My jaw nearly dropped. This was the fourth time I’d been in Stella’s presence and she’d never said so much as “boo” to me before, but apparently Ava was pretty cool. Well, maybe I could use her approval of Ava to my advantage in this conversation. I started by upping Ava’s coolness quotient even further.
“Ava’s a singer. She’s here doing shows.”
Stella sat up. “That’s really cool.”
“Well, I away from my baby too long gigging, and the money shit, but I guess it cool.”
I noticed her accent had thickened. I wanted to hug her. Go, Ava.
“Oh, you have a baby, too?” Stella’s voice took on a longing tone. How old was she, anyway, that she had baby fever? Seventeen? Far too young.
“Yah, she a beauty. Hard work, though.”
“I play guitar. And sing a little. I’m auditioning for a band after New Year’s. An all chicks kind of thing.”
I jumped in. “Good luck. You’d look amazing on a stage. Exotic.”
Another hungry look toward Ava. “You think so?”
Ava, the professional, nodded. “For true.”
Stella’s features softened. Maybe she was younger than I’d thought. “Thank you.”
I smiled at her. “You’re welcome. And I’m really sorry about all this with your dad.”
A frown pinched her face. “I hate that douchebag. I hope he rots in prison the rest of his life.”
I couldn’t argue with her about what a horrible person her dad was, but Mother taught me that if you can’t say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all, so I didn’t. “I want you to know that you probably saved my life, and Betsy’s, and I appreciate it.”
Stella had played guardian angel to the immigrant children in the families her father had trafficked, dressing up like the Clown from the Apache Mountain Spirit Dancers. It had added some magic to their hard lives.
I added, “You make an awesome Mountain Spirit Dancer.”
“They’re real, you know. The Mountain Spirits.” Stella looked at me with narrowed, defensive eyes.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen them.”
I’d seen one myself, on the runway as Jack came for Betsy and me in the Skyhawk. The Apache spirit had saluted me, and I him.
Softly, my back to Ava, I said, “Me, too.”
Stella nodded gravely.
“Betsy said to tell you hello.”
Stella’s face lit up, and she was beautiful, without warning. “Tell her hello for me. She’s cute.”
“Yes, she is. I hope to adopt her.”
Again, the hungry look. “That would be awesome for her.”
“She deserves some awesome. Losing her mom and her dad, being alone in a strange place.”
Stella’s eyes clouded. “Yeah.”
I knew she could relate. I didn’t know why her mother wasn’t in the picture, but she hadn’t been as long as I’d known the girl. Stella was one grandmother away from Greg and Farrah’s circumstances, from what I could tell.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Ava was texting and smiling, oblivious to our conversation. That was okay. I knew I could pull her back in if I needed her. Right now, Stella and I were rolling.
“Betsy lost something important to her at the ranch. A pink backpack. She never went anywhere without it,” I said to Stella.
“I remember it.”
“Do you remember seeing it after everything went down? After you helped me rescue her?”
Ava giggled, and we both looked at her. She noticed and said, “Oh, sorry. Message.” She held up her phone then lowered it and started typing again.
Stella raised her brows toward Ava but continued. “Yeah. I saw it in Dad’s barn office, you know, when that police guy let me go through and take all the stuff that was mine or special.”
My heart leapt. Hope. The backpack had been there after Johnson was arrested. “Do you know what happened to it?”
“Nah. I left it there. I’m sorry. I was getting my stuff.”
I allowed myself a moment of intense frustration. Jack and I had made multiple requests for the backpack through the task force, and we’d left messages for individual officers working the case. We’d called and left a voice mail on the phone out at the ranch. The task force said they didn’t have it, which I now believed, since Stella had seen it after the evidence collection was finished. But why hadn’t the officers called us back? It was there. All they would have had to do was tell us and someone from Wrong Turn Ranch could have run across the street and picked it up. And now? It could be anywhere, with anyone, or nowhere at all. I wouldn’t think that it had any value except to Betsy, but who knew what drove some people to take things that weren’t theirs? Once my backpack had been stolen when thieves broke into my car at Tech. All they’d gotten was spiral notebooks, loose change, a few pens, and a chicken salad sandwich I’d forgotten to eat that day. I hope they got food poisoning from it, I really do.
