Brigid turned to Carwyn. “Standing Rock?”
“The Lakota people,” Carwyn said. “The ones protecting their water rights from the oil pipeline?”
“Right.” Brigid poked her head in the door. “So Daniel was there, was he?”
Phil sounded bored. “Yeah, he talked about it all the time. Said he put his body on the line for that. He’s part Native, I think. Not Lakota though.”
“All the same struggle,” Carwyn said. “Protecting ancestral lands is every person’s responsibility.”
Brigid raised an eyebrow. “Look at Himself—eight years in Ireland has made a nationalist of you. Or whatever the Welsh version of that is.”
Carwyn rolled his eyes. “Can we focus on the task at hand please?”
“So serious.” Brigid felt elated. They were finally making progress. She flipped on the overhead light and saw the living space of a highly organized individual. The bed was made and an air mattress and sleeping bag were rolled at the base of the bed.
Brigid nudged it with her foot. “I’m betting he slept on the air mattress. Gave Lupe the bed.”
“They definitely didn’t share.” Carwyn filled the small garage. “He reads a lot.”
Makeshift bookcases and been set up on what looked like old storage shelves. Economics textbooks. Philosophy classics like Aristotle’s Ethics and Plato’s The Republic. Karl Marx sat next to Adam Smith, which was next to Orson Scott Card and Tolkien.
“He was curious.” Brigid looked through the books, marking which ones looked more worn than others. Many of them came from the Junipero Serra Branch Library on South Main. “Used his library card on the regular.”
“He’d read anything. I think all the kid did was read,” Phil said. “He worked, he volunteered, and he read books. No friends over. No women. No men. There was one lady who came by once, but I don’t remember who she was. They fought and she never came by again.”
“His sister, maybe?” Carwyn’s voice was soft.
“Maybe.”
“Where did he work?” Carwyn asked.
“For a cleaning company,” Phil said. “Mostly nights. Some weekends. He volunteered a lot during the afternoons. Slept in the mornings.”
Brigid had noticed the lack of windows, thinking it would be a dreary place to live, but if the man had to sleep during the day, the darkness was likely welcome.
She saw a few telltale signs that pointed toward a young man in recovery. The strict cleanliness. The spartan accommodations. The sense of routine. Other than the bed and dresser, the books, and a small refrigerator, the only thing of note was the modest exercise equipment.
Daniel used barbells and a chin-up bar. A calendar hanging on the wall bore meticulous notes and figures. He kept track of how many sit-ups he did. Not many reps with the weights. How many chin-ups.
“He was organized.”
“He surely was,” Carwyn said. “But I don’t see any kind of planner or diary other than the wall calendar.” He looked at Phil. “He kept one, didn’t he? A personal planner?”
“Oh yeah. I saw him write in it pretty regularly, but he’d have it in his backpack.”
Brigid went to the small chest of drawers and opened the top drawer. Neatly folded underwear and—if the stacks were even—four pairs of boxers missing. She opened the next drawer. “Socks,” she muttered. “Four pairs.” The next drawer was T-shirts. Again, four missing if everything lined up, which she was guessing it did. The last drawer contained pants. “Only two pairs of pants, but setting that aside, I think it’s safe to say that wherever Daniel was going, he expected to be gone for four days.”
“Which means” —Carwyn’s voice was grim— “whatever happened with Daniel and Lupe, something did not go according to plan.”
Chapter Eight
“Where can you get to and back in four days?” Brigid asked Beatrice the next night as soon as the sun went down. She and Carwyn needed to head out of town. Though they’d made progress, Brigid had the odd feeling that Lupe was slipping farther away while they tracked down Daniel Siva.
Even though Daniel was their best lead.
Why did you follow this boy, Lupe? It wasn’t your style.
