Cake House (eBook)

I met Claude and Alex the day my father died.

The stranger whose name was Claude held my mother by her arms while she screamed. He stood with blood splattered across his face and over his clothing, and she slid through his hands like a child who didn't want to go to bed, didn't want to take her medicine.

My father lay twisted, a gun at his feet. One side of his head spilled red onto the sodden carpet, his blood spreading inch by inch in a widening circle. I fell to my knees and crawled towards him.

Claude shouted, 'Get her out of here,' and a pair of hands grabbed my waist and hauled me from the room, dragging me to the other end of the house where sliding glass doors led to a garden with the silhouette of a fountain. I screamed, screamed until I started choking. Someone shook me, hard: the tall teenager with pale hair, paler than I had ever seen. In my neighborhood he would have been called gerito for that hair.

I'd only just met him. He was Claude's son, and was instructed to wait with me by the car when my mother had gone inside with Claude to talk. He had been silent and moody. Unnerved, I leaned against my mother's car, staring at the house until my father's car tore up the hill, coming to jerky stop inches from the old Honda that my mother drove.

I tried to grab his arm, but he pushed me aside, banging on the front door until it opened enough for him to shove his way in. When I tried to follow, the boy caught me and wouldn't let go, not until the gunshot rang out.

Now, he held me again, my back against his chest, his breath in my ear, chanting over and over again. 'I swear I didn't know he would do that,' he said. 'I swear it. I didn't know.'

'Alex,' Claude yelled. 'Get over here.'

The boy turned but still held me close. His voice vibrated against my back. 'I don't think I should leave her.'

Alex. His name was Alex, and something concrete to hold on to. I concentrated on the beating of his heart. In the distance, sirens wailed.

Claude scrambled into my view, blood sprayed across half his face like a bad sunburn. 'The police are going to be here any second. I need your help,' he said to Alex. 'How is she?'

I started to scream again. Claude covered his ears until Alex clamped his hand over my mouth and sat me down on the couch. The sirens hurtled closer.

'Dahlia,' called Claude.

My mother stepped into view. She had wrapped a blanket over her shoulders to hide the blood staining her left sleeve and down the front of her ruffled sundress. Her hair, usually sprayed into buoyant waves, hung limp. She tried to light a cigarette but her hand shook. Claude lit one for her.

'Rosaura,' she said, her voice raspy. She wiped at the blood on her cheek, leaving a smudge of orange rust. 'Some men are coming here to talk to us, about what happened.'

'What happened,' I repeated. My throat hurt from screaming.

'Yes. They shouldn't need to speak with you. But if they do--'

'What happened?'

She blinked. The sirens blared, and Claude said there was no time. My mother squeezed my face between her two hands, the cigarette hot near my cheek. 'Listen to me.'

'He did it,' I said. 'He did it.'

My mother shook her head. 'There's no time for this. Do you hear me? If the police talk to you, you have to tell them you don't know anything.'

I scrunched my eyes closed, tried to push her away. The sirens died. There was a knock on the door and loud voices.

'Promise me.' She grabbed my shoulders, shook me hard. 'Say it. You don't know what happened. You didn't see. Rosaura, you do as I say, tell them you don't know...