I covered my frustration with a smile. “Hey, you didn’t know we were looking for it. No problem.”
The doorbell rang again. Stella frowned. “Who’s there?”
“Manny.” The voice from outside the door sounded guttural and demanding, even in only that one word.
“Just a minute.” Her eyes flew wide and she whispered, “Oh shit. I look awful.”
“Who’s Manny?”
“This guy . . .” She jumped up. “I’ve got to go change.”
Ava put a hand on her hip. “Hold up.”
“Yes?”
“Did you know that boy coming?”
“Uh, no, uh—”
“Don’t you go jumping to please him when he not even man enough to call first. Tell him you got plans. Make him work a little. You worth it.”
Stella looked at me. I nodded.
“But, what if he doesn’t come back?” she said.
Ava chuptzed. “Then he garbage.” The way she said GAHR-bahj and drew out the second syllable made her pronouncement gospel.
Stella went to the door. She looked back at Ava. “That’s what you’d do?”
“Yah, mon. For true.”
Stella opened the door to the end of the security chain. A guy too old for her with greasy hair and a hooked scar on his cheek pushed at the door. “Let me in, Stell.”
She licked her lips. “Sorry, Manny, I have some girls over. Friends of my father. Call me later?”
His face darkened. “What’s that shit? I’m busy later.”
She sucked in a wavery breath, shot another look at Ava, who threw her hands in the air with an exaggerated roll of her eyes and head shake. I wasn’t sure how Ava managed to do everything she did at once, but it worked.
“Sorry, Manny. Another time.” Stella closed the door, over his “What the fuck?” protestation.
“Good.” Ava marched over to the girl and hugged her. Stella towered over Ava by a good six inches. “Now, Emily and I taking you to lunch. You way too skinny.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
After we dropped off a chattering, smiley Stella—whose head was now crammed with advice on men, music, and motherhood from her new idol Ava—I parked to check my phone. I noticed Ava’s flying fingers and that telltale grin again.
“Okay, who has you lit up like a firecracker? I asked.
Ava didn’t raise her head. “Some guy.”
“Does he have a name?”
She stopped and peered at me. “Emily, I your friend, right?”
I caught my breath. “Yes, of course.”
“Friends don’t let friends wear that hair. We fixing you up once we back at the ranch.”
“What?”
Ava pointed at the crown of her forehead. “That. We fixing that, and you can thank me later.”
I liked my bangs. I touched them with my fingertips. I hated when they hugged my head like a greasy cap. I wanted them light and fluffy off my forehead. I looked at my friend in her tight, loud outfit.
“The only way you’re touching my hair
is if you let me make over your wardrobe,” I retorted.
Ava snorted and went back to her texting. I realized too late she’d probably been trying to distract me. At least I hoped that was it. A dark blue sedan drove by, and I did a double take. I tried to decide if it was the same one from earlier, but I couldn’t tell for sure. I’d completely forgotten to look for it on the way to and from lunch.
Smarting and jumpy, I scrolled my own notifications. Jack, from an hour and a half before: Interesting. Helpful. Collin working on this today, w/license plate photo.
I answered him: Good. Ava & I took Stella to lunch. She saw Betsy’s backpack in barn office after evidence collected!! Gone now though. I added a little frowny face.
Almost as soon as I’d hit send, my phone rang. I jumped. Please don’t be Byron, please don’t be Byron, please don’t be Byron. And it wasn’t.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” Which my phone had already told me.
“Hi, Jack.”
“Good news.”
“What’s that?”
“Collin has tied the license plate from your photo to a driver who lives outside Alamogordo.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“He wants to drop in on the guy.”
“Are we invited?”
