Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [119]
Diana shook her head. “I forgot,” she said, climbing out of the car.
“Forgot what?” Brandon asked.
“How you are when you’re on a case. Totally focused. And immune to sleep.”
“I sleep,” he said.
“Not as much as I do,” she told him. “And not as much as you should.” She reached up and kissed him as she went past. “Good night.”
Brandon fed Damsel and used playing ball with her as an excuse to check out the yard and the exterior of the house. Finally, reassured nothing was amiss, he went into his office. Earlier, when his printer had been acting up, Brandon had only taken time to scrape the scattered papers into a pile. Now, sitting down to sort them, he discovered there was a rudimentary order to them. He laid them out like a game of bridge, matching faxes and page numbers rather than suits of cards.
Once he had the material organized, he grabbed a highlighter and started to read, all the while keeping his ear cocked for the sound of the Buick’s big tires crunching the graveled driveway.
Twenty-Five
The woman dropped her own cradle blanket and ran to the nuhkuth from which the baby’s voice had come. She took the cradle in her arms, but her arms held only some dry brown leaves that were swinging from a spider’s thread.
Then the woman heard another baby cry. This cry came from among some low bushes, but when she reached the place, there were only more dry leaves. The leaves were curled into tiny cradles, but the cradles were all empty.
The woman stood, puzzled. From left and right and all around, she heard the cries of little babies, but when she looked she found only more dead leaves. And the leaves were thick under her feet. The noise of the dead leaves was almost as loud as the cries of the babies.
The woman put her hands over her face.
The last group of diners had been herded through the feast house before the cooks and servers finally sat down to eat. There weren’t enough tamales or tortillas to go around, but by then they were all too tired to eat very much anyway. Then they tackled the cleanup.
Once the big pots and pans had been washed and dried, Leo and Baby loaded them into the back of a pickup truck. When they had finished loading, Leo popped his head back in the door and saw Delia sitting with her feet up. “Do you want to ride home with us?” he asked.
Wanda cut him off. “Leave Delia here,” she ordered. “You two have all that stuff to unload. I’ll drop Delia off on the way. She’ll be home sooner if I take her.”
“Is that all right with you, Delia?” Leo asked.
Delia nodded. “Whatever gets me home and in bed the fastest is what I want to do.”
Leo and Baby left a few minutes later as the women began the final wiping down of tables and sinks and sweeping the floor. Delia was half asleep when a sudden gush of water brought her fully awake. She was astounded to find herself sitting in the middle of a growing puddle.
“Your water!” Wanda exclaimed. “It broke. The baby’s coming.”
Delia heard only that much before her body was doubled over by a powerful spasm. It started at her rib cage, front and back, and then rolled down and through her body like a marauding truck, leaving her gasping for breath and clinging to the bench with both hands to keep from falling.
The next face Delia saw was Lani’s, right in front of hers, barely inches away. Lani’s mouth was moving, but at first Delia heard nothing. Finally a few of the words came through. Something about “hospital.” And something about “walk.” And then the contraction ended.
“I’m all right now,” Delia said. “I can walk.” She tried to stand, with her clothes dripping around her. As soon as she did, another contraction hit. She dropped back down on the bench as though her legs had been lopped from under her.
When Delia came around again, Lani’s face was once more in front of hers. “…car…” she was saying urgently. Then, with Lani Walker at one elbow and Christine at the other, Delia felt herself being lifted off the bench and propelled out of the feast house. Just outside