by Linda Howard
That wasn’t to say he didn’t already realize it, because she saw the tiniest twitch of his mouth. The twitch could never have been called a smile, but maybe it wanted to be one.
“I usually do,” she found herself explaining as she tried to fit the key into the lock. Her hand was shaking slightly and she had to try again before she succeeded. The next vehicle she bought, she promised herself, would have remote-operated locks. As she opened the door, she said, “Joann said you called.”
“Yeah.” He leaned past her and hit the unlock button that released all the locks, then went around and got into the passenger seat.
Evidently he was riding with her. Either that or he didn’t want to talk while standing on the sidewalk. Taking a deep breath, she got behind the wheel and started the motor, then turned the air-conditioning on high and lowered the windows to help dissipate the stifling heat that had built up in the closed vehicle.
He’d had to remove his hat when he got in, and he twisted to toss the dark brown Stetson onto the backseat. Then he buckled his seat belt.
For a moment she was so startled by the image of an assassin wearing his seat belt that the significance of his action escaped her. She blinked as she realized that he wouldn’t have fastened the belt unless he expected the vehicle to be moving soon.
She put her bag on the back floorboard and fastened her own seat belt. “Where to?” she asked, in case he had any specific ideas about their destination.
He shrugged. “You’re driving.”
“I was going back to the office.”
“Fine.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In a safe place. I’ll tell you when to let me out.”
She shrugged, checked her mirrors, and when she saw a gap in traffic, she pulled out of her parking space. The air blowing from the vents was becoming cool, so she raised the windows, sealing the two of them inside the small private space. She’d never before realized just how small and just how private a vehicle was, but even though Diaz was the most still person she’d ever met, he had a way of taking up space and making it his own. She felt both crowded and smothered, even though he was doing nothing more than sitting quietly beside her.
“Why did you call?” she finally asked, since he wasn’t volunteering any information.
“Pavón isn’t in the area now. He’s gone to ground somewhere.”
Disappointment hit her in the stomach like a sledgehammer. She tightened her hands on the steering wheel. “You know that already?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, he’ll turn up. Did you tell anyone about me?” He was checking the side-view mirror, she realized, keeping watch on the vehicles around them. He wasn’t overt about it, but he hadn’t relaxed his guard one iota since getting into the SUV with her.
“No, and I told Joann not to mention you, either.”
“Can you trust her?”
“More than most.” Until the moment those words left her mouth, Milla would have said she trusted Joann absolutely. But Diaz wouldn’t believe in absolutes; to him people would be more trustworthy or less trustworthy, but not completely trustworthy. And he was right, she thought. As much as she trusted Joann, there was always the possibility something would slip during conversation.
He continued to watch the traffic, and she watched him as much as she could while she was driving. He was a neat man; his clothes weren’t stained, his fingernails were short and clean. Today he was wearing dark brown jeans and a T-shirt that looked as if it had once been beige but had been washed so often it had faded to a soft cream. He wore a wristwatch, one of those highly technical things that looked as if it could plot a course to the stars, but no other jewelry. His hands, resting quietly on his thighs, were strong and lean, with prominent veins that laced upward on his arms.
His profile was tough, contained, a little grim. His jaw was still covered with stubble, his lips compressed as if he found nothing in his life to be joyous. Maybe there wasn’t anything joyous, she thought. Joy came from people, from the web of relationships that bound people together, and Diaz was profoundly solitary. He might be sitting right beside her, but she felt as if part of him wasn’t there at all.
“Did you find out who called me Friday night?” she asked after the silence had stretched several minutes beyond comfortable.
“No. I hit a dead end.”
Did he mean that literally? Was his contact now dead?
“I’ll find him eventually,” he continued, and she blew out a tiny breath of relief.
Her cell phone rang. He looked around, located her bag, and hauled it up from the back floorboard. “Thanks,” Milla said, fishing the phone out of its pocket. The office number was showing in the window. “Hello.”
“We’ve got a missing four-year-old boy,” Debra Schmale said without preamble. “He lives close to the state park. He’s been missing from home for at least two hours.” She gave his address. “The police department are the first responders. The family and neighbors looked for the boy for two hours before they called. The PD called and asked for our assistance. We’re getting people in the street as fast as possible. Most of the office staff are on their way.”
“I’ll meet them at the boy’s house,” Milla said, and ended the call. She glanced at the traffic and changed lanes, accelerating to catch the next traffic signal on green. She hung a right, then another right, and headed in the opposite direction. “Where should I let you out?” she asked Diaz.
“What’s wrong?”
“Lost four-year-old, close to Franklin Mountains.” The string of hundred-plus temperatures had continued today; unless the little boy found shelter from the sun, he could die of heatstroke. And if he had found shelter, that could just make it more difficult to find him.
