Woman in Black (46 page)

The woman was silent, her flat, black-eyed gaze unwavering. Abigail gamely plowed on. “I felt awful about it, of course. I wanted to phone right away, but …” She faltered once more, realizing that she was already making excuses, when really there was no excuse. The plain fact was that she shouldn't have taken Perez's advice. She should have followed her own gut instinct. Now she grasped at the chance to make amends, even knowing it was probably too late. “Is there anything you need? Money? A place to stay?” Concepción shook her head, still wearing that haughty, scornful look. “Shall I call you a cab, then? You really shouldn't be out in this weather. Don't worry about the cost. I'll take care of it. In fact, I'd be happy to cover all your ex—”

Concepción cut her off before she could go any further. “There is nothing I want from you.” Her dark eyes flashed.

Abigail eyed the woman in confusion. “I'm sorry. Then I don't know how I can help.”

“There is no help. That is not why I am here.” The dead girl's mother drew herself up to her full height. “I come to see for my own eyes the woman who took
mi hija
from me.” She leveled an accusing finger at Abigail. “The blood of my daughter is on
you
, Señora.”

Abigail flinched as if from a blow. She realized that the full impact of the girl's death hadn't hit her until now. The name Milagros Sánchez had been just that—a name, an unfortunate casualty. Now, looking into the face of the girl's grieving mother, Abigail wished desperately for something … anything … to help make up for this woman's loss. But what explanation could she offer? What words of comfort? Neither would bring any solace.

If she'd been at the office, there would have been staff to deal with this, but here, there was no escape. She was trapped, nowhere to run, pinned down by those terrible, hot eyes. The eyes of an avenging angel. Concepción had said or done nothing to threaten her, yet Abigail felt as frightened as if she were being held at gunpoint.

She managed to reply at last, in a low, shaken voice, “If I'd known … if I could've prevented it, believe me, I would have. You don't know how sorry I am.”

Concepción shook her head in disgust. “Sorry? You are not sorry, Señora. You are only sorry because I am here. Now you cannot hide.”

“Please, I know you're upset, but—”

The woman advanced another step. “You have a daughter, no?”

Abigail's back went up. “Let's leave my daughter out of this, shall we?” How did she know this woman wouldn't try to get back at her by hurting Phoebe in some way? She felt herself go cold at the thought. If only Kent were here! He was good in situations like these. Hysterical patients who came to him bleeding or with broken bones and whom he always managed to calm down.

“My Milagros, she was a good person. A good girl,” Concepción Delgado went on in that same implacable tone. “She work hard for to make money to come to America and be with her husband. That is her dream. Now there is no more dream. Now my child is gone. But you no care. For you, she is nothing.” Her pinched lips, blue with cold, were in stark contrast to the lancing heat of her gaze. Abruptly, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a photo, which she thrust into Abigail's face: a snapshot of a smiling, dark-haired woman who looked like a younger version of Concepción. “
Mirá
. See her face. Know what it is you have take from me.” Tears stood in her eyes, but they were hard tears—black ice on the roadway over which Abigail now felt herself skidding. “You have your daughter. What do
I
have? Tell me that, Señora.”

The shadows cast by the candle's flickering light loomed on the walls, seeming to close in on Abigail. The kitchen, fragrant with the scents of cinnamon and cloves and filled with beloved objects—the blue Spatterware bread bowl that had belonged to her mother, the sampler stitched by her great-grandmother and passed down through the generations, the lumpy clay dish made by Phoebe when she was in the first grade—suddenly seemed a cold and unwelcoming place.

“I know there's nothing I can say that will ever make up for your loss,” she began, speaking slowly and carefully so that Concepción would comprehend … and so that she could maintain her grip on the control that she felt slipping away. “And I won't deny that I bear at least some responsibility for what happened. But when I gave the order to increase production, I had no idea that Señor Perez would put everyone at risk by taking certain … shortcuts.” She'd been horrified when she had learned of it, in fact, and her first instinct had been to fire Perez. But he knew too much, and she didn't doubt that he'd use that to his advantage if need be. Now she realized how weak an excuse it must sound to Concepción, even as she struggled to make her see reason. “It was a terrible tragedy, yes. But there are times, in situations such as this, when no one is to blame. Sometimes it's just a series of bad decisions. People make mistakes. That's what this was, a mistake.”

