“No,” said Vega. “Better we split up. You go left and I’ll go right and if we spot them, we can check in by cell, okay?”
“Okay.” She walked quickly down the sidewalk calling out her daughter’s name. She’d walked this short distance thousands of times in her life—when Sophia was a baby in her stroller and later when the child was learning to ride her bike. She’d walked it to cool off after fights with Peter. Or just to get fresh air on a nice spring day. But the terror in her step now obliterated every past journey. It was as if she were walking the block for the very first time. Every buckle in the sidewalk, every shadow of a tree or lip of a driveway felt foreign to her. The sharp bite of air felt serrated in her lungs. She was breathing too hard. Or maybe the problem was, she wasn’t breathing at all.
She felt as if she were watching herself from a great distance. She was in a movie playing Adele looking for her daughter. This couldn’t really be happening. She tried to push the darker thoughts from her head. Vega was clearly a target right now. Someone had just slashed Joy’s tires because of what he’d done. But surely no one would hurt a child.
Surely.
She was a block from her house when her cell phone rang. Relief flooded her body when she heard Vega’s voice. “You’ve got them?”
“I’ve got Diablo. He’s by himself.”
“Oh no!”
“His leash is still attached. He seems to want me to follow him. I’m on the corner of Pine and Sequoia heading toward Spring. Can you catch up to us?”
“I’m on my way.”
It felt like an eternity before she caught up with them. Spring Street was a road full of capes and ranches on quarter-acre plots of hyperpruned bushes, swing sets, and stubby fruit trees. It dead-ended beside a deep thicket of woods and streams. Adele never let Sophia play near the area. In summer, teenagers and homeless people congregated in those woods. The police made regular sweeps to clear out the vagrants and trash left behind. But this time of year, the woods were dark and silent, the bare limbs like iron bars to a prison that no one was meant to enter or leave.
Vega was breathing hard, keeping a tight grip on Diablo’s leash. Adele noticed the leash was muddy and wet. Where had he been?
“Damn this dog!” said Adele.
“Don’t damn him yet,” cautioned Vega. “He may be the only one who can lead us to Sophia.”
Diablo strained at the leash. His floppy triangle ears were on alert. His tail was curled like a giant question mark. His nose glistened in the moonlight. His whole body seemed poised and ready for action. But what sort of action?
They left the pavement and stepped onto the gravel at the end of the cul-de-sac. Diablo jumped over a fallen tree limb. His leash snagged on a branch and Vega undid it. Adele wondered if the dog would just run off but he waited while Vega tucked the leash in his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight.
“Stay here. I’ll find her.” Vega began scrabbling over the limb.
“I’m coming, too.”
“Adele—”
“She’s my daughter!”
He held out his hand and helped her over the limb.
“Sophia!” she called out. Her voice felt tight and raw. No answer. A montage of frightening possibilities flashed through her head. Sophia had been abducted. She’d fallen and hit her head. She’d been struck by a car crossing the street. She was lying in a ditch bleeding. Her baby. Her life. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to save her.
Nothing.
Diablo continued to push on. There were no real trails back here. Just uprooted trees, skeletal bushes, and thickets of dead limbs that tore at their clothes. Vega could barely keep up with the dog. Adele could barely keep up with Vega.
“Sophia!” Vega called out. His voice was deeper and stronger. It seemed to rattle the darkness. There was a note of desperation in him, too. She could hear it.
And then she heard something else. A child’s soft whimper.
“Sophia!” cried Adele. “Where are you, lucero?”
Vega waved the flashlight in an arc before him. Thorny bushes and dead limbs absorbed the yellow haze. Beneath an overgrowth of dormant vines was an overturned metal shopping cart. A wheel stuck up out of the dirt, rusty and bent. Sophia was here somewhere. Why wasn’t she walking toward them?
The dog raced down an embankment and then backtracked to Vega. Adele followed them both until she could make out the silvery thread of a stream. It had the viscous glow of liquid mercury under the haze of moonlight. And then she saw it. On the other side of the stream. A purple coat and a pair of mud-streaked fuzzy pajama bottoms.
“There!” she said.
Sophia was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth, rubbing the ankle of her muddy snow boot.
“Mommy!” At the sight of her mother, Sophia burst into tears. “I dropped Diablo’s leash! He ran when I tried to pick it back up. So I chased him. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay, lucero. We’re coming!”