The excitement had that element of fear that kept cropping up the closer he got to finding Corie. What if she just wanted to forget her childhood and he just fostered a bad memory?
“Knock it off,” Ben said without looking up.
Jack glanced at him, saw him run his finger along a line on the map. “Knock what off?”
“The worry. I can hear your brain clicking on options. She’s going to be glad you found her. She’s going to want to be family again. She’s probably been looking for you.”
“Why didn’t she find me?”
“You’ve been all over the globe, you nitwit. And in some very inhospitable places. Your name is different. She was four, Jack. Will you keep your eyes on the road? About two and a half miles. On the map, it looks like the only turn to the right. It’ll take us into Querida. Then I presume we’ll find Rio Road by following the Rio Grande.”
Jack nodded. “Brilliant detective work.”
“Don’t get smart with me. You stole my girl.”
“No, he didn’t,” Sarah chimed in from behind them. “You’re very sweet, Ben—well, not this morning, but usually—but I fell in love with Jack.”
“Why, in God’s name?”
“Because he gave me his hat and changed my lightbulb.”
That remark hung among them for a moment and then Ben sighed and said, “Maybe you two are a case of a couple of loonies deserving each other. I, on the other hand, feel free. Loving a woman demands a lot of attention to details that I’d really rather not worry about for a while. A whole world is opening up for me. I’m thinking about quitting the force and starting a detective agency.”
A dual “What?” came from his companions.
“No, don’t brake,” Ben said to Jack. “We’re almost there. Yeah. I’ve learned a lot I could apply to that. It’d probably be a lot of spouse-tracking at first, but I have quite a few connections. I’ll bet I could make it work. Maybe I could even find your sister Cassidy, if Corie doesn’t know where she is.” He strained to see ahead, consulted the map again and then pointed to a break in the dry brush on the right side of the road. “There. There it is. We follow this for a quarter of a mile, then we’ll run into Rio Road.” He sat back again. “Of course, I’ll be pricey. Based on how much you want to find her, I can charge you double what I charge anyone else. And there’s the world of hurt I’ve suffered from most of a lifetime of having to put up with you. You owe me big, pal.”
“Okay. I’ll get right on that.” Jack turned onto the narrow road, bumped along for a quarter mile, checking the rearview mirror to see how Sarah was doing. She simply bounced along with the movement of the car, watching the high grass go by.
Ben pointed to the Rio Road sign. The road was unpaved with high weeds on both sides. “Aren’t you glad I came along?” he asked.
“No bandits to save me from yet. But, yes, I am. Your incessant yammering has helped me forget that I’m nervous.”
“Relax. She’s going to be thrilled to see you.”
“Yeah.”
Querida was a very small town, its downtown only two blocks long. One side of one block seemed to be devoted to public buildings; city hall, post office, library, all built in the hacienda style. Across the street was a small but verdant park with old playground equipment.
The second block held a small café, a beauty shop and a clothing store. Jack pointed it out to Sarah. “We could buy you something lighter weight than what you’ve brought along.”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize temperatures would be in the seventies in November. But all their fall stuff is in the windows. Looks more classic than trendy. Probably has a small fashion-minded customer base.”
“Down-on-its-luck little town,” Ben observed as they passed a little bodega, a bakery, a hardware store, a pharmacy and a run-down bed-and-breakfast.
The commercial buildings, Jack noticed, weren’t getting much attention from the municipal government. The city hall block was well maintained with a green lawn and a walkway lined with fall flowers.
He doubted that anything on the commercial block had been painted in years. The bakery had a scraggly pot of flowers hanging from a lamppost, and a row of hardy geraniums flowered in a window box in front of the pharmacy. Otherwise, there were few amenities that suggested prosperity. He remembered the details on Corie’s arrest warrant. It was strange that a town this small and in such obvious financial straits would have a deputy mayor.
“It looks like tough times here,” Sarah said.
“Yeah. Ah...” Ben consulted his MapQuest printout. “According to this, we follow this road out of town, take a right on Hidalgo and it’s a two-minute drive to her address.”
“All right.” Jack followed Ben’s instructions, noting the natural, somewhat barren beauty of their surroundings while being aware of the ramshackle little dwellings along the way.
He made the turn onto Hidalgo, then drove for about a mile and came to a stop in front of a chain-link fence that surrounded a large dusty yard where young children played with a basketball and a soccer ball, and chased each other while screaming and laughing. The condition of the yard was less than optimum, and the large home beyond, also built in hacienda style, looked like something from an old Western movie. The children playing in the yard seemed happy with nothing but a couple of balls and each other to chase. He found himself smiling. Children who were cared for could have fun anywhere.
“Do you think she runs a day care?” Ben asked, peering out his window. “This is the right address.”
Jack wasn’t sure what to make of all the children.
“Could be. Although, with an arrest on her record, I’m not sure she could do that.”
“Yeah, maybe not. But I count eleven children here. They can’t all be hers, unless she’s had one a year since she was fifteen. And the fence suggests something...you know, institutional, like a school or day-care center.”
Jack turned in his seat to look at Sarah. She watched a little boy walking a low stone wall around the house as though it were a tightrope. She looked nervous, thinking probably that if he fell, she’d have to do something about it.