Collin’s voice boomed, and I realized we were on speaker. I hit speaker, too. “Not officially, but I’ve been told I’m not very observant, so if other people are there when I drop by, I might not even notice them. Besides, Emily, you might be able to help identify him.”
Jack said, “We called the guy’s house and he’s home. We’re on our way there now.”
“Text me the address and we’ll meet you.”
“See you there.”
I hung up. “Heck yeah!”
“That the best you can cuss?” Ava shook her head. “Girl, you got no game.”
“I got plenty of game. We’re about to get to watch Collin roust a smuggler, all because of my game.”
“Forget your game and get back to the rousting part. Actual sexy cop shit like on TV, that kind of rousting?”
“Exactly like that.”
She grabbed her lipstick and brandished it like a sword. “Better move this bucket of bolts before I get out and push.”
***
I threw the Suburban into park ten minutes later in the bare front yard/parking lot next to the front steps of a glorified mobile home. Almost simultaneously, a vintage green and white Ford Bronco on jacked-up wheels backed in beside us. I recognized the heads in it. Collin was at the wheel, and Jack on the passenger side.
“Whose car that?” Ava breathed.
“It looks like maybe it’s Collin’s.”
“That so fine.” She gave her lipstick another swipe and her girls a boost.
I laughed, because the classic SUV was fine, but I’d have never expected Ava to think so. We got out and the guys came around and met us. I hadn’t forgotten I was upset with Jack, but he caught my gaze and smiled at me and a little ice in my heart melted. He was trying. It didn’t make it any easier to stay mad at him that he had on my favorite blue plaid flannel shirt with his lived-in Wranglers and boots as old as the Bronco in front of us. His hair had gotten a little on the long side—dark, curling at the tips—and his skin had darkened since yesterday. Why did he have to look so good when he’d been so wrong?
Collin grinned. “Yo, ladies, you ready to play good cop?”
Ava wriggled a little and made some funny noise that I tried to block out. I was immune to Collin with his full swagger on.
“What’s the plan?” I asked, without rolling my eyes.
“I’ll tell him I’ve received a complaint of a hit-and-run with his license plate number. You three are my witnesses, but you need to wait in the Suburban. Be seen and not heard, unless I ask you a question. Then go with a simple headshake or nod. At most an ‘uh-uh’ or an ‘uh-huh.’ Got it?”
The glare off the snow reflected into my eyes, even through my sunglasses. I added a hand shield. “How will we hear?”
“Roll down your window. Hopefully he’ll come outside.” He winked at Ava. “I can be very persuasive.”
Ava purred. “I sure you can.”
“All right, enough of that,” I said. “I’m feeling like I stumbled into the back booths in an adult video shop.”
Collin laughed. He pointed at the Suburban and the three of us went back to it. I deferred to Jack for the driver’s seat since it was his vehicle and sat behind him, window down.
The white house in front of us sat on a barren piece of land, three acres or so, with a fenced area behind it. To call it a house upgraded it a little more than it deserved, although someone had added a small wooden front porch and steps and skirted the entire unit with lattice. Whoever it was needed to come back with a hammer and some paint. A corner of the lattice flapped in the wind. Pieces of trash had woven their way into the lattice itself.
Collin walked up the steps. Despite the sun, temperatures still hung below twenty-five degrees, according to the Suburban’s display. The wind blew at roughly tornado speed in a straight line instead of a circle. In the lee of the house the Suburban was sheltered from it a little. Still, the lattice vibrated in the wind, and the whole house shuddered. How it hadn’t blown away in the wind already was anybody’s guess.
Collin knocked on the storm door three times, hard enough to rattle the glass.
Seconds later, the door opened. An Asian-looking woman in a sweater of peacock colors poked her upper body out, her movements jerky. Barely five feet, she looked like a little hummingbird, and I was afraid the wind would grab her if she stepped any farther out the door.
“What do you want?” Her accent made her English hard to understand.
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Collin Connell and I’m here to see Ricky Brewer. Is he your husband?”
