“Should we really be doing this here?” Aury asked, with a careful glance over to her nephew, as if her eyes alone would collapse his lungs. “We should let him rest.”

  “But what if he gets worse?” Manuel asked.

  “I can stay,” Xiomara blurted, itching to listen to Josefina’s tape.

  Her uncle shook his head. “No, it’s fine. An earthquake couldn’t wake that boy, anyway.”

  Manuel took off his glasses and massaged his face. The man had only untucked his shirt, and yet the change in style made him look disheveled. Or maybe it was just seeing him in the context of the night—being exposed and accused and then fighting with his siblings. The man no longer appeared to have it all together.

  “Someone go get Wanda.” He gestured to the door nonchalantly. Not so much forgetting about his earlier outburst due to her secret, as he was completely skirting over it.

  Xiomara turned to go. “I’ll—”

  “I already tried,” Yaritza said. She sat on the floor next to an outlet as her phone charged. “She doesn’t want to come.”

  Manuel tsked audibly.

  “Fine, just leave her,” he said, washing his hands of it.

  Xiomara subtly clenched her jaw. She considered leaving anyway, making up an excuse to be alone even for five minutes. Impatience turned her into a ticking bomb. If she didn’t listen to the tape within the next twenty minutes, she was sure to explode.

  The door creaked open, and in came Naomi with a few bottles of water and a fresh hand towel. Xiomara stepped out of her way and watched her cut across the room to Henry’s side. Quickly, she dropped the water bottles on the bed and carefully lifted the edge of the bloody towel. Naomi pursed her lips and went straight to work, dousing the fresh towel with water and slowly cleaning his arm from the elbow up. Xiomara turned away, unable to keep nausea from roiling her stomach. Instead, she looked down at Yaritza, who looked quite comfortable for someone whose minidress was riding up her thighs.

  “Hey.” Xiomara nudged her. “Where’s Rafael?” She had expected him to be in the room when Yaritza yelled about Marisa finding three tapes. “And where’s Marisa? I thought you said she found more tapes.”

  “Papi’s still looking for the Walkman, and Marisa is looking for the rest.”

  Xiomara blinked. “The rest? The rest of what?”

  “The rest of the tapes,” Yaritza said.

  “How many more can there be?” Xiomara muttered, willing the jitters in her body to calm down.

  “You good, cuz? You look sick.”

  “I . . . think I just need to—”

  “Use the bathroom?” Yaritza raised an eyebrow, speaking the lie before Xiomara could.

  To sell the act this time, Xiomara pressed a hand around her torso. “Might have been the sancocho.”

  “Sure it was.”

  As soon as she was out of the room, Xiomara booked it to the end of the hall and slipped into the bathroom. The door was hardly shut behind her before she tore out the Walkman and jammed in the tape.

  Xiomara plugged in her wired earbuds.

  The rubber button clicked as she hit play.

  The first thing she heard was sniffling.

  “Xiomara . . . Xiomara, I’m so sorry . . .” Papi Ramon’s voice cracked. “It’s my fault . . . it’s all my fault . . . Josefina is dead because of me . . .”

  She paused it. Stared at the Walkman in her hand. Tried to feel it, really feel it, but all feeling had slipped away. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. Xiomara breathed in slow and deep and flexed her fingers once again.

  She pressed play.

  For several minutes, Papi Ramon let out shuddering breaths. Glass clinked and liquid filled a container. It sounded like he was drinking. In the recording, there was a soft knock at the door. Plastic scraped and clattered against wood, and the sound all but became muffled. Was he hiding the Walkman?

  “Come in.” In his drunkenness, he seemed to have forgotten he could pause the recording. Someone entered the scene, hesitant and slow. Xiomara almost didn’t catch the words, but she felt them on her lips.

  “Are you okay?”

  It was her. Xiomara was in the recording. She realized exactly when this tape had been recorded and why Papi Ramon sounded emotionally and completely in shambles.

  It was right after Josefina’s funeral.

  “I’m fine, mija. Don’t worry about me. You go to bed.”

