Ashes Learned Human Names novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Quiet Money
Marta Sandoval stood at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed and her chin up.
"Tell me why my niece is wearing a stranger's emerald," she said.
"It's an engagement," Rafael said. "Lucia agreed to it yesterday."
"Yesterday she was in a coma."
"It was this morning," Lucia said. "Tía, I said yes. I was awake."
Marta looked at her for a long moment.
Then she looked at Rafael's rolled sleeves, his gray face, and the chair he had slept sitting up in.
"You're the grandson who pays for this wing," she said. "Does your family know you're engaged to a girl they've been calling a monster on the internet?"
"They will," Rafael said.
"That's not an answer."
"No," he agreed. "It isn't."
Marta's mouth thinned.
She took the white envelope off the blanket and weighed it in her hand.
"Eight thousand dollars," she said. "A woman with red lipstick and a gold bracelet stood on the curb and said I'd never have to wash another sheet. She said to take you home and say nothing, and it would all go away."
"What did you say?" Lucia asked.
"I said I'd hand it to the first person who looked like they'd lose sleep over it."
She set the envelope on Lucia's knee.
"I washed bed linens for twenty years in a hospital, mija. I know what quiet money smells like."
Lucia smiled, and the burned skin pulled.
"Tía, don't give it to me," she said. "Give it to the police."
"The police?"
"There's a detective on this floor," Lucia said. "Rafael, please."
He was already at the door.
The detective in the gray blazer arrived in five minutes, and the doctor came with her.
She turned the envelope over with a gloved hand and looked at the paper band around the bills.
"A teller's stamp," she said. "Rio Grande Savings, the Westheimer branch. Initials and a date."
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