“There and back in four days?” Beatrice mulled the question over while Brigid packed her things. “I mean, in California you can get nearly anywhere in a day, figure a couple of days to do… whatever they were supposed to do—”
“That part is still nagging at me,” Brigid said. “What was this ‘action’? And why the fuck did this young man think taking a seventeen-year-old girl along was a good idea?”
“Maybe she had information they needed? Or skills?”
“Skills? She was a student. A good student, but all the same—”
“She speaks Spanish,” Beatrice said. “Of course, lots of people here do. That seems thin.”
“There has to be something.” Brigid wrapped a pair of shoes and stuffed them in her duffel bag. “Maybe she knew someone. Had some contact that was important.” Brigid tossed her new handgun on top of the shoes. “You’ve been monitoring her phone?”
“It hasn’t been turned on since I started tracking it,” Beatrice said. “If her boyfriend was smart, he probably got her a burner.”
Brigid slid her shoes on. “What about before?”
“Before what?”
“Can we get a log of her calls and texts before she went missing? That might give us an idea of why Daniel took her.”
“Good idea. I’ll look it up and email you.” Beatrice reached over and handed Brigid her black leather jacket. “Good to see you. I miss you. Come back soon. I’m annoyed that you just got here and we’re headed to New York tomorrow night. I wish I could stick around.”
“Depending on how long your visit is, we might still be here when you get back. Also, Carwyn is attempting to borrow your driver’s car, so I’m sure we won’t be leaving the state without returning it.”
“He’s trying to borrow Zain’s Bronco for the trip?”
“Oh, but that truck’s deadly, isn’t it?” Brigid grinned. “I can’t blame the man.”
“It’s very hot. Zain redid it, and now I want a black Bronco, but I can’t get one because I’d be copying him. It’s a conundrum.”
“We’re heading over to María Estrada’s house to meet with her before we go to Daniel’s mother’s house in Palm Desert. We should be able to do both in one night.”
“And where are you staying in Palm Desert? That whole area is a bit wild. Technically it’s Ernesto’s territory, but I can’t say that he has a good handle on it. Until you get to Vegas, it’s the Wild West.”
“Understood.” Brigid grimaced. “Honestly? We’ll probably end up in a cave or something. You know Carwyn and security.”
“Do you have camping gear?”
“No. Would Zain have some we could borrow?”
Beatrice nodded. “You may have to sleep in a cave all day, but that’s no reason to be uncomfortable. You better think about feeding too. I know of one bar in Palm Springs, but… let’s just say it’s not as reputable as Gavin’s establishments.”
Brigid curled her lip. “Does it have willing donors I can pay for a meal?”
“Yes. It does have that.”
“Then I’ll manage.” Some vampires felt comfortable feeding off unsuspecting humans and wiping their memories. For Brigid, it felt like a violation. She avoided that scenario unless she was desperate. If she was desperate… Well, a desperate vampire was a danger to everyone, wasn’t she?
“We’ll head to Huntington Park first and then the desert. I’ll ring you when we get someplace safe before dawn.”
“Good.” Beatrice gave Brigid a hug. “Any decisions about going back to Dublin?”
“Not yet.” Brigid shrugged. “I have time. Let’s find this girl first and see what happens.”
* * *
“Scandalous,” Carwyn muttered.
“What’s that?”
He looked at Brigid, who was scroll
ing though the email Beatrice had sent her.
“Scandalous how much I had to pay Zain to borrow his truck.”
She looked into the back. “But he gave us all this camping equipment too. Even a solar charger for the electronics. That’s handy.”
He wasn’t going to tell her how much the Bronco cost. They could likely buy a vehicle for less than Zain was charging them to rent his.
“So a stop at María’s to update her, then off to the desert?”
“Yes. I also want to search Lupe’s room, see if there’s any clue in there as to why Daniel might have taken her with him.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to humor a girl because of a crush.”
“No, the opposite if anything. So there had to be a reason that he took her.” Brigid put her phone away. “You smell good.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “You’re going to need to feed tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Should we go someplace before we leave LA?”
