Read Online Beyond This Point Are Monsters by Margaret Millar - Free Book Online Page B

I took my real name back again. Why should I be stuck for the rest of my life with the name of a guy I hate?”
    Carla Lopez, you’ve grown so much I hardly know you. Devon remembered a plump smiling schoolgirl hardly older than Jaime, walking down the road to meet the mailman, her thigh-high skirt emphasizing the shortness of her legs. “Buenos días, Carla.” “Good morning, Mrs. Osborne . . .”
    Carla ironing the kinks out of her long black hair in the ranch-house kitchen, with Dulzura helping her—half ad­miring because she’d heard this was the latest style, half reluctant because she knew Devon would eventually come to investigate the smell of scorched hair that was pervad­ing the house. “ What on earth are you doing, you two?” Dulzura explaining that curls and waves were no longer fashionable, while the girl knelt with her hair spread across the ironing board like a bolt of black silk . . .
    Carla sitting at dusk under a tamarisk tree beside the reservoir.
    â€œWhy are you out here by yourself, Carla?”
    â€œIt’s so noisy in the Estivars’ house, everyone talking at once and the TV on. Last summer when I worked for the Bishops, everything was real quiet. Mr. Bishop used to read a lot and Mrs. Bishop took long walks for her headaches. She had very bad headaches.”
    â€œYou’d better go inside before the mosquitoes start bit­ing. Buenas noches.”
    â€œGood night, Mrs. Osborne.”
    Devon said, “Why are you here today, Carla?”
    â€œI think it was Valenzuela’s idea, he’s got it in for me.”
    â€œYou mean you were subpoenaed.”
    â€œYes, I was.”
    â€œFor what reason?”
    â€œI told you, Valenzuela’s got it in for me, for my whole family.”
    â€œValenzuela has no control over subpoenas,” Devon said. “He’s not even a policeman any more.”
    â€œSome of the muscle stayed with him. Ask anyone in Boca de Rio—he still swaggers around like he’s wearing a cop suit.” She switched the baby from her right arm to her left, patting him between the shoulder blades to soothe him. “The Estivars don’t like me either. Well, it’s mutual, one hundred percent mutual . . . I hear Rufo got married and Cruz is in the army.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt was the other one I had a crush on—Felipe. I don’t suppose anyone ever hears from him.”
    â€œI wouldn’t know.” Devon remembered the three old­est Estivar boys only as a trio. When she used to meet them individually she was never certain whether she was seeing Cruz or Rufo or Felipe. They were uniformly quiet and polite, as though their father had spelled out to them ex­actly how to behave in her presence. There were rumors, passed along to her mainly by Dulzura, that away from the ranch the Estivar brothers were a great deal livelier.
    Beneath the girl’s platinum wig a narrow strip of brown forehead glistened with sweat. “My old lady was supposed to meet me here, she promised to look after the kid when I go on the stand. Maybe she got lost. That’s the story of my life—people I count on get lost.”
    â€œI’d be glad to help if I can.”
    â€œShe’llturn up sooner or later. She probably wandered into some church and started praying. She’s a great prayer but it never does much good, least of all for me.”
    â€œWhy not for you?”
    â€œI got a jinx.”
    â€œNobody believes in jinxes any more.”
    â€œNo. But I got one just the same.” Carla glanced down at the baby, frowning. “I hope the kid don’t catch it from me. He’s gonna have enough trouble without people dying all around him, disappearing, drowning, being stabbed like Mr. Osborne.”
    â€œMr. Osborne didn’t die because of your jinx.”
    â€œWell, I feel like if it wasn’t for me he’d still be alive. And her,