Jack reached behind and touched her knee. Her eyes smiled at him under the brim of his hat. “You want to come?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Sure.”
Jack pushed open his door, stepped out and opened hers. Ben remained in the car. Jack leaned in. “You’re not telling me you’re going to stay behind and risk missing me have the door slammed in my face by someone who isn’t my sister, or rejected by someone who is, are you?”
“I thought you’d want to do this by yourself. Or just with Sarah.”
“No, I want you to come. If the woman in there gets hostile, we’re ducking behind you.”
Ben and Sarah followed him through a gate and up a concrete walkway to the big old house, the pale pinkish stone burnished with age. Jack noticed that the porch was swept and pots of Christmas cactus stood on either side of the doorway. He stepped up to the large wooden door, a metallic taste in his mouth.
He heard Ben, standing behind him, shift his weight. Sarah put an encouraging hand to his back.
Jack took a breath and knocked; heard footsteps on the other side. His heart raced as the footsteps grew louder. The door opened, he braced himself, and a woman with a toddler on her hip looked at him in surprise and smiled, the gesture moving to Sarah. The smile changed subtly when her gaze landed on Ben. Jack understood two things at once. The woman somehow knew Ben was a cop. And she wasn’t Corie.
She refocused her attention on Jack and the smile returned. “Good afternoon,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
Jack offered his hand. “Hello. I’m Jack Palmer. This is my fiancée, Sarah Reed.” He felt Sarah react with a start to the title but went on. “And my brother, Ben.”
Ben and Sarah shook the woman’s hand. She smiled politely at them.
“I’m Teresa McGinnis.” She indicated the baby. “This is Roberto.” The boy, about eighteen months old, reached out to Ben. Ben laughed and took him from her.
“I’m trying to find my sister,” Jack said. “We were separated as children when she was four. We called her Corie. I found an Isabel Corazon Ochoa online at this address.”
He caught an almost indiscernible flicker in her eyes, a reaction to his explanation that she tried to hide. “I know Corie, but she doesn’t live here,” she said. “Her mail comes here, but the last I heard she was somewhere near Acapulco.”
He absorbed that information with an almost debilitating disappointment. He felt Sarah’s touch to his back again. Then he realized he was grateful to know he was on the right trail. He also now knew a third thing about this woman Teresa. She had not been born in Texas. There was nothing slow or Southern in her voice or her manner. She was from somewhere in New England. Massachusetts, he guessed. And she was probably in her forties. “Do you know how I can get in touch with her?”
She shook her head regretfully. “I’m sorry. I wait to hear from her. She’s somewhat of a vagabond, and she doesn’t believe in cell phones and GPS devices.” She laughed lightly. “You’d think she was eighty rather than twenty-seven.”
He smiled at that. Eccentric or evading the law? he wondered.
“What does she do?” Ben asked.
The women met his gaze, hers carefully even. “Do?”
“For work? How is she able to travel for such long periods that you wait to hear from her? That her mail has to be taken care of?”
Ben’s tone was pleasant but still demanding. The woman clearly didn’t like it. Before she could express that dislike, a young woman came into the house through a rear entrance, shouting Teresa’s name.
“Tee! Teresa! I have Berto’s—” She stopped abruptly at the sight of visitors. Framed in a shaft of light from the window, she was small, wore skinny jeans and a short leather jacket, and possessed a haughty manner as she looked Jack over, then Ben. Her eyes ran over Sarah in a completely different way and showed less suspicion than interest.
She was Corie’s age, with an inky sheet of hair that fell past her shoulders, and large dark eyes caught in some kind of storm.
She looked away from the three of them in a gesture of dismissal and delved into a brightly colored woven purse. She pulled out a white paper bag that she handed to Teresa. “Berto’s medication.” She also pulled a book out of the bag. “And Lita’s math book.” She smiled at Teresa, said a few words in Spanish, then turned to leave.
“Momento, Magdalena,” Teresa said, catching the young woman’s hand. “This is Jack Palmer and his brother, Ben. They’re looking for their sister.”
“Actually, by birth she’s just my sister,” Jack corrected. “When Corie’s and my family was separated, I was adopted into Ben’s family.”
Teresa made a sympathetic sound. “I’m sorry. He thinks Corie might be his sister,” she said to Magdalena. “Have you heard from her since we got that card in June?”
Magdalena shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. She was in Acapulco. That’s all I know.”
“How do you know her?” Ben asked.
Magdalena met his eyes, cool distance in hers. “We worked here together, helping Teresa when we were teenagers,” she replied. “I still help once in a while, when she needs a run to the pharmacy or somebody forgets their homework.” She backed away again, waving. “Nice to meet you. I hope you find your sister. Bye, Tee. Bye, Berto.” And she was gone.
Jack handed Teresa a business card. “Will you give this to Corie when she comes back?”
She pulled Berto from Ben’s arms. “I promise I will,” Teresa said. “The moment I hear from her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”
Jack shook her hand again. “You’ve been very kind. Thank you.”
