Page 25 of The Challenger

The soft night breeze feels like a whisper of silk on my skin, and I sway drunkenly in my driveway, remembering.

I’m with you.

Yes, Chavez, you were.

How could I not submit to him so completely? I’ve been a woman in search of a miracle and desperate enough to kick Mother Teresa and her dog to the curb to find it. He drove our erotic bus to newfound destinations, and my jumbled brain can’t pinpoint what his special sauce was. It left me breathless and desperate for more. I glide along the walkway to my front door, pleasantly buzzed and excited about Christmas Day for the first time in years.

Once inside the house, I drop my bag in the foyer. My throat is raw from a few too many vape hits offered by the drunken couple playing next to us in the bar, and I stumble into the kitchen for a cold shot of OJ.

I do not notice it at first.

But in the wedge of light thrown out from the open fridge, whatever sticks to the sole of my shoe is blindingly white to my eyes, rimmed red from the long night. Was I dragging toilet paper around all evening? Classy. I bend over to dislodge it, and a brutal head rush sends me crashing to my knees. The spinning room takes far too long to settle, and I ass-plant, hoping to speed up the process while looking like a first-class idiot attempting to pull my shoe off.

What the hell is this?

I yank the envelope off the piece of gum I must have stepped on at the bar and hold it up in the light. Plain white, without a stamp and bearing no address, shoved through my mail slot by someone other than the US Postal Service. I feel it immediately in the pit of my stomach: defeat. Cold as acid. The eerie quiet of my house pulses louder than my freaking-out heart. I rip the envelope open and unfold the single sheet of paper shaking in my hand. Three words and the entire heavenly day spirals into a soul-deadening hell.

I found you!

ChapterNine

December twenty-fourth technically happened,despite my choosing to forget it. Chavez picks me up at my house for Christmas Day brunch completely unaware that I spent the past two nights at the W Hotel in Hollywood, shivering in the dark, alone. My home security system caught the stalker in the act the other night, although a baseball cap and bandana shrouded his features. But it was him. And his intrusion has left me skittish and unsure how to tackle this. The best way to ignore my life is to focus on Chavez.

“Everything okay?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he replies distractedly. “Why?”

“You’re driving thirty miles over the speed limit.”

Traffic is light on the 101 heading east, and we are making good time, enough not to warrant hauling ass.

He backs off the gas with a sigh that holds the weight of the world in it. “Lots on my mind today.”

“How did yesterday go?”

We had texted back and forth, the only bright spots in my day, and he sent me several photos. The fake silver Christmas tree his mother dumps a bed sheet over after the holidays wind down. A crowd of heads at the church during midnight mass. A dining table heaving with brightly colored savory dishes. All of them left an ache in my heart.

“The usual family stuff.” He reaches for my hand. “I really wanted to see you. You look beautiful, by the way.”

I took extra care with my hair and makeup this morning to make the right first impression, although who his friends are is still unclear to me. I asked Chavez earlier if only to memorize names, but his rant after a car cut us off allowed him to duck the question. What I do know is they live in Echo Park, a neighborhood east of downtown and home to Dodger Stadium. After leaving the freeway, we cruise past modest homes with gently failing front yards of cracked concrete and weeds. But the newer Craftsman house at the end of the block has a tidy square of picket fence wrapping the yard perimeter and well-tended blooms bursting from the flower beds on either side of the porch.

“This is very pretty,” I say.

“They look after the place,” he says. “As you should with your home.”

He parks behind a dated Honda Odyssey, and beside it lurks a scary looking Ducati motorcycle I would never feel comfortable on, even wearing the bright pink helmet dangling from one of the crossbars. Today’s brunch crowd is eclectic, to say the least.

Chavez takes my hand, and his body language feels a little guarded when we enter the house without knocking. Most homes in LA lack a proper entrance foyer, and as soon as you step through the door, you are smack-dab in the living room. Or, in this case, the dining room. With a table set for four. Huh. Chavez led me to believe a small crowd of twenty-somethings would be mixing and mingling, but it is awfully quiet in here.

He casually dumps his keys onto the table and calls out, “Hola.”

I grew up in a middle-class house like this—nothing over the top—with rooms that could use some brightening. But we never had box-store pleather furniture crammed to one side of the living room to accommodate a life-size nativity scene.

Sweet baby Jesus, literally and figuratively.

In complete contrast to the scent of something fatty and welcoming in the air, a forty-something Latino woman limps out of the kitchen wearing an apron over a shift dress and a frown that looks permanently welded into place. She has the handsome features and carriage of aristocracy, which might explain why she looks at me like I am a commoner infiltrating her turf.

“Dios mio,” she mutters.

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