  Xiomara’s past self said nothing and slowly left the room. Xiomara barely remembered that. Nearly every day after the funeral, Papi Ramon remained in his study, inebriated and slurring his words so much that Xiomara stopped listening. There was one day she had to help him up the stairs.

  “Do you know how your mother really died?” he had asked. The question perturbed her so much, she made up her mind—she didn’t want to be there anymore. Xiomara left that same week.

  That’s what I dreamed about, Xiomara realized. It was that exact memory.

  Papi Ramon had retrieved a recorder from its hiding place.

  “If you’re hearing this now . . . it’s because you deserve to know. You should know the car accident . . . wasn’t an accident. It was because of me. Because I couldn’t stop them . . . I just didn’t think they would do that to their own sister . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry, Xiomara . . .”

  The tape ended. And Xiomara’s blood went ice-cold. Did her aunts and uncles band together to kill her mom? Perhaps it was just a pair—Xiomara could imagine a collaborative effort between Aury and Marisa, though she wouldn’t rule out Manuel either. Was Rafael in on it as well? And if Papi Ramon knew, why didn’t he say anything?

  Xiomara ejected the tape. She turned it over and stared at the fraction. Not a date.

  Four out of six.

  There were more tapes. And if she was going to find out who was responsible for her mother’s death, she would have to listen to all of them.

  * * *

  By the time Xiomara went back to Rafael’s room, he was already there.

  “Sorry, Xiomara.” He awkwardly patted her shoulder. She studied him with newfound suspicion. Like Manuel, there was a ragged air about him, as if he was moments away from falling apart at the seams. His shirt revealed moisture collecting under his armpits, and he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

  “I checked every box,” he announced to the room, lightly shaking his head. “Couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do with these?” Manuel held up the tapes in his hand. Each had that same brand-new sheen to them like Josefina’s tape did. Xiomara squinted and came forward, squeezing between the older siblings to pick up the tapes. She turned them over in her palm, tracing the labels as she read them.

  Aury 3/6

  Marisa 2/6

  Manito 1/6

  With her other hand, Xiomara gripped the hidden Walkman in her pocket. What would it take to slip away a tape one at a time? She could swap the labels—but that would be too conspicuous.

  “And you didn’t find anything else that can play cassettes?” Manuel asked, an accusatory tone lacing his voice.

  “I tried. Okay?” Rafael snapped. “Did you find something, or did you leave Marisa to do all the work?”

  Yaritza failed to hold back a snort, slapping a hand over a wry smile while her eyes widened both in disbelief and amusement. Manuel squared his shoulders when he stood up, and Aury quickly stepped between them.

  “Calm down.”

  But Manuel was already throwing a finger in Rafael’s face. “Watch who you’re talking to . . .”

  Xiomara tuned them out. Instead, she held her mother’s tape against the others and studied the similar curvature of Papi Ramon’s letters on the labels. There was no question about it—it was his handwriting.

  Josefina 4/6

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  “We’re missing five and six,” she said, interrupting the hostility broiling between her uncles. They ambled over to her, curiosity just barely stifling their tension.

  “Look at that,” Aury mused, picking up her tape. She flipped it over, holding it with her pointer finger and thumb as if it were a delicate relic. Uncertainty crossed her face. “It looks brand-new. When did he make this?”

  Manuel retrieved his own but with less grace. He held it so tight, Xiomara was sure she heard the light squeak of splintering plastic.

  “I don’t know,” he grumbled, sharing Aury’s expression. They looked at their respective tapes with frowns and hints of trepidation in the corners of their eyes.

  It was odd, Xiomara thought as she studied their reactions. Though they handled their tapes differently, it was like they were not at all pleased at their existence. Something about the tapes put them ill at ease. Was it because they knew the tapes were clues they could not unlock without a cassette player?

  Or was it because they were afraid of what was on them?

  Xiomara quietly slipped her mother’s tape into her pocket.

