Marcus ran up the stairs, noting June on the couch with the bunny, and found a window on the side of the house where the door was. He could see the security gate below. There was a police car parked outside the gate, and two uniformed policemen stood waiting. Marcus’s heart leaped. The policemen would ask to come in and search the house. Maybe they would even force their way past Raúl.
But then Raúl came into view, walking down the driveway, all swagger, the dog prancing at his side. He reached the gate and leaned against it, and the three men talked for a while. The policemen weren’t yelling. It looked like a friendly conversation. Raúl handed something to the policemen, through the gate. They both tucked whatever it was away, and talked a little longer, and shook Raúl’s hand. Then they turned to go.
“No!” Marcus cried. He pounded his fists on the window.
The policemen glanced up at the house. So did Raúl.
Marcus couldn’t tell if they could see him, but he kept pounding. “We’re here!” he shouted, and he waved his arms.
The policemen turned and walked toward their car.
Marcus felt an arm come around his middle and pull him away from the window. “Cut it out,” George said.
“You can’t keep us here!” Marcus shouted, thrashing. “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!”
“Stop it,” George said. He spun him around and held his shoulders hard. “Listen to me.”
“Why did the policemen go away?” Marcus screamed, still struggling. “Why didn’t they come inside?”
“Because we can’t let them,” George said.
“Because Raúl gave them money,” Isabel said.
Marcus hadn’t noticed Isabel, he’d been so focused on the scene outside. She stood by the window, in the white T-shirt and red shorts, her arms hanging at her sides and her hair stringy and long. She looked like a messenger of doom, like a girl in a horror movie poster that Marcus would have to look away from because it was too scary. But she was still so beautiful.
“I’m going to get you out of here, I promise,” George said. “You just have to trust me and stay out of Raúl’s way, okay?”
“I don’t trust you!” Marcus said.
“I don’t either,” Isabel said. “Raúl’s your brother.”
“Just give me a little more time,” George said. “Try to stay out of his way. And stay together, okay?”
They heard the door open downstairs, and George let Marcus go and stepped away from him. They heard Sancho’s toenails clicking on the wood, then Raúl’s booted heels climbing the stairs. He came into the room and held his arms out wide, grinning.
“Who wants to see Sancho do tricks?” he cried.
17.
LIV WAS HOARSE from pleading and crying, and her digestion was shot. Every time she ate something, it went right through her. Her body was on strike; it didn’t want to keep functioning. But she needed it to, if she was going to get her children back. She had tried meditating, in desperation. If she could just clear her mind, focus on her breathing, even for five minutes, she might feel less crazy. But it turned out there were limits to meditation, or else she was just doing it wrong. When she closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing but breathing, she saw Sebastian in a coma, or Penny in her swimsuit with a man’s hand around her arm.
She had thought it impossible that six kids could just disappear in a modern country, in the alleged Switzerland of Latin America. But now that she had seen the capital, with its heat and dust, the gaping holes in the streets and sidewalks, she had started to believe it could be true. A relentless, hot wind blew grit up from the streets. The press had found them in their new hotel in the capital and bayed at them when they left for the embassy in the morning.
There wasn’t even a U.S. ambassador, and hadn’t been one for over a year, because the Senate wouldn’t approve the president’s nominee. Liv hadn’t known there was a backlog of nominees. Kenji Kirby, the young diplomat Benjamin and Raymond had met the day before, assured her he was there for them, for anything they needed. They were the first priority for the embassy.
Kenji also explained that there was still a kind of feudalism here. There were criminal families that controlled the activity in their own regions or neighborhoods. One of those families had probably killed the Colombian drug mule the police had found in the grave, and so knew something about the children.
“So we just need to know who Bola?os worked for,” Liv said.
“Those guys don’t keep records,” Kenji said.
“But presumably it’s whatever family controls that region,” Benjamin said. “Where the kids disappeared.”
Kenji said there were multiple possibilities not far from the site. “We’ve mobilized a team,” he said. “We’re short-staffed at Christmas, but I assure you we’re working on it.”
Liv leaned forward, over the desk. “I’m sorry about people’s vacations,” she said. “But this is the third day they’ve been missing. Every minute, something terrible might be happening to my children. Do you understand that? You understand how I can’t think about anything else?”
“I do,” he said.
“What about asking in the local towns? People must know something.”
Kenji shook his head, regret on his face. He was so young. She pictured him out in the clubs at night, dancing and sweating, kissing—boys? Probably boys. “It’s very hard to get people to talk,” he said.
“About children?” she said. “There must be someone with a conscience who would talk to the police. A woman. A mother.”
“Many of the police take bribes,” Kenji said.
“So bribe them better!”
Benjamin said, “Liv. He’s been very helpful.”
She whirled on her husband. “Don’t be the peacemaker. Don’t act like I’m the crazy one.”
“I’m not,” he said, holding his hands up.
“I just don’t understand,” she said to Kenji. “I don’t understand what your job is, if it isn’t helping us. I want to talk to this team you’ve mobilized.”
“They’re in the field,” he said.
“What field? Where? Let us talk to them! Is it just the lesbian detective? Is she the team?”
Kenji raised his eyebrows in reproach.
“We need to offer a reward,” she said. “For information.”
“You can do that,” he said. “But you’ll get flooded with tips.”
“Good!” she said. “I want to be flooded with tips! Why hasn’t there been a demand for ransom? Doesn’t that happen all the time down here? Isn’t it just ransom city here?”
“This is a different kind of kidnapping.”
“How do you know that?”
He pressed his lips together. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the police do have leads. And a flood of tips can drown out useful information.”
Her heart stopped, then started again. “What leads?”
“I can’t jeopardize the investigation.”
“Just tell me if the leads say they’re okay,” Liv said. “Just tell me that, please.”
Kenji nodded imperceptibly.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Tell me what the leads are!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Why are we not in the loop on this? What the fuck? Why do you know when we don’t?”
She felt the collected, competent person she had always been starting to dissolve. Why was she swearing at Kenji? The observing part of her brain wondered if this was a psychotic break. But if the observing part still functioned, could it be a psychotic break? She thought she might just collapse in his office, like those toy figures that buckled when you pressed the button at the base.
“Honey,” Benjamin said. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t fucking touch me!” He was still trying to play the reasonable, calm man, and she hated him for it.
“I’m sorry,” Benjamin said to Kenji.
“Don’t apologize to him! He is not our friend!”
“Liv. This isn’t helping.”
“Nothing is helping! No one is helping!”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Benjamin steered her out of the office as she started to hyperventilate. She caught Kenji’s concerned gaze as Benjamin closed the door. His concerned, sad, compassionate face. She wanted to tear it off.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she whispered, when she could breathe.
Benjamin put his arms around her. “We’ll find them,” he said. “I promise you, we’ll find them.”
18.