LITMIR.BIZ

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what you told me the last time I asked,” Manuel growled. “Say it one more time, and I’m calling Border Patrol. Your American Dream will disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

      Though heavyset, Carlos wasn’t very tall. At Manuel’s words, he seemed to shrink into himself. “W-what makes you think I help her, amigo?”

      “Carlos, I saw you.” Hector unfolded his lanky body from the chair where he’d been sitting several feet away, shoved a hand through his long dishwater-blond hair and moved closer. “I keep an eye on the house, you know? This morning, when I was turning into the neighborhood, I saw you talking to someone in a white Taurus.” He scowled. “Only I thought it was Juanita.”

      “Sí, it was Juanita,” Carlos insisted. “I already tell you that.”

      Manuel couldn’t help himself. He hauled off and hit Carlos so hard he could feel the gardener’s nose break beneath his fist. Carlos’s head snapped back against the wall, and he nearly fell from his chair. The blow seemed to surprise everyone, but only because it came without warning. Manuel knew his men weren’t opposed to violence—they thrived on it.

      Carlos’s arms flew up to protect himself from further blows, fear gleaming in his eyes.

      “Don’t make me do that again,” Manuel said, shaking the sting out of his fingers. “Tell me what I want to know or I swear I’ll have you deported.”

      Carlos began to sputter, “Amigo…”

      “I’ll have your mother deported, too,” Manuel added. “She’s old and sick. She doesn’t need to have Border Control knocking at her door, eh?”

      Pulling his hands away, Carlos stared down at the blood on his palms. “Señor, please…por favor. No trouble. I—I have a family.”

      “Then tell me what you know about my family!” Manuel wanted to hit him again. This man had cost him Vanessa and Dominick. He wanted to kick him until he was nothing more than a bloody blob on the floor.

      Carlos must have sensed the malevolence inside him because his trembling grew worse.

      “Whose car was Vanessa driving?” Manuel pressed. “Where did she get it?”

      When he said nothing, Manuel hit him again. Twice. He would’ve kept hitting him, except Hector finally pulled him away. “Manuel, not here. You’re not thinking.”

      He wasn’t thinking. He couldn’t think. Since he’d come home to find Vanessa and Dominick gone, and had begun to suspect the worst when they didn’t return, he could only want. He wanted Vanessa and Dominick back, and he wanted to punish this man for helping them leave.

      Richard, who was nearly as tall and skinny as Hector, but had red hair, put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Call Border Patrol instead, okay?”

      It took Manuel several seconds to regain control. He was still breathing hard when he walked around his desk and called information. “Border Patrol, please.”

      Tears streamed down Carlos’s face as Manuel took the number. When Manuel hung up, then lifted the receiver again, Carlos finally lurched to his feet. Blood streamed from his nose. His lip was cut and beginning to swell. And one eye was half-closed.

      “Wait, por favor. Listen to me. She was so unhappy. I—I had to help her.”

      “Where did she get the car, Carlos?” The menace in Manuel’s voice was a promise he intended to keep.

      Forgetting about his damaged face and the blood, the gardener rocked nervously from foot to foot. “It belonged to my mother. Vanessa, she—she no have much dinero, you know? And when she come to me, I—I feel sorry for her. So I tell my mother I will get you another car soon. We will save. We have plenty of opportunity in this country.”

      “Illegal aliens can’t register a car here, Carlos,” he said. “Who’s listed on the registration as the legal owner?”

      Tears mixed with the blood running down his face. “Mi amiga.”

      “What friend?”

      “Her name, Maria Gomez.”

      Manuel had never heard of her, but it didn’t matter. Hector might have let Vanessa slip away earlier, when he thought she was Juanita, but he’d written down the make, model and license number of the car she’d been driving. He did that with every car that visited the house.

      “What else?” Manuel demanded.

      Carlos attempted to wipe the blood from his nose. “That is all,” he said. “I give her my mother’s car. No more.”

      Hector pulled the bandanna he wore almost everywhere off his head and mopped his own face with it. “What do we do now?”

      Manuel glared at Carlos, wondering whether he needed to have Hector or Richard kill him. He deserved to die, but it was never easy to get rid of a body. And for a man like Carlos, deportation would hurt badly enough. “We call the police.”

      “What?” Richard cried.

      “I thought you didn’t want to involve the police,” Hector said, obviously just as spooked.

      Richard and Hector had spent most of the past decade avoiding the law. But the police could be a powerful tool, if used in the right way.

      “I don’t,” Manuel said. “We won’t have anything to do with the call. At least not directly. Carlos and his friend Maria will simply report the Taurus as being stolen.” He smiled. “Then the police will start looking for it, too.”

      

      ACCORDING TO THE MAP, Fallon served as the agricultural center of Nevada. But it was too dark to make out the surrounding farmland. As she came into town, Emma saw a string of restaurants and stores that were far more modern than any she’d noticed in Nevada since Carson City—a Jack in the Box, a Dairy Queen, even a Wal-Mart. A few budget motels sat right off the highway, but she didn’t want to stay in those. She was hoping to find a little hideaway where she wouldn’t have to worry that someone driving past might spot her car. She had no way of knowing if Officer Daniels had later realized that she was someone he should’ve detained.

      Doubling back when she reached the end of town, she turned left at a sign that said Yerington to see what might be off the main drag. But Fallon didn’t seem to be nearly as deep as it was long. Almost immediately, she left the city behind and started into the country. The inky-black sky looked like crushed velvet overhead, and the smell of livestock and green growing things drifted through her closed vents.

      It wasn’t a bad turn to have taken, though. About a mile from the highway, she found exactly what she’d been hoping for—a small, low-profile motel. A sign in front read Cozy Comfort Bungalows and the word Vacancy glowed red in the bottom right corner.

      Weak with gratitude and eager for a short reprieve, Emma wondered if a motel like this was ever full. Fortunately for her, she didn’t think so.

      She pulled into the gravel lot outside the long, narrow series of attached rooms, which weren’t bungalows at all but your basic budget motel, and parked as close to the office as she could. Then she contemplated whether or not to carry Max in with her while she registered. He was getting so heavy.

      After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to lock the doors and watch the car instead.

      The office was closed tight, but a porch light illuminated the space around the door. A sign above a buzzer on the wall read After Hours Ring Here.

      Emma pressed the buzzer several times during the next five minutes and heard it go off, but didn’t manage to rouse anyone.

      Thank goodness she wasn’t trying to hold her sleeping fifty-pound son.

      “Is anyone home?” she called, opening the screen door to knock on the wood panel behind it.

      A brown minivan pulled into the lot. At first Emma felt relieved that

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