  “All right, so where’s mine?” Rafael asked. He looked at the other tape Xiomara held and lost interest when he saw Marisa’s name instead.

  “Marisa’s still looking.”

  And how did she find three tapes so easily?

  “Oh my God—Naomi, can you go get Marisa?” Rafael gestured to the door.

  Naomi looked down at her hands, stained with blood after cleaning up Henry. “Sure. It’s not like I was doing anything important.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

  “I’ll do it,” Xiomara volunteered. The air in the room was already getting stale, cemented by Henry’s sanguine fluid sinking into the sheets. Xiomara wrinkled her nose like it wasn’t already coated on the inside of her lungs, and she could no more stomach that than the possibility she would never find out what was on these tapes.

  The hallway seemed dimmer in the night. Not quite completely dark, but dark enough that even though the hall was completely barren, decorative shelves and portraits removed, she thought she sensed something there. Faces made out of scuffed wallpaper leered at her; figures in the shadows laughed at her.

  Steeling herself, Xiomara started toward Marisa’s room.

  “Marisa, we’re all in the . . .” Xiomara stopped. The room was empty, save for Wanda’s curled body in the corner of the bed. Obscured by a blanket, she stirred until two eyes stared out of a rough opening. Her eyes were red.

  “Oh.” Xiomara shook off the secondhand awkwardness she felt. “Sorry. Where’s Marisa?” she asked.

  Wanda’s eyes disappeared immediately as she dissolved back into bed. It took Xiomara another ten seconds before she registered her cousin had said anything at all— a mumble of a reply only further muffled by fabric and the space between them.

  “The bathroom,” she’d said. And with that, Xiomara closed the door.

  She first checked both bathrooms on the second floor. Each on opposite sides of the hall, both doors were wide open, with lights off. She headed downstairs.

  The very first bathroom across the study was locked. Xiomara knocked and pressed her ear against the door. She heard a hiccup.

  “Marisa?” Xiomara called. The sink hissed water behind the door.

  “I’m coming!”

  Her voice sounded strange. Narrowing her eyes, Xiomara jiggled the knob.

  “Is everything—” The door swung open before she could finish her question. Marisa stared down at her, the skin around her eyes pulled back tight. Her smile was strained.

  “Sorry, did you need to use it?” Marisa skipped around Xiomara, not waiting for an answer. Xiomara watched her aunt stomp up the stairs, like each step up was heavier than the last. The house didn’t groan as much as it screamed under her violent pace.

  Upstairs, the family was finally assembled. Even Wanda sat in the corner of the room with a blanket draped over her and turned away from her father—but she was still there. Manuel clearly didn’t see the point in taking the high road; he turned away from her too.

  Strangely enough, Marisa was a little too quiet.

  “All right, now that we’re all here,” Aury began, sweeping her gaze around the room and attempting to lock eyes with every single person, “we need to discuss these tapes. Does anyone know what these are and why Papi made one for each of us?”

  Xiomara clenched her mouth shut.

  It would take too long to listen to the tapes alone, she thought. I need to narrow it down sooner.

  She looked between her aunts and uncles, searching for suspicious behavior. A nervous tic, an unnecessary stammer, hand-wringing where didn’t make sense to be—but nothing so far screamed murderer.

  “Each of y’all,” Yaritza interrupted. “It says it’s out of six. That’s clearly just meant for his kids.”

  “There’s only five of us.” Rafael pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Really?” Yaritza leaned forward, quickly counting each of the older adults. Manuel, Marisa, Aury, Rafael—and Josefina made five. Her eyebrows shot up. “Huh. Could’ve sworn it was six.”

  Xiomara’s eyes shot to her cousin. Had she really thought there were six—or was it another memory trick by the demon?

  “No, but how can it be for us?” Manuel looked to his siblings. “Josefina died years ago. This looks brand-new.”

  “So he took really good care of it,” Rafael mused.

  “Hey, Marisa,” Xiomara spoke up. “Where did you find the other three tapes?”

  Her aunt bristled. “In Papi’s hiding places.”

