Where Winter Finds You

Death had taken one of his own, and for a long time, he had been terrified that he was to blame. That somehow, because of the nature of his work, he had made a lightning rod out of his family, and God was getting him back for trying to assume a role no human should ever court.

His faith had seen him through, however. His belief that there was a kind and benevolent fountainhead from whom all things flowed had helped him to absolve himself of the guilt fostered by the first, most irrational phases of his grief.

The loss did not get easier to bear with time. When he thought of his youngest daughter, he hurt just as much as he did the moment Fernando had opened his mouth and shared the sad news that Raul had already guessed at. It was just that he thought of other things, too, now.

Such as BMWs.

He had his back to the direction he wanted to go in, his body leaning against the wind, his ungloved hands crammed into the pockets of his wool coat, when the most beautiful M850i xDrive coupe he had ever seen pulled up to the stoplight on Tenth.

It was a relief to distract his mind and emotions away from his lost daughter, for he knew that when he gave his Ivelisse the cross tonight—he was not going to wait until Christmas morning because, if there was anything Alondra’s death had taught him, and what he did for work underscored, it was that mortals should not wait for important things—there were going to be many tears and much bittersweet longing for their daughter. So he needed to shore his strength up. Plus it was going to be hard to drive home in the snowy dark if his eyes were all swollen from crying in the cold.

The BMW was a benediction to him, a convenient derailment just when he needed one. And the reason it worked so well was because it was not just a luxurious sports coupe. It was his dream car. It was the luxury sports coupe. Sleek and refined, with a powerful motor and comfortable seats, he had even sat in one once at a dealership last year. With a starting price of $111,900, it was out of his financial reach—and it was going to stay that way. Funny how age changed things. When you were in your late teens and looking through Road & Track, you could believe that the cars that were too expensive for your wallet were a temporary disappointment, something that your advancing years, and the schooling you were focused on, and the plans you were making, were going to take care of, the impossible becoming an inevitable through hard work and focus.

That avaricious optimism was nowhere to be found when you were just over the lip edge of fifty, and you had two kids in graduate school, a mortgage to finish paying off, and a wife who you liked to take care of as she deserved. The impossible stayed impossible. Maybe, if they hadn’t had kids, he could have considered buying a used one. But he wouldn’t trade any of his three blessings, even with the pain from the one he had lost, for the likes of a car.

Although what a car it was. The owner behind the wheel had chosen the carbon black metallic paint, and the twenty-inch M V-spoke jet-black wheels. It was hard to see inside to determine the trim choices, but Raul was willing to bet the man had customized as much of it as he could, which, according to the BMW website, would extend build time a good six to eight weeks.

Raul knew all this because he had spec’d one out for himself online just a couple of months ago. In his case, it was merely a dream he could tinker with, a fantasy that he could almost touch as he worked his mouse around and clicked on things that added thousands of dollars to that already stratospheric purchase price. That was not the case for the man behind this wheel. Whoever he was, he had had the cash to pay for the car, and Raul felt a stab of envy—as well as some curiosity about who had cut such a check.

Leaning forward a little, he squinted. From what he could see of the driver, Raul’s dream car was a reality for an incredibly handsome African American man of about thirty. The guy had a perfectly balanced face, with a strong chin, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. His fade was perfect, the bottom completely shaved, the top allowed to grow out only so far as it blackened his skull. There wasn’t much to see of his clothes, but he wasn’t wearing a jacket or a coat. He had just a shirt on, one that seemed to fall as if it were silk, and a cuff link flashed in the streetlights.

He could have been an athlete, but he seemed like a businessman. Who knew his true profession, and really, did it matter? Whatever the job or wherever the money had come from, there was obviously enough of it to afford the BMW and so much more.

Too bad the man did not look happy at all.

Raul could only shake his head. Rich people. They never appreciated what they had, and that was one definition of Hell, wasn’t it: to be seated at a table stacked with food, yet starving no matter how much you ate—

Without warning, the oddest thing happened, and Raul narrowed his eyes further, taking careful note, for it was the kind of thing he was going to want to tell Ivelisse about as soon as he got home: Between one blink and the next, the interior of the car became suffused by a peridot-green glow.

At first, Raul assumed it was from a cell phone screen, something that the driver, in his frustration at having even three minutes of forward progress halted by a red light, had created by checking his email. Except no, there was no phone. No iPad. No laptop. Perhaps it was a reflection of green-means-go as the traffic light changed—no, there had been no change up there. Confused, Raul considered the possibility he was seeing things.

Which was when he noticed the figure standing directly in front of the BMW.

The lashing snow was moving around what appeared to be a man, judging by the size of the torso, the flight paths of flakes reoriented by the three dimensions of height, weight, and, at least in theory, mortality. The problem was… Raul could see through the figure to the buildings across the street. Everything was visible, from the corner of the intersection, to the lobby doors of the bank, to the clutch of pedestrians who were approaching the crosswalk.

Raul rubbed his eyes, although it did nothing to change what seemed to be before him, and that was when the tires of the BMW began to spin. As the light finally turned green, all four low-profile tires abruptly lost purchase, and not just in a fishtail, get-off-the-mark-in-a-sloppy-way fashion, but as in going-nowhere-at-all. Which made no sense because the M850i had the xDrive. All-wheel traction.

The powerful engine revved. And revved again.

Inside, behind the wheel, Raul could see the driver grip the steering wheel harder and tilt into the windshield as if, in his mind, he was willing the powerful car to propel forward.

And still the tires spun and the ghostly apparition blocked the way.

“ ’Scuse me, buddy,” someone said to him.

In a reflex born of being a city dweller all of his life, Raul stepped aside without looking, assuming he had room to spare on the shoveled sidewalk. He did not. His foot landed on the edge of a snow-slicked curb, and his body lurched off balance—

Just as a semitrailer truck that was trying to stop at the red light in its lane lost control and plowed through the intersection, scattering the pedestrians who had started to cross, barreling past the BMW that was stuck, and coming right for Raul.

As his eyes swung around, he looked directly into the oncoming grille and knew, without a shadow of doubt, that he was going to die. His body was going to be impacted at a sufficient speed to do extensive internal damage, and given the forward list of his trajectory, his skull was going to be cracked wide-open.

Even though there was no hope, he whipped his hands out of the pockets of his coat, the cross in its box coming with his hand and flying free, his efforts to save himself too little, too late.