Concepción may not have understood every word, but she'd understood enough. She sucked in a breath, her eyes glittering and twin dots of color appearing on her pale cheeks, like bloodstains on snow. “
Mistake?
You would say the same if it was
your
daughter?” she demanded, cutting to the heart of the matter with that one simple sentence.

The truth was that if it had been Phoebe, Abigail not only would have fired Perez, she'd have seen to it that he never worked again—in fact, she would have made his life a living hell. In that unguarded moment, she regarded the woman standing before her, a woman who was a stranger to her but with whom Abigail had one important thing in common: They both knew what it was to be a mother. She said ruefully, “It's always different when it's your own child, isn't it?”

Their eyes locked: two mothers acknowledging the truth in that statement. Concepción said, “Then you will know what I have come for to do. Why I am here. There can be no rest for me, for Milagros, otherwise.”

Something in her voice caused Abigail to stiffen. “Is that a threat?”

Concepción bared her teeth in a smile of triumph. “You are afraid? Good. You should be afraid, Señora.”

The dead girl's mother carried no weapon. In her present, bedraggled state, she didn't look as if she posed much of a physical threat, either. But appearances could be deceiving, and Abigail knew firsthand what that kind of grief could do to a person. The day after her mother had died, when her uncle had slipped into her room under the guise of consoling her, she'd said, “You ever lay a hand on me again, old man, you'd better be prepared to stay awake for a long, long time. Because the minute you fall asleep, I'll take that ax out back and chop you into little bits.”

Uncle Ray must have seen something in her eyes that had made him wonder if it wasn't an idle threat, for he'd backed away at once and had never come near her again. Abigail didn't know what she would have done if he hadn't. She doubted that she would have gone so far as to chop him into little bits, but one thing she knew for certain: He wouldn't have emerged unscathed.

Before she knew it, she was reaching for the phone on the wall. She'd punched in 911 before she realized there was no dial tone. Whatever had brought the power lines down had most likely taken the telephone lines with it. And her cell phone was still in her purse, which she'd dropped on the table in the front hall when she'd let herself in—a distance that suddenly seemed like miles. And what would she have told the dispatcher, anyway?
A woman I invited into my house refused my hospitality and is now threatening to
—what? Concepción had issued no specific threat. She'd done nothing violent.

It was partly her own guilty conscience at work, Abigail realized. Still, she couldn't shake the fear that crawled up into her throat.

“I think you'd better leave,” she said.

Concepción gave her a long look—a look that burned straight down into Abigail's soul. “Don't worry, I will go, Señora, but remember this—I will be here, always, in you.” She tapped her forehead. “You will no forget the name of Milagros Sánchez.”

At that moment, Concepción Delgado seemed to represent everything that had gone wrong with Abigail's life. All the mistakes she'd made. Everything she'd lost and stood to lose. The woman was a pillar carved from granite, a monolith of a finger pointed at her in accusation. The puddle of water at her feet, glistening dark in the faint, guttering candlelight, might have been blood.

Her legs trembling, Abigail gripped the edge of the counter for support. “Go. Please. Just go.” It came out sounding less of an order than an appeal.

From the damp folds of her coat, Concepción pulled a dignity befitting a queen. With a look more eloquent than any words, she turned and majestically retreated into the shadowy recesses of the hallway, so noiselessly that Abigail might have believed she had been an apparition if not for the puddle of water on the floor and the trail of glistening footprints leading away from it.

Concepción Stumbled along
the drive, only vaguely aware of the direction in which she was headed. When she'd arrived at the Señora's house, after the seemingly endless walk from the train station in the pouring rain, which had left her soaked to the skin, it had still been light out. Now it was pitch black. She was dizzy as well—she hadn't eaten since breakfast—and despite the rain, nearly as thirsty as when she'd been wandering in the desert. An awful sense of futility closed over her like a fist. What had she accomplished, other than to half kill herself in getting here? What colossal punishment had she brought crashing down on the Señora?

