When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)

When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)

Lisa Gardner



PROLOGUE





MY MOTHER LIKES TO HUM. She stands at the stove, stirring this, tasting that, and humming, humming, humming.

I sit in a chair by the table. I have a job. Grate the cheese. It’s an easy job. The queso blanco crumbles to the touch. But I’m proud to do my part.

My mother says you do not have to be rich to eat like a king. It’s because she loves to cook so much. Everyone comes to my mother’s kitchen for her homemade salsa or special mole sauce, or my favorite, the little cinnamon churros dipped in chocolate.

I am five years old, which is old enough to stir the chocolate as it melts on the stove. Lentamente, my mother says. But not too slow, or it will burn.

Melted chocolate is hot. I stuck my little pinkie straight into the pot the first time, because I wanted a taste. First, I burned my finger. Then I licked at the thick chocolate and burned my mouth. My mother shook her head when I started crying. She used her apron to wipe my cheeks and she told me I was a silly chiquita and I must grow stronger and wiser so I do not stick my hand into bubbling pots. She brought me an ice cube to suck on and let me sit at the table and watch her fuss and hum over the steaming pans.

I am my mother’s chiquita. She is my mamita. Our special names for each other. I love watching my mamita in the kitchen. When she’s there, she’s happy. No shadows on her face. She stands taller. She looks like my mami again, and not the sad woman who leaves in the morning in her dull gray maid’s uniform. Or worse, the scared woman who sometimes comes home in the middle of the day, shoves me in a closet, and tells me I must be very quiet.

I always listen to my mami. Well, once I didn’t. I ran after a brown puppy because I wanted to pet his ears and the car roared by me so fast I felt the wind in my hair. Then my mother grabbed my arm and screamed at me, No, no, no, bad, bad, bad. She spanked me and that hurt. Then she sat in the red dirt and cried and rocked me against her and that hurt worse, like I had both a tummy ache and a chest ache at the same time.

“You must listen to me, my love. We have only each other. So we must take extra care. You are mine and I am yours, always.”

I wiped my mother’s cheeks that day. I lay my head against her trembling shoulder and promised to always be good.

Now that I’m five, I walk to the school by myself, then come home by myself. I’m alone all afternoon, which is our secret, my mami says. Others might not like it. They might take me away.

I don’t want to be taken away. So I’m a brave girl and I come home and turn on the little TV and watch cartoons and wait. Sometimes I draw. I love to color and paint. I’m always careful to clean up afterward. My mamita has a hard day, scrubbing and cleaning after others. Each day she leaves in a sharply pressed uniform with a crisp white apron. Every evening she returns exhausted, wrung out. And those are the good days. Sometimes, she comes home sad and scared, she must shed her drab uniform, pull on a colorful skirt, and head straight to her kitchen so she can smile again.

It’s nighttime now. We are having burritos with slow roasted black beans and shredded chicken. It must be a special night, because we don’t always get chicken. Meat costs more and we must be smart about such things.

But my mother is happy and stirring the beans, while the tortillas warm in the oven. Our kitchen is small but bright. Red tiles, green and blue paint. Pieces of pottery from my mother’s mother, who she had to leave a long time ago and will never see again. But my mother was blessed with these pieces so that her mami would always be with her, and one day, with me, as well.

“You don’t need many things,” my mother likes to tell me. “You just need the right things.”

I hear howling in the distance. The coyotes in the desert, singing to one another. The sound makes my mother shiver, but I like it. I wish I could throw back my head and make the same mournful cry.

I practice my mother’s hum instead. Then, I play my favorite game.

“Mamita,” I say.

“Chiquita,” she answers.

“Bonita mamita,” I say.

She smiles. “Linda chiquita,” she answers.

“Muy bonita mamita.”

“Muy linda chiquita.”

I giggle, because we are a pack, a little pack of two, and this is us, howling at each other.

“You are a silly chiquita,” she says, and I giggle again and steal a piece of queso blanco and swing my feet beneath the chair with delight.

“Dinner,” she declares, pulling out the tortillas.

The coyotes howl again. My mother crosses herself. I think I’m glad that I am hers and she is mine, forever.



* * *



    —

    THE BAD MAN COMES AFTER dinner. My mother is at the sink, washing. I stand on a stool beside her, drying.

He knocks, heavy and hard. At the sink, my mamita freezes. The shadows come back to her face, but I don’t understand.

I just know that she’s scared. And if she is scared, so am I.

“The closet,” she whispers to me.

But it’s too late. The back door bursts open. The man is there, filling the space. Our kitchen, which has always been perfect for a pack of two, is now tiny.

No place to hide.

I see his dark shadow as he lurches into the room, a giant, massive form, who appears more beast than human.