Page 59 of The Final Deal

A white barn owl with long dark hair framing its face watches us.

Chapter 22

Sin City

–Upon a Burning Body

Maybe I don’t know muchabout owls, but I do know one thing: the white barn owl with hair is none other than la lechuza—Kris Ramos-Dempster, the twins’ older sister and Shannon’s estranged wife. And while I still don’t know if the other owl I’ve been seeing has anything to do with her, I do know that her appearing in her lechuza form means nothing good because she wouldn’t drop by and watch me exchange promises of love and being together forever with her younger brothers out of the goodness of her heart.

“Do you think she’s aware when she’s in her lechuza form?” I question out loud. My fingers run through Adrian’s hair in my lap as he reads a book, and my rings glitter brilliantly with the motions. Zak tunes one of his acoustic guitars on the couch adjacent to us. “I mean, like, if she has her regular human consciousness in that form.”

“She’s always said she never remembers it, but I think she may remember bits and pieces,” Zak responds. He strums all sixstrings and lets them ring out into the great room before muting them. “But maybe she doesn’t want to remember, either.”

Silently, I twirl a lock of Adrian’s dark hair around my finger. “Is what she does as la lechuza that bad?”

“I’ve followed her a couple of times,” Adrian pipes up as he lays his open book flat across his stomach. “Honestly, it’s pretty boring most of the time: she flies around and toys with small prey animals. But there was this once where I caught her following someone. She perched on a tree outside the person’s house and stared in through the window, and occasionally she’d scratch at their door and cry. Think that person knew better than to check it out ’cause they never did until the sun was out and Kris was long gone. I asked her about that person later, and it turns out it was Tio Johnny’s side chick.”

I frown. “Rosa’s husband?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. But how would she have known that?”

Dree shrugs. “Maybe Tia told her, I dunno.”

I stop running my fingers through his hair. “I know la lechuza is a woman scorned after revenge, so it makes sense why she came after me. I don’t really know how it all works, but… Y’all don’t think that Rosa would’ve told Kris about it to get her to attack that woman, do you?”

Both the twins pause. Adrian groans, “Fuck,” the same time Zak swears, “Shit.”

Adrian turns his head on my lap and gestures at his brother. “How’d we never put that together? ’Cause as far as I know, she kept that shit hush-hush so she could wring him dry for the ranch.”

“Rosa tells Kris a lot, though.”

Dree scrubs his face and sighs heavily. “Well, that just made a lot of shit make more sense.”

Zak starts plucking guitar strings, so Adrian picks up his book and resumes reading, and I continue massaging his scalp with light scratches.

Part of me wonders if I should tell Shannon about the encounter, but a peculiar tug at the bottom of my stomach says not to—that he’s finally hit a good rhythm with being a single dad and taking care of Andrea. So why bother when she may never come back?

A lump grows in my throat. She has to—for her husband and daughter, her family, her business. Kris can’tnotcome back.

Adrian snapping his book shut startles me out of deep thought.

He yawns loudly and stretches, revealing more of the trail of dark hair that leads into his red gym shorts. “Think it’s bedtime for abuelito.” He looks up at me with the corners of his lips turned upward. “You comin’ with?”

Zak continues playing his acoustic softly.

“Do you mind, hon?”

A smile flashes across his face. “Not at all.”

“Are you sure? We can all pile into one bed.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Nah, babe. Go be with him tonight.”

“You heard him.” Dree rises from the couch and scoops me up princess style. “Vamos, Mrs. Ramos.”

I giggle with glee, hugging him tight around the neck as he takes me to his bedroom. Peeking over his shoulder, Zak smirks as we disappear into the hallway.

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