The detective nodded and made a note.
“I’m not defending the decision to go to that particular beach,” Nora said. “That was a terrible, terrible decision. But I just mean he didn’t do anything to the kids.”
She remembered Pedro wiping his hand on the soft flat leaf, and wondered if the forensics team would find that smear of evidence. Would Pedro admit to what they’d done, in order to explain his absence from the beach, the length of time? She thought of Raymond finding out. Her neck grew hot with shame.
Detective Rivera didn’t seem to notice. “The other mothers,” she said, “what were they doing?”
“They fell asleep,” Nora said bitterly.
“Both of them?”
“I know,” Nora said. “They woke up and the kids were gone. Liv said she would watch them.”
“And you believe they fell asleep?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because I know them. Liv is my cousin.”
“And the woman from Argentina?”
“We just met on the ship. But she didn’t do anything to the kids.”
“So you have known her one week.”
“Almost,” Nora said. “Well, yes. A week.”
“Almost one week,” the detective said, making a note on the pad. “And were you drinking?”
Nora took a breath. “There was a slushy rum drink,” she said. “Daiquiris. Not very strong, just a lot of sugar. We had one drink each.”
“Who provided this drink?”
“Pedro,” Nora said, with an odd chill, as if she were drinking the icy liquid now, as if it were sliding down her esophagus. “He said they usually serve it at the end of the day.”
“Could it have been drugged?”
“No!” Nora said. She thought of date-rape drugs. Could that excuse her actions? But no, those knocked you out. And she had been fully conscious—more than conscious. Hyper-alert and vibrating. “I mean, sure, test the thermoses. But I had some, and I didn’t fall asleep. And Liv wasn’t asleep for that long. It was just hot out.”
“I’m only asking questions,” the detective said. “We are making no judgments at this time.”
“This is madness,” Nora said. “You could be looking for them right now! This country isn’t even that big! They’re out there!” She had a sudden image of Junie in the emergency room after dislocating her elbow on the monkey bars, being very brave but sobbing quietly, and she was plunged back into the pain. There was a physical ache in her chest.
“I promise you we are doing everything we can,” the detective said.
“I need my kids,” she moaned.
Detective Rivera watched her and made another note.
9.
AT THE TOP of the mountain, lost in the trees, Penny saw a house of bright, varnished wood, with a deck all the way around, looking over the forest. She remembered her parents talking about Switzerland, and this looked like Switzerland in books. Like Heidi lived here. The tank-top woman drove the Jeep through a security gate and up a road, and parked below the house. Sebastian had fallen asleep, his shirtless body sweaty against Penny’s arm, and she jostled him awake. He moaned.
She unbuckled their seatbelt and helped him out. He had a red mark on his pale skin where the seatbelt had been. Marcus helped June. Isabel was trembling, hugging herself in her yellow bikini.
The man with the white horse swung off the saddle and unlocked a door in the lower level of the house. “Welcome,” he said, standing back from the open door.
“I have to poop!” June said, and she ran inside.
Penny started to follow her, but Isabel reached for her arm. “Don’t,” she said.
“We have to,” Penny said. “She can’t go alone. She’s six.” Isabel was being so annoyingly chicken. Penny stepped into the house, and found herself in a large windowless room, a kind of entryway, with two doors off it to the left.
“June?” she called.
“I’m in here!”
Penny walked through one of the doors into a tidy bedroom, and then into a clean white-tiled bathroom. June had her swimsuit down and was folded in half on the toilet, legs dangling, with her chest on her thighs and an intense, staring look in her eye.
“You good?” Penny asked.
June nodded.
The woman from the Jeep led the rest of them—even reluctant Isabel—upstairs. The house was beautiful. Sunlight flooded in through enormous windows, and filtered through green trees. They could see a dappled valley far below. There were stables outside, and a big lawn.
The floors were polished wood, and a big sunken living room had low red couches, with a thick white rug between them. These people probably didn’t have kids, if they had a white plush rug. Penny longed to stretch out on it and take a nap. But first she had to take care of Sebastian. And call their parents.
The kitchen was open and bright, with a big island in the middle. Penny’s mother would like it. The man with the white horse spoke to a woman with a plump, nice face, who began to take food out of the refrigerator.
Then he said, in English, “I call the doctor for your brother.”
“Can we call our parents?” Penny asked.
“After the doctor. It is important.”
“My parents will be worried.”
“Of course. So we take care of your brother.”
“We’re Americans,” Penny said.
The man smiled his handsome smile. “Yes, I know this.”
The woman was slicing papaya with her knife: nick, nick, nick, against the wooden cutting board.
“When will the doctor come?” Penny asked.
“Soon,” the man said.
The woman set out a platter on the table: sliced papaya, mango, and banana, with white rectangles of cheese, like a fruit plate in a hotel.
“Please, eat,” the man said.
“We have to wash our hands,” Penny said.
He gestured to the sink.
Penny helped Sebastian wash his. Then she watched as he took fruit and cheese. Cheese was okay. Fruit was good if his blood sugar was low. But he’d already had the Coke. They needed to get back to his pump. The mango was soft and ripe and sweet. June came upstairs, her swimsuit straps twisted. Penny asked if she’d washed her hands.
“Of course,” June said, indignant, reaching for a piece of papaya, and sitting beside Marcus in the same kitchen chair. He moved over for her.
Only Isabel refused to eat, hugging herself in her swimsuit.
An older man came into the room. He was tall, with white hair and bushy eyebrows, in a button-down shirt.
“Hola, Papi,” the man with the white horse said. Penny could tell he was trying to act casual.
The old man watched in silence as they ate, then shook his head and went upstairs to the third floor.
By the time the doctor came, Sebastian was like a rag doll, slumped on one of the low red couches in the big living room with all the windows. The doctor was a woman, and she seemed nervous. She had a bony face and her hair in a bun at the back of her neck. Penny answered her questions about the lost insulin pump.
“This thing, I don’t have,” the doctor said.
But she had a finger-stick monitor, and she helped Sebastian do a test. Then she read some instructions off her phone and asked Penny how much her brother weighed.
“Forty-five pounds?” Penny said.
“Forty-seven,” Sebastian mumbled, without moving, still collapsed on the couch.
The doctor entered some numbers on the calculator on her phone. Then she peered at the finger-stick monitor.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Penny asked.
“I am not endocrinólogo,” the doctor said. She filled a needle from a glass vial and tapped it, then gave Sebastian an injection. Penny kept her arm around her brother, but he didn’t flinch with the pain.
The doctor took out Sebastian’s port so it wouldn’t get infected.
“But aren’t we going back to our parents?” Penny asked. “They have the pump.”