“No. I’ll be lazy all night if I do that. I need to keep my edge until we finish with Daniel’s mother.”
Carwyn constantly worried that Brigid played her hunger too close to the edge. At over a thousand years old, he only had to feed a couple of times a month. Occasional blood exchanges with his mate and hunting trips in the wild sated his hunger, but Brigid was much younger.
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t worry so much.” She sounded amused. “I’m sure.”
“Fair enough.”
Half an hour later, they pulled up to a small, neatly kept home in Huntington Park. In the driveway was an economical sedan and a work truck with Emilio’s Electric on the side.
“Looks like her family’s here,” Brigid said. “Did you meet them?”
“No.” Carwyn frowned. “Just María. I hope this doesn’t mean they’ve gotten bad news.”
“I think they would have called us, don’t you?” Brigid pushed the door open.
“Probably.” He stepped down from the Bronco and walked to the front door, then rang the bell as Brigid hung back. “She knows I work with my wife. She’ll be expecting you.”
“I know.”
The door opened and a barrel-chested man with salt-and-pepper hair stood behind the screen door. “Hey. You must be the detectives.” He pushed open the screen door. “Come on in.”
“Thank you,” Carwyn said. “You must be Lupe’s uncle. How are you?”
The man’s accent and manner told Carwyn he was a native of Southern California. “I’m doing okay. Still worried, but María says you guys have some leads on where Lupe might be? I’m Emilio, by the way.”
He held out his hand and both Carwyn and Brigid shook it.
“We have a good lead,” Brigid said. “And we’ve identified the young man Lupe left with. I know it’s probably not much comfort right now, but everyone who works with this young man speaks highly of him. Nothing about him so far leads us to think he’s a predator.”
Emilio visibly relaxed. “I know she’s not a little girl anymore, but—”
“We never stop worrying about our children,” Carwyn said. “No matter how old they are.”
Emilio nodded. “Yeah.”
Carwyn saw lines around the man’s eyes and knew that what María had told him was correct. This man cared about Lupe like she was his own daughter.
“Is your whole family here?” Brigid asked. “I was hoping to speak to Lupe’s cousins. Her mother said they were close.”
“Yeah. Robert and Angie. Rob’s a couple of years older than Lupe, but Angie and her are the same age.” Emilio led them down a hall decorated with family pictures and framed Catholic prints. Everyone was gathered in the family room around a coffee table with a carafe and several mugs on the top.
“Carwyn.” María rose and held out her hand. “Thank you for coming.” She turned to Brigid. “You must be Missus…” She looked confused. “Carwyn? I’m sorry, I don’t know—”
“Brigid Connor.” Brigid smiled and held out her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Estrada.”
“I made coffee.” The woman began to pour, speaking softly in Spanish to the woman next to her who was obviously her sister.
“I’m Carmen,” the woman said. “Lupe’s aunt. These are my kids, Rob and Angie.”
Two older teenagers sat slouched in the corner.
“Hey.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Neither of the teens looked happy to be there.
“Angie, can you tell Carwyn—”
“I already told everyone she did not tell me she was doing anything, okay?” The girl was immediately defensive. “I knew she had a thing for this guy, but he was totally not into her. Or anyone, I don’t think. He thought she was a little kid. Ask Father Anthony.”
Brigid’s radar must have been shouting at her. “We know all that, Angie. What do we not know?”
Angie stared at her. Very carefully. Directly in the eyes. “Nothing.”
Robert huffed and elbowed his sister. “This is fu— freaking ridiculous, Ang. Tell them. They’re professionals.”
A flurry of Spanish filled the air. Carmen yelling at her kids. María speaking to Carmen. Emilio walked over to his daughter and glared down at her.
“Enough.” He held a hand out and the room went quiet. “Angela, this isn’t some game. You tell these people what you know about Lupe or your life as you know it is over. No phone. No privileges. No car.”
“Oh my God, Dad, I don’t even—”
“Tell them!”
She threw her head back and groaned. “God, she’s so stupid.”
“Are you talking about Lupe?” María said. “Angie, what is going on?”
“There was this girl at the mission one night, okay? And she was telling all these stories about a place out like on the border or something. Like one of those detention centers. And she was saying all this bullshit about how they were keeping kids out there and it was this big secret and how she escaped. Lupe bought the whole thing. Like, I looked online. There’s no detention center where this girl was saying, so she was lying about it.”
Robert crossed his arms over his chest. “You know there’ve been reports that there are private contractors who are keeping migrant kids in hotels and stuff, right? Places that aren’t official?”
Angie pouted. “No.”
The room erupted in shouts, mostly in Spanish, which Carwyn didn’t speak as fluently as he’d like, particularly when people were speaking over each other.
“Did Daniel know about these stories?” Brigid tried to speak over the chaos. “How old was this girl at the mission?”
Angie ignored her mother and her aunt and spoke directly to Brigid. “She was our age, I think. But she said there were a lot of little kids there too. Maybe a dozen or something? Ones that had been taken from their parents, you know? I think Lupe told Daniel about it because this detention center was supposedly out in the desert where he was from.”
“That was the action,” Carwyn said. “I’ll bet you anything. They were going to go rescue those kids.”
“By themselves?” María was frantic. “She could get arrested. She could get deported. Oh my God, what was she thinking?”
Emilio looked ten years older. “What can we do? We can’t call the police. There’s no way they would actually try something like that, would they? A teenager and a twenty-year-old kid? They’d have to be crazy.”
“I don’t think Daniel Siva is as naive as Lupe is,” Brigid said. “I very much doubt they’d try to take on immigration authorities by themselves.”
“But Daniel was from the area,” Carwyn said. “It’s possible he planned something with friends. If he knew where this detention center was, there might have been a plan with others who would help them. He’s participated in standoffs with the government before.”
Carwyn wasn’t going to tell Lupe’s mother that the man had only packed for four days. Whatever plan Daniel and Lupe had, it ha
dn’t gone according to schedule or they’d already be back in LA.
“We’re heading out to Palm Desert right now,” Brigid said. “María, we’re going to find them. Just to be very cautious, do you know an immigration solicitor who might be able to help if Lupe has run into trouble?”
“Solicitor?”
“Attorney,” Carwyn said. “An immigration lawyer who might be able to help.”
“We hired one last year,” Emilio said. “Trying to get María and Lupe documented. I’ll call her in the morning.” He walked across the living room and held out his hand to Carwyn. “Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. Just please, find my niece.”
Chapter Nine
The flashing lights of passing big rigs illuminated the darkness in the interior of the Bronco as Carwyn and Brigid drove out to the desert. It was nearly midnight as they approached Palm Springs, the odd neon oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert, home to Hollywood stars, quirky eccentrics, and more than one vampire looking to exist on the edge of immortal authority.
“Beatrice said this area is mostly unaffiliated. Officially, this is all Ernesto’s territory, but unofficially, he doesn’t have much financial interest out here, so he mostly leaves it alone.” Brigid peered up at the shadow of towering windmills as they exited the interstate highway and took the road south to the Coachella Valley. Palm Springs and a series of small cities dotted the landscape along Highway 111 like beads on a necklace. They passed through the palm-lined roads of Palm Springs and drove through the scattered green oases in Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage before they saw the signs for Palm Desert.
“You have Robin Siva’s address, right?” Carwyn asked. “Tell me when to exit.”
Brigid glanced up from her phone. “Are you ever going to relent and let Cara in the car with us?” Cara was the electronic assistant that Murphy had programmed to assist with the voice-activated Nocht system. “If we had Cara, we could simply input the address and—”
Saint’s Passage: Elemental Covenant Book One Page 7