Omar took a deep breath. “Hector was one of the last people to leave the restaurant every night. Usually, Jorgé drove him and a bunch of the staff to the train station in Lake Holly. But one time, maybe three weeks ago, Hector told Jorgé he didn’t need a ride. Someone was picking him up. I didn’t want Hector to know I was sleeping here. I didn’t want to get Jorgé in trouble. So I pretended to leave and then came back and let myself in with the key Jorgé gave me.”
“This friend of Hector’s? Was he the one who picked him up?”
“No. His friend came by taxi to the parking lot. I saw them from the office window upstairs. That’s the room I sleep in because it faces the back so nobody can tell when a light is on. His friend didn’t have a warm jacket. Just a sweatshirt. I saw Hector give the man his spare jacket from his locker. Hector seemed concerned about him. Like they were good friends.”
“What did this man look like?”
“I think he might have been Central American, too. He was about the same height and build as Hector. I thought maybe they had some sort of night job together. I just watched because I have nothing to do at night when I stay here. It gets sort of—lonely.”
Adele felt something thud in her heart. She knew half a dozen La Casa volunteers who would gladly take this boy in. She just hadn’t known about his plight. How many other children, she wondered, were wandering around Lake Holly and Wickford and all these other little upscale villages in the same distressed state as Omar? Some, she knew about. The vast majority, she didn’t. Probably because—even if she did—there was little she could do for them. She barely had the funds to provide basic services to adult clients and their American-born offspring. She had nothing left for these lost children who were pouring in.
“So who picked them up? Another taxi?” Adele asked the boy.
“No. After about ten minutes, a black Mercedes pulled into the parking lot. Hector and his friend got in back. The driver powered down his window and threw out a cigarette he was smoking. That’s when I saw him.”
Adele noticed Omar’s voice had turned to barely a whisper. His hands had grown shaky and he was having more trouble peeling the carrots.
“This driver—is he the important person you were talking about?”
Omar nodded. “Hector and his friend were probably hired to help at a party.”
“A party?” Adele frowned. “But this is after Chez Martine closed for the night. You serve until ten P.M. So this had to be after midnight, yes?”
Omar shrugged. “Maybe they stayed at the man’s house and worked the next morning.”
“That’s possible,” Adele agreed. “But why wouldn’t you mention this to the police?”
“Because everyone keeps saying that Hector went to his house to rob him. How can I say that I saw him pick up Hector and his friend in the restaurant parking lot maybe three weeks earlier? Nobody would believe me.”
Adele felt something seize up inside of her. “Omar—are you saying that the driver who picked up Hector and the other man was Ricardo Luis?”
“I must be wrong. If Hector worked for him before, how come nobody has mentioned it?”
Yes. How come?
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” said Adele. She fished a card out of her wallet and handed it to the boy. “This has my cell number on it. You find yourself without a place to stay some night, you call me. There are people at La Casa—board members and others—who will make sure you have a real home to stay in.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Please, Omar. I know you’re strong. But I’m a mother. I don’t want to see you worrying about this in January and February.”
“Okay. Thank you.” He tucked her card in his shirt pocket. “I will think about it.”
Outside Chez Martine, Adele checked her watch. She had a little over two hours before she had to pick up Sophia. Her sister Grace’s birthday card would have to wait. She fished that scrap of paper out of her wallet with Ricardo Luis’s cell phone scribbled across it.
It wasn’t guitars she wanted to see anymore. It was him.
*
There were only five houses at the top of Oak Hill Road. Four of them were clapboard-and-cobblestone colonials set back from the road with wide front porches and gabled roofs. In the middle was a fifth house, a Spanish hacienda the color of a sun-bleached lawn flamingo. It had a red clay tile roof, stucco arches and enormous windows with black wrought-iron grilles. Adele wondered what the old-money CEOs thought of this second coming of the Alamo among their stately gray-and-white New England charmers.
Adele parked her Prius by the curb and walked down the driveway, past several sedans and SUVs. It looked like Luis had other guests this morning. A housekeeper answered the door and Adele gave her name. She’d called before she drove over. She’d have never had the nerve to show up otherwise.
The housekeeper told Adele to wait in the marble entrance hall by a sweeping staircase. Children’s laughter floated up from somewhere inside the house. Luis’s family must have flown in last night or this morning to be with him. Adele wondered if she’d get a glimpse of his fashion model wife, Victoria. From the pictures in Luis’s book, Victoria was an elegant Panamanian, slightly taller than her husband with blond-streaked hair and high cheekbones.