Diaz shrugged. “I’ll go with you. I know the area.”
Somehow she’d never expected that. Not only was he putting himself out, but a lot of people would see him. She had thought he would shun crowds.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “If you want to keep your identity quiet, I shouldn’t call you Diaz.”
He had a way of not answering questions immediately. He always paused a second or two, as if considering both the question and his possible answers. That little pause was unnerving.
“James,” he finally said.
She punched the Toyota into passing gear and powered ahead of a sports car. “Is that your real name?”
“Yes.”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But as long as he answered to the name, if it was his real one or not didn’t matter.
She was glad the police department had called them. In cases like this, Finders always worked under the direction of either police departments or county sheriffs, depending on who had jurisdiction and were the first responders. Searches did better when they were organized, rather than having a bunch of panicked people taking off in all directions without anyone knowing where they were going. Both the city and the county had search-and-rescue teams, but when manpower was short and time was critical, sometimes they would call Finders. Her people knew how to search, how to follow orders and stick to the grid.
The street where the little boy lived was clogged with cars, both official and private, and people walked up and down both sides of the street calling his name. A cluster of people was in front of his home, and Milla saw a distraught young woman sobbing into an older woman’s shoulder.
Her stomach clenched. She had once been that young woman. No matter how many times she saw a sobbing mother, no matter how many times a child was found safe and returned home, for one horrible moment she always flashed back to that little open market and the last time she’d heard her baby’s cry.
She found a place to park, jumped out, and retrieved her emergency kit from the back. The Finders all carried a change of clothing with them, because they never knew where they would be or how they would be dressed when a call came in. She climbed into the backseat and hurriedly stripped off her skirt, then pulled on a pair of cargo pant
s and put on her socks and sneakers. While she was changing, Diaz planted himself at the door with his back turned to her, blocking anyone from seeing in and surprising her with his consideration.
Baseball cap and sunglasses went on, then she filled her pockets with a few items: one of the walkie-talkies that all the Finders carried, a whistle, a bottle of water, a roll of gauze, and a pack of chewing gum. The whistle was to alert anyone nearby in case the radio failed, and the other items were for the little boy. He might not be hurt when they found him—she never let herself think that he might not be found in time—but he would definitely need water, and would probably like some chewing gum.
Her group had spotted her SUV and were coming toward her. Brian was in the lead, and even though he was wearing sunglasses, too, Milla could tell his attention was riveted on Diaz.
She climbed out of the backseat and locked the doors, slipping her keys into her front pocket. “This is James,” she said by way of introduction, before Brian could ask any questions. “He’s going to help us. Who’s in charge?”
“Baxter,” said Brian.
“Good.” Lieutenant Phillip Baxter was a veteran of these searches, a steady, commonsensical man who could be counted on to be thorough.
“What’s the little boy’s name?” She could hear people calling what sounded like “Mac” or “Mike,” and she wanted to be certain.
“Max. He’s in general good health, but wasn’t in day care today because he has an ear infection and was feverish. His mother thought he was taking a nap while she did laundry, but when she went to check on him, he wasn’t in his bed.”
Children did that, wandered outside to play without telling anyone. Milla had once searched for an enterprising toddler who had watched his parents latch the door, then had waited for his moment, pushed a chair over to the door and climbed up on it, and used his toy truck to help him reach the last few inches he needed to push up the latch. They knew all that only because after he was found, he proceeded to make another bid for freedom and demonstrated his tactic. Children were horribly inventive, and oblivious of danger.
It was worrisome that little Max was ill; a fever would make him even more susceptible to the heat. They needed to find him really fast. She had been out in the heat only a few minutes, and she was already dripping with sweat.
They all went to the front yard and reported in to Baxter, who held a clipboard and was coordinating the effort so that no area would be left unsearched while others were searched over and over again by different groups. His men, steady professionals, were in charge of each sector.
Baxter gave her a nod as her group approached. “Milla,” he said by way of greeting. “Glad your group could make it. They waited such a long time before calling 911 that the kid’s had time to put some distance between home and wherever he is now. He wanted to go to his grandmother’s earlier, but because he was sick his mom said no, and he was mad.”
“Where does his grandmother live?”
“A couple of miles from here. His mother says he does know the way to Granny’s house, so we’re concentrating most of our efforts between the two points.”
Diaz, lurking behind her but always near, asked, “What door did he use?”
She was surprised that he’d brought attention to himself, but evidently he wasn’t worried about the El Paso cops seeing him. That was somewhat reassuring; the odds were he wasn’t wanted on this side of the border.
Baxter gave him a sharp look, then indicated the direction with his hand. “The back door. Come see.”
Milla was sure Baxter had already