’s like everything goes dark.” My eyes stare at the red light blinking on the table.

“Nothing else has come up? Even the tiniest detail can be crucial in these cases, Alma.”

I search my memory again, but everything is so blurry and unfamiliar. Just one empty, dark hallway, and my mind freezes, unable to continue with the memory. Then Efren’s voice resurfaces like a small whisper inside my mind.

“You woke up, you heard a noise, and then you found him like this. Do you understand me?”

“I woke up and heard a noise, and when I got to the end of the hallway, I saw Esteban lying there, and I ran toward him,” I repeat the words, unsure of the truth behind them.

I can’t pull the pieces in my mind together or find the visual memory of the story I’m telling. Detective Johnson releases my hand and pulls back. She searches through more papers, and my eyes wander back to the blinking red light.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

“Did Esteban have any enemies? Anyone who might’ve wanted to hurt him?”

I don’t say anything for a moment. How do I explain to this woman that Esteban didn’t have enemies because he was the enemy?

Everyone had been fooled by his charm. He was popular, outgoing, and attractive.

Tall with light brown eyes, straight white teeth, and an athletic build from the years he’d spent playing sports.

Too many of the kids I went to school with trusted him, and in the end, he was the reason many of them were on probation or even behind bars.

“I don’t know of any enemies,” I respond.

“Was Esteban abusive?”

Her question is so direct that my eyes shoot up, alarmed. “Why would you ask that?”

“There’s no other way to bring this up.” Detective Johnson leans in, her voice lowering. “But the night Esteban died and you were taken to San Miguel Medical Center, they ran some tests. Traces of benzodiazepines were found in your system. This is a common date rape drug.”

“What?” My heart accelerates at the thought.

“We believe you may have been incapacitated when the shooting happened. Perhaps that’s why you don’t remember anything. Do you recall taking this drug?”

I stare at the red light, searching my mind again, but I can’t see anything past the blood.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

“I want you to know you’re not in trouble. We’re just trying to understand what happened. If someone hurt you, this is a safe place to say it. You don’t have to protect anyone.”

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

I close my eyes again, but there’s nothing there. Just darkness, Esteban’s lifeless body in my arms, the sticky blood surrounding me, and Efren’s dark eyes staring down at me.