Moondogs - Alexander Yates [86]
And, God, how Benicio had made him suffer for it.
Chapter 15
BRUHA
The first thing Monique heard when she woke was something in the kitchen. Amartina was in there making usual morning sounds. Running water. Opening and closing squeaky drawers. Clanging cast-iron crockery. But aside from the sounds, everything else was unusual. Monique wasn’t in her bed. She was naked on the leather couch in the den. Reynato slept on the floor just below her, a blanket coiled around his gut, covering little. Monique’s memory of the night before returned like a houseguest—the earthquake, the sex, the conversation she’d had with Amartina; telling her, very clearly, to go home. But Amartina wasn’t home, with her family, in Cavite. She was in the kitchen.
Monique slid off the couch and rushed into the master bedroom. The tremor had tipped her dresser over, trapping her clothes. The basin her jacket had been soaking in—along with everything else she’d worn to work the day before—was overturned. Spent suds covered the bathroom tile, snaked out to the bedroom, and seeped into hardwood. Monique edged along the mess, grabbed a robe from the towel rack and put it on.
Reynato was still asleep when she passed him on her way to the kitchen. She glanced back and saw that while the couch obstructed his body, his bare feet jutted out conspicuously. There was a chance Amartina hadn’t seen them, but if she’d taken even a few steps into the den she’d surely have noticed his shins, his knees, his thighs, his balls. And beyond that, she’d likely heard them the night before. Yelping in fear at the tremor. Fucking a second time on the carpet and a third back on the couch. They’d even had a midnight heart-to-heart in the kitchen, not six feet from Amartina’s closed door, about what they thought was really wrong with their respective spouses. Joseph was petrified of not being impressive. Lorna, Reynato’s wife, was scared of looking like a phony among the “real” society women. This was a disaster.
The kitchen was a disaster, too. Dishes lay broken on the floor and the cupboards had disgorged cookware onto countertops. The spice rack had fallen from its nail perch, glass jars shattering where they landed. Amartina didn’t turn when Monique entered, but she must have sensed her. She walked barefoot through the mess, smashing ruined plates into a garbage pail and slamming cupboard doors, grumbling as she did so—a performance for Monique’s benefit. So much for feeling her out.
“I told you to go home last night.”
Amartina turned and faced her. The tear streaks down her cheeks made Monique incredibly uncomfortable. “It’s all a mess.”
“What?”
Amartina looked around the kitchen. She held the garbage pail in one hand and a chipped drinking glass in the other, and shook them as though explaining to a simpleton. “Look at this,” she said, marching out of the kitchen, pail and glass still in hand.
Monique followed, repeating, “I asked you to go home” a little lamely. Amartina opened the door to Leila’s room and stepped aside so Monique could see. The flat-screen computer monitor was wedged between the desk and the wall, and the lovebird’s cage had toppled over. The miniature wrought-iron door was open and the cage was empty.
“Gone. I don’t know where.” Amartina turned, walked through the den, right past Reynato, and into Shawn’s room. Monique raced after. Her son’s room was almost as clean as usual, but the terrarium had toppled off the bed-stand and broken into a few large pieces. The