Tommy Nightmare(41)

Then a young man would slowly approach her, tall and handsome, with dark, shaggy hair, and deep brown eyes that were identical to her own. He had a dazzling smile. He would touch each corpse as he passed it. At his touch, the corpse would sit up on the mortuary table and turn to look at Esmeralda.

Esmeralda cranked up the volume on her headphones and tried not to think about those dreams.

By six o'clock, Esmeralda had Mr. Ortiz looking as if he were in perfect health, just taking a siesta on a warm summer afternoon, instead of the gaunt and pale look with which he'd arrived. She hoped the family would be pleased.

Esmeralda stripped off her gloves. Mr. Ortiz was now dressed and styled for his family, and Jorge and Luis would move him into his casket for the viewing.

She straightened up the embalming room, washed her hands and rubbed them with sanitizer. She removed her smock, said goodnight to the elder of the two Mr. Garcias, and stepped outside.

Garcia y Garcia Funeral Home had operated in eastern Los Angeles for more than twenty years. Esmeralda had graduated high school two years earlier, and now she was two classes away from her Associate of Applied Science in Funeral Service degree. Technically, she was an intern at Garcia y Garcia, but since neither of the Garcia brothers really cared to do much embalming anymore, and both were impressed with how well Esmeralda prepared the bodies, she often found herself working alone.

As she walked into the parking lot, she noticed a man in dark sunglasses watching her. He sat on a motorcycle with a huge engine and some kind of gargoyle design on the side. She didn’t recognize him. He was Caucasian instead of Latino, which made him stick out in this neighborhood, where none of the signs were written in English. Strange scars dotted his face, and his hands were sheathed in black leather gloves.

He smiled at her, which made her uncomfortable. She turned her head away from him to watch the road. She would have liked to turn her back on him entirely, but that seemed a little dangerous. Esmeralda stared at the passing traffic and watched him from the corner of her eye while she waited.

She thought about going back inside, but she didn’t want to get stuck explaining how she was scared of a man in the parking lot, who was probably just an early arrival for the Ortiz viewing.

Hurry up, Esmeralda thought, watching the cars pass.

“Hi,” the man spoke behind her. She ignored him, as if she believed he was speaking to someone else. “Esmeralda,” he said.

She tensed. She turned back to give him her best “crawl away and die” look.

“I don’t know you,” she said.

“Are you sure?” The man slid off his bike. As he walked toward her, he removed his sunglasses.

When she saw his gray eyes, she heard herself draw in a sharp breath, and then she completely turned her back on him. She didn’t know what her face looked like right now, but it would be full of emotions she didn’t want him to see.

“You are Esmeralda, aren’t you?” He was walking towards her. “You have to be. You’re as beautiful as I remember.”

Esmeralda wanted to roll her eyes at him, but she would have to turn and face him to do that. And then he might see how she really felt, or how her knees had gone loose and wobbly.

“Don’t you recognize me?” he asked. He was standing just behind her now.

“Yes,” she said. She got her face under control—cool, distant—and finally turned to look at him. She flicked her eyes up and down him, trying to appear indifferent, but her heart was skipping. She didn’t even mind the weird dotting of scars on his face. “You are the devil.”

He laughed, and she liked his smile.

“Your mother said I was a fraud,” Esmeralda said.

“Foster mother,” he said. “And who cares what she thinks?”

“She was very insulting. And my mother was angry.”

“I bet your mother didn’t care once you gave her the money,” he said.

“I did not give her the money,” Esmeralda said.

He gave her a surprised look, then laughed again. “You are sneaky. That’s how I’ve always imagined you. Clever and sneaky.”

“I didn’t do it so I could keep the money.”

“Sure. You gave it all to starving orphan puppies.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Esmeralda said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

His gray eyes looked into hers. He was only inches from her now. Her heart gave a flutter.

“I’ve thought about you,” he said. “Over the years.”

“Have you?” Esmeralda asked. Of course, she’d thought about him, too. He was the first boy who had kissed her, and there had been something in his kiss, electric and powerful, that she had never again felt. Mentally, she scolded herself for feeling anything at all about him—it had only been one moment, very long ago.