Berto waved at Ben, who waved back as Teresa closed the door. Sarah ran down the steps after Jack. Ben put a consoling hand on Jack’s shoulder, walking beside him toward the car. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find her today, but at least you know we’re on the right track.”
Jack kept moving. “You’re not going to make much of a detective, Ben. That was her. Magdalena is Corie.”
“What?”
“That was Corie. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to admit it, but that’s her. I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize her, but she has that same royal-personage attitude, and the smiling dark eyes hiding fear way down in the depths.”
“She didn’t know you, Jack,” Ben said gently.
“Yes, she did. I saw her recognize me.”
“I think she did,” Sarah corroborated. “I saw that in her eyes, too. And when she spoke to Teresa in Spanish, she said, ‘Don’t tell him anything.’”
Jack put an arm around her. “I knew it. There’s something going on. Teresa made you as a cop right away, Ben, and didn’t like it. I don’t know if she knows Magdalena is Corie or not. But Corie was a tactical genius, even at four. Come on. We’re going to find out what’s going on with her. If I can figure out how to find her again.”
“Easy,” Ben said. “When we said goodbye to Teresa, I saw Magdalena through the window to the back. She drove off in a black Ford pickup. That shouldn’t be too hard to find parked somewhere in this little town.”
Jack slapped his shoulder as they separated to get into opposite sides of the car. “You’re a genius,” he praised.
“That’s what I keep telling you.”
“Oh, please,” Sarah groaned, climbing into the back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THEY FOUND CORIE’S truck parked in the driveway of a decrepit little house on a side street downtown. Jack bought a sandwich, Ben a tamale and Sarah a chocolate bar at the bodega; then they made a production of leaving town with the windows open and the radio blaring before circling back and parking behind a low bush a block away from the little house.
They took turns watching and sleeping. Ben elbowed Jack awake in the middle of the afternoon. “Look,” he said quietly, pointing through the windshield.
Corie, dressed in a white blouse, a black skirt and low heels, was climbing into the truck. She pulled away with more speed than necessary, spewing dust as she headed for the main street. Ben followed her at a distance, then stopped abruptly when she parked in front of the café. Ben pulled into the drugstore parking lot across the street and parked beside a tractor.
“She could have walked those three blocks,” Ben observed, “without using four dollars’ worth of gas. You think she works there? That did look like a waitressing uniform.”
Jack pulled out the binoculars he’d bought at the airport. “Sounds reasonable,” he said absently as he tried to find her through the restaurant window. It took just a moment before he spotted her wearing a ruffle-trimmed apron and carrying a coffeepot to a table in the window. “I guess you’ll make a good detective, after all.”
Sarah snickered. “That wasn’t much of a test. White blouse, black skirt, walking shoes. Nun or waitress. And she’s obviously not a nun.”
Ben made a face at her. “I thought you came along for moral support.”
“I did. For Jack.” She snapped off a square of chocolate. “Want one?”
He snatched it from her. “Some clues are more obvious than others,” Ben said, defending his investigative powers. “Not everything is shrouded in mystery. But what if she’s doing something illegal? If she did recognize you, Jack, that would be about the only reason she wouldn’t want to admit she’s your sister.” He coughed and sipped at his soda. “Except for the obvious reason.”
Jack turned to him. “And that is?”
“Well, it’s you. Who’d want to admit being related to you? I mean, I can always s
ay you were adopted, but if that is Corie, she shares blood with you. Poor thing.” He shook his head in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know what Sarah’s problem is.”
She patted Ben’s shoulder. “Probably that I dated you first.”
Jack sighed and handed him the binoculars. “There’s still an hour and twenty minutes left on your watch. Wake me up again if anything happens. And you were pretty glad I had your back when the Duffy brothers caught you in that alley behind Safeway when we were kids. Just because Susan Federer made eyes at you in the cafeteria when she was supposed to be Eddy Duffy’s girlfriend.”
Ben thought back and winced. “We lost that fight.”
“I know. But I still waded in to help. You can’t get that kind of support from just anybody. Especially when you’re outnumbered.”
“Go to sleep. And I’ve always been a stud. I can’t control it.”
“Saints preserve me!” Sarah said. “I feel like I’m stuck in a bad episode of The Bachelor! Please do me a favor, and both of you go to sleep and I’ll watch.”
* * *
BEN DOZED IN the back and Jack in the passenger seat when Sarah, behind the wheel, saw Corie come out of the café well after 10:00 p.m. “Jack!” She elbowed him. “Wake up! There she is.”
Jack sat up, blinking against the darkness, peering through the windshield. They still sat in the parking lot and the tractor had long since moved on. “We’ll just sit here until she takes off, then follow slowly. Can you do that?”
Sarah tried not to be offended by the question. “Of course I can do that.”
Ben woke in the back. “I’ll drive, Sarah.”
“You’ve been shot in the arm. I’ll drive. And there she goes. We don’t have time to change seats. She’s changed her clothes, though.”
Corie had climbed into the truck in the black jeans and jacket they’d seen her in at Teresa’s. But her hair had been shoved into a watch cap—also black. “Aha,” Ben said. “She’s probably military and this is some kind of black ops thing.”
In My Dreams Page 18