“I started reading the book a little this evening,” said Adele. “He wrote a lot about his childhood in Nogales, Mexico. It was pretty rough.”
“He didn’t write anything, Adele. It’s fluff—probably made-up fluff—written by some ghostwriter. I’ll bet Ricardo Luis isn’t even his real name.”
“Well, it’s part of his real name. His full name is Jesús Ricardo Luis Alvarez-Da Silva.”
“Man, you really do have a crush on him!”
“I do not!” Her eyes told otherwise.
Vega slammed the book shut and tossed it on the table. “It doesn’t matter.” It felt better to tell himself that. “You said there was a child you wanted to talk to me about.”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “A thirteen-year-old girl. She just came over from Honduras.”
“You mean she was smuggled over,” said Vega. “Nobody just ‘comes.’”
Adele poured water in the coffeemaker without answering.
Vega sighed. “Not a pretty choice—deciding whether your kid’s safer in the hands of a bunch of sleazy coyotes or walking the gang-infested streets of Honduras. But if she’s here now, what’s the problem? She’s got a court date with immigration or something?” They both knew that even if the child had been caught at the border and ordered to plead her case with immigration, court cases could drag on for years so she was in no immediate danger of being sent back.
“I wish it were that simple,” said Adele. “To pay for her passage, her family took out a loan and now some gangster is trying to collect on it. The girl is the collateral.”
“If the family gives me a cell phone contact for this loan shark,” said Vega, “I can get one of my guys to run a trace and maybe set up a sting. If it crosses state lines, I might even be able to pull the FBI into this. Who’s the family?”
Adele hesitated. “Is it risky? To the girl or her family?”
“It was risky the moment they decided to smuggle her over here,” said Vega. “It was risky the moment they started working with gangsters. So yeah, of course it’s risky. The police don’t make guarantees, Adele. Give me the family’s number. I’ll contact them.”
“The mother’s afraid to work with the police.”
“If she wants help, she’s going to have to trust somebody.”
“She trusts me.”
“Then the question is, do you trust me? Or is that the deal breaker these days?”
Her silence told him everything he feared.
She turned away and looked out her kitchen window at the blackness of her backyard. Something shifted in her face. Her eyes narrowed and took on a singular focus. All the color seemed to drain from her skin. A small gasp escaped from her lips.
Vega came up behind her and stared out at the yard, trying to understand what had spooked her. For a moment, all he noted was the reflection of their faces in the glass. It took him another second or two to comprehend what Adele had seen—or rather, what she hadn’t.
“Where’s Sophia?”
Chapter 22
Adele turned to Vega. “I don’t see Sophia outside.”
Vega raced to the back door and opened it. “Sophia?” he called out across the yard.
Silence. No little girl laugh. No jingle of dog tags. Vega ran into the backyard and called her name again. Adele grabbed her coat and shoes and Vega’s jacket from the coat rack in the foyer and went out the front door. Maybe Sophia and Diablo were in the driveway.
“Sophia!”
Nothing. Vega ran around front to find her. He held up his hands. “She’s not in the backyard either.”
“She wouldn’t just leave like this.”
Vega stuck his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and made a loud, long whistle. They both listened but all that greeted them was the hum of a car on an adjoining street and the disembodied voice from a television when a neighbor opened a door.
Adele tried to calm the panicky flutter in her chest. How far could they have gone? It was a safe neighborhood. Well-lit. Plenty of people on the block knew Adele and Sophia.
But it was winter. And dark. People were inside. Who would notice a stranger? An unfamiliar car? A moment of youthful indiscretion?
“Where could she be?” Adele could feel the cinch in her vocal cords, the tight knot of worry that had traveled from her throat to her chest. What kind of mother was she to get so carried away arguing with her boyfriend that she hadn’t noticed her child running off into the night?
“She took Diablo on the leash, didn’t she?” asked Vega.
“Sure. But she wouldn’t just wander off with him.”
“Maybe she lost control and chased him.” Vega grabbed his jacket from Adele. “Stay here. I’ll find her.”
“I’m coming with you.”