Perdóname, mi hija
. She turned her face to the sodden black belly of the sky. Suddenly she knew the answer to Jesús's question: No, this was not what her daughter would have wanted. Milagros would have wanted her to forgive the Señora.

There was no justice to be had here, she realized. Even if a newspaper would print her story, what good would it do? It wouldn't bring her daughter back to life. Nor would it prevent something similar from happening to other poor, defenseless workers. There would be a brief outcry, yes. But corruption would go on unabated; the rich would go on getting richer off the backs of the poor; common decency would continue to be sacrificed in the name of greed; and no one, except those who'd directly suffered as a result, would even care.

As for the Señora, there might be some satisfaction in seeing her brought down, but she wasn't the greed-driven monster Concepción had imagined. Concepción had seen from the look on her face that she was not without a conscience. And though whatever remorse the Señora might feel was nothing compared to what Concepción had had to endure, Concepción also had to admit there had been some truth to the Señora's words, when she'd said that it was different when it was one's own child. Would she, Concepción, have felt this towering sense of outrage had it been another woman's child who had died in that fire? Sylvia Ruiz's girl, who'd worked in the station next to hers? Or that fat, silly daughter of Mañuela Ortega?

She squinted, straining to make out in the darkness the even darker shape that had appeared ahead. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, so she could scarcely see two feet in front of her. It wasn't until she drew nearer that the dark shape materialized into a small shed. She veered off the drive, squelching her way through the muddy grass alongside it, heedless of her already ruined shoes. She tried the door to the shed, expecting it to be locked, but it opened with a turn of the knob. Concepción offered up a silent little prayer of thanks as she ducked inside. It was only temporary shelter, but she would be dry, if not exactly warm. And she wouldn't have to stumble around in the dark. Tomorrow, as soon as it was light out, she would find her way back to the train station.

Instantly she was assailed by the strong, earthy scent of cow dung. She fished in her pocket for the book of matches she'd picked up at the diner where she'd had breakfast—a cup of coffee and a plate of buttered toast, the thought of which now caused her belly to rumble. But they were damp from the rain, and she had to strike several before one caught and flared.

Looking around her in the flickering light of the match pinched between her thumb and forefinger, she saw an array of gardening tools—some hanging from pegs, others propped against the walls—a wheelbarrow, bundled stakes, a coiled hose, a mower under a plastic cover. The scent of cow dung, she saw, came from the sacks of fertilizer stacked at one end.

Quickly, before the match burned down, she located a stack of folded canvas tarps. She spread them over the concrete floor, sinking onto her makeshift bed as gratefully as if onto a mattress. Curled into a ball in an effort to warm herself, she felt closer to Jesús somehow amid these tools of his trade. But even the thought of his arms around her did little to ease her discomfort. Behind her closed eyelids rose an image of the Señora, the look on her face when Concepción had threatened to expose her, as if Concepción were some filthy
vago
attempting to rob her. An invisible band tightened around her rib cage, making it hard for her to breathe. She took in small sips of air between clenched teeth, pleading silently,
Díme, Dios
. What do I do now; where do I go from here?

Abigail rummaged around
in the kitchen drawers until her hand closed around a flashlight. She switched it on, the beam bouncing about in her unsteady grip, leaping up walls and skittering over surfaces. Phoebe. She had to find Phoebe. The encounter with the dead girl's mother had left her nerves shattered and filled her with a sense of foreboding. It was probably unfounded, but nonetheless, she wouldn't rest until she'd made certain that her daughter was safe and sound.

Brewster picked up on her mood and began to whine, following closely at her heels as she headed upstairs to check Phoebe's room, grabbing her cell phone from her purse on the way up. But the room was empty. There was no one home over at Lila's, either; she peered out the window to find the place dark. The power was likely out over there, too, but she would have expected to see the flicker of candles or a flashlight. She remembered then Lila's having mentioned something about going out tonight. Neal must be out as well, for the Taurus wasn't in its usual spot alongside the garage. He and Phoebe had probably gone off somewhere together and simply lost track of the time, she told herself.