  The family balked. Xiomara gritted her teeth. “What hiding places? Where?”

  “In our rooms. Under our mattresses.”

  Everyone’s eyes went to Henry, lying injured atop Rafael’s old bed.

  “Don’t—” Manuel began to protest, until Rafael interrupted.

  “We’re not going to move him.” Rafael placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to lift the mattress at the same time. Henry can stay where he’s at. Everyone, pick a corner.”

  Aury and Marisa mirrored each other, crossing their arms.

  “Who is we?” Marisa raised her brow. “Aury and I can’t lift the bed with Henry on it. He needs to move.”

  Xiomara watched the argument unfold. Rafael unsuccessfully argued that it would be easier if his sisters helped, and his sisters refused. Manuel would have none of it.

  “We are not moving my son!” he growled.

  The compromise they settled on was not a compromise at all. Naomi and Xiomara would be taking the older woman’s place, while Yaritza’s sole role was to look under the mattress when lifted.

  “Okay . . . lift!” Rafael dictated.

  Xiomara felt all the blood rush to her arms and head. The few seconds the mattress was up in the air were more than she could stand, and once they were over, she leaned against the wall for strength.

  “Nope, nothing!” Yaritza announced.

  “Are you sure?” Rafael asked in disbelief.

  Naomi groaned audibly. “I’m not doing that again!”

  Yaritza snickered to herself, and Wanda rose to her feet, making a line for the door before Aury called out for her not to leave.

  Xiomara massaged her temples, a spark of irritation threatening to blind her if she didn’t calm down. She stepped over to the window. It was cracked an inch, a wise decision considering how sharply the wind whipped through the air. Just standing next to it, Xiomara felt like she was being stabbed multiple times with icy knives—but she refused to close it, preferring the way it allowed her to breathe to the sweltering heat of the room, which felt suffocating.

  A low rumbling groan from Henry shut everyone up immediately. His face pinched as he tried lifting the injured arm, but Naomi held it down with little force.

  “Don’t move,” she said. “If you move, it’ll increase blood circulation, and you cannot afford to lose more blood. Just rest.”

  As if not hearing her, Manuel jumped to his son’s side and shook Henry’s other shoulder. “Henry, who did this to you? Huh? You have to tell us—”

  “Don’t shake him like that!” Naomi snapped at him.

  “You shut up! Henry, come on,” he continued. “Don’t go back to sleep until you—”

  Henry let out a pained groan, and Manuel pulled his hand back with the quickness of a young child touching a hot stove for the first time. Naomi didn’t try to hide her I told you so face and stepped back, gathering the dirtied towels before leaving the room.

  The family was more than quiet—everyone had stopped breathing and would’ve gone as far as stopping their own heartbeats if it meant they could hear Henry speak. Manuel towered over Henry. He leaned down so far, Xiomara was sure he could probably feel Henry’s breath on his ear.

  One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Xiomara counted the seconds while something like a scratch sounded in the air.

  It was when Henry moved his lips that Xiomara knew the sound was coming from him.

  “Hot . . . s’hot . . .” Henry complained. His lips moved a few more times, then stilled as his head lopped to the side. Manuel slowly straightened himself. His slackened jaw and dazed eyes filled the room with unease.

  “What?” Aury grabbed his arm, trying to shake him out of his stupor. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Manuel answered. “Just that it’s hot.”

  Wanda silently left the room. Xiomara could tell it was only a matter of time before everyone dispersed again, each to their own corner of the house. She saw it in the way they were regarding the tapes—Aury had a doubtful frown, and Manuel dropped his on the bed. The family’s interest in them was waning without a cassette player. Tapes were useless without one. Xiomara prayed they would leave their tapes behind when they left.

  “Oh!” Yaritza clamped a hand over her mouth. “Um . . . so don’t look now, but it looks like someone’s bank account was hacked . . .”

  Ironically, it felt like the floor fell out from under her. Xiomara’s aunts and uncles reacted similarly as they processed those words.

  First came the disbelief.

  “What?”

 

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