“You do nothing but give me reasons!”
Maria was panting with nausea. She thought that George should not speak to his brother that way, not when Raúl had a gun in his hand. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She put a hand there to muffle the sound, but George heard it and crouched beside her.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Give me the phone.”
Maria stared at him, paralyzed.
“Give it to me!”
She handed it over, but not before seeing Oscar’s name on the screen. George accepted the call and put it to his ear. “Hello, Oscar,” he said calmly. “I’m here with your mother. Where are the kids?”
Maria waited.
“You sure?” George said, eyes on Maria. “You have no idea?”
Dark blood was pooling on the stone floor around Consuelo’s head.
“You’re a bad liar,” George said. “You will return the children to me now, do you understand?”
Maria could hear Oscar’s tinny voice, pretending ignorance.
“Don’t fuck with me, Oscar,” George said, and his voice was all threat.
She heard Oscar say he didn’t know anything, and then he must have hung up. Maria prayed that he wouldn’t be lured back here by worry for her. She’d had her life. She couldn’t bear to lose her son.
George stared at her with wonder. “So you took the children.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I was trying to help them,” he said. “And now this woman is dead, because of your stupid plan, because of your lies. Is that what you wanted?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Where is Oscar taking the children?”
“He doesn’t have them.”
Raúl shouted, “We’ve always been good to you! And this is how you repay us? We even paid for the funeral for your slut daughter!”
Maria started to weep. But Raúl didn’t shoot her. He stomped upstairs.
George reached out and flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. He flipped it again. She watched him, holding her breath, and she saw him understand. “You turned the power off,” he said.
“It went out. It goes out.”
“You turned it off,” he said, amazed.
She said nothing.
“For the gate!” he said. “And that’s how Consuelo got in.” George laughed, and leaned back against the wall, and the laugh became a groan. “Tell me what you did, Maria. I want to help the children. As much as you do. Just tell me what you did.”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“You can’t do this alone,” he said. “You need my help. You couldn’t save Ofelia alone.”
Her breath caught at the pain and truth of that.
George crouched beside her in his pajamas and looked at her with the frustrated, thwarted brown eyes she had known since he was a child, as he watched his brother get away with everything. “Maria,” he said. “Tell me. You can tell me. Raúl isn’t here.”
“Oscar is taking them to the embassy,” she whispered.
He nodded, and put a hand on her shoulder. It was warm. “Good,” he said. “That’s good. That’s what I was going to do, in the morning. Does he have a good car?”
“No,” she said. “His uncle’s Impala. I’m worried it won’t run. Don’t tell Raúl.”
George nodded and squeezed her shoulder.
Raúl came back downstairs with a shirt on, boot heels striking the stairs. “I’m going to find them.”
George stood, stretching his knees. “Oscar’s driving them to the embassy.”
“No!” Maria cried.
“Oscar?” Raúl said.
“In an old Impala,” George said.
Maria stared up at him. The good brother.
George pointed his finger at her. “That’s for fucking with me, Maria,” he said. He had a strange look in his eye, one she had never seen before.
Raúl stepped over Consuelo’s body in the doorway and staggered out into the night. There was the sound of the Jeep engine starting up.
Maria had always thought George was better and nobler than his brother. But it turned out he was worse. There was something missing in Raúl. He felt nothing, he couldn’t even help it. But George knew he had just cleaved her heart in two.
“The children,” she said. “My son.”
“They have a long head start,” George said. “They’ll be fine.”
“Please stop your brother,” she said. “Please.”
“Raúl’s drunk. He’ll roll over in a ditch.”
“I thought you wanted to help the children,” she said.
“I did!” he shouted, right in her face, a fleck of spit in the corner of his mouth. “But you fucked that up for me, didn’t you? I was going to turn him in, with the children!”
“You still can!” she said. “Go after him!”
He seemed to think about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s fucking crazy. I’m getting out of here, before he comes back.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned.
George stopped pacing and studied Consuelo’s bleeding body draped over the threshold. He asked, “Do we have a tarp?”
29.
MARCUS SAT BEHIND Oscar in the red car. It was not a very big car. They were four in the back, with Isabel squished next to Marcus, which made his heart skip and tumble over itself. June and Sebastian were buckled under the other seatbelt, next to them. Penny had grabbed the front seat, of course.
Oscar hung up the phone. “They have my mother,” he said.
They all sat silent. Then Isabel said something urgent in Spanish. Marcus guessed she was saying that Oscar couldn’t take them back to that house, not even for his mother. That’s what Marcus would have said if he could speak Spanish. They needed to go to the embassy.
Oscar nodded. He was trying to act calm. “Okay,” he said, and he started the engine. It caught and purred lightly. “Okay, okay.”
Marcus heard a shout, through the window. A girl and a boy had come out of the house with the party in it. The girl had long black hair and a red bag slung across her chest.
Oscar swore, and the car leaped forward and stalled. It was a stick shift. Marcus’s dad had taught him how they worked. You had to let the clutch out, as you pressed the gas.
The boy and the girl ran toward them, across the lawn. Marcus hoped they would step in dog poop.
“Go!” he said. “Slow on the clutch!”
Oscar restarted the car, and gunned it. It jerked once and then pulled miraculously away, swerving down the block, almost taking off the mirror on a parked car. Oscar shifted to second and third. Marcus looked out the back window and saw the couple running behind them. Then they jogged and slowed and receded. Marcus turned forward, his heart pounding.
“Did you just steal this car?” Penny asked.
“It’s my friend’s,” Oscar said.
“Was that your friend chasing us?”
“Yes.”
“Do you even have a driver’s license?”
He said nothing.
“Oh my God,” Penny said.
“It’s okay,” Oscar said, but his voice was shaky. “We go to the embassy now. Let’s not look like the lost kids.”
“We are the lost kids,” Penny said.
“Do you know how to get to the capital?” Marcus asked.
“There’s only one road,” Oscar said.
The sun was coming up, glowing behind the mountains in the east. They left the neighborhood and headed south. Oscar drove in silence for a long time. He might not have a license, but he was an okay driver, once he didn’t have to start and stop. The sky glowed brighter, and lightened to blue. The trees looked dewy and wet. They passed a sign that said INTERSECCION ADELANTE.
June, in a quiet voice, said, “A.”
Marcus was going to tell his sister that this was no time for a game. But it would keep her from being afraid or carsick. And he couldn’t help scanning the signs outside the window for his own A.
“B,” June said after a minute. “Banos.”
“Ba?os,” Penny corrected.
After a while, they passed a roadside restaurant with a chalk sign. “Arroz con pollo,” Marcus said. “A.”
“Con!” June said. “C!”
“Can I play?” Sebastian asked.
“You have to find your own word that begins with A,” June said.