She nodded.
“I see his truck is home, Mrs. Brewer.” Collin pointed at the tractor rig I hadn’t even noticed earlier protruding in front of the far side of the house. “Would you ask him to come out and speak to me, please?”
“Why?”
Collin pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to his New Mexico State Police badge. “State Police business, ma’am, but nothing to worry about. I need to ask him a few questions.”
Her eyes drilled over to the Suburban and into each of us in rapid succession, sharp and hostile. “Wait here.” She shut the storm door and the inner door behind her. Thirty seconds passed. I heard a car driving by and glanced out at the road. Blue sedan. Too far away to confirm whether it was one I’d seen earlier, but the coincidence was becoming too big to ignore. I prayed Byron hadn’t notified the local CPS to have me tailed. It was unlikely they’d follow me onto the private roads on Jack’s property, though, so—while nerve-wracking—the kids would remain hidden and safe. I hoped.
The door reopened. My adrenaline surged. A man stepped out. Short. Skinny. Dark-skinned with jet-black hair standing up on one side. He rubbed his swollen eyes.
Collin flipped his wallet open again. “Collin Connell, NMSP. Are you Ricky Brewer?”
The man grunted.
“I’ll take that as a yes. We’ve had a complaint against your tractor for a hit-and-run, and I need to ask to see your logbook, sir.”
Brewer crossed his arms. “Not me. I didn’t do no hit-and-run.”
“Well, the reason I’m here, sir, is that the citizens who reported it gave me your license plate number.” Collin’s demeanor suddenly shifted. “So, you can show me the log here, or I can arrest you and we can talk about this at the district offices.”
“Arrest me? What’s my offense when I ain’t done nothing?”
Collin crossed his arms. His upper body looked forbidding, and his heavy winter coat added to his bulk. “It’s whatever I say it is. Sir.”
Brewer stared at him, rotated glances over at us like his wife had, then stared at Collin again. The wind howled around the house. Beside me, Ava shive
red.
“All right. Wait here.”
Brewer disappeared.
Ava leaned toward the backseat and whispered to me. “I gettin’ hot.”
“Take off your jacket.”
She gave a mini-chuptz. “Not that kind of hot.”
I half-groaned. “You’re the most overtaxed person I’ve ever met.”
Without turning his head, Jack said, “Don’t you mean oversexed?”
“That’s what I said,” I lied.
Ava shrugged. “Everybody gotta be best at something.”
Jack made a choking noise, then coughed. I looked at him in the rearview mirror and saw he was laughing.
The door opened and Ava sucked in her breath.
Brewer had donned a coat, and he carried a ledger. He shut the doors behind him this time. Right in front of us, I saw the blinds part, and the eyes and nose of his wife appear in the gap, like a beak.
“Here,” Brewer said, thrusting the ledger at Collin.
Collin took the book from him and flipped pages. “Hmm.” He flipped more slowly. “Umm.” He stopped, turned the book toward Brewer. “This here says you carried a load to”—he rotated it back to himself, then to Brewer—“Amarillo. Construction materials, I guess, because right here you wrote ‘Top Hat Construction.’ Who’d you carry it for?”
Brewer grunted, pointing.
“Ah, Allied Distributing. Down in Las Cruces.” Collin turned the book around, studied it. “Did you backhaul?”
Brewer grunted again, pointed again.
“Contracted a load from Owens Corning back here. Gotcha.”
Brewer cleared his throat. “What’s this got to do with a hit-and-run, and them folks there?” This time he gestured with his head instead of his finger.
“I’ll ask the questions.” Collin slammed the book shut. “Does this book represent all your jobs, all your driving, all your pickups, all your drop-offs?”
“Yup.”
“Let me show you something.” Collin pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. He typed in something, scrolled through screens, then turned the phone to face Brewer. “Is that your rig?”
Brewer frowned and leaned toward the phone. Leaned back. “Yup.”
“Do you recognize where this picture was taken?”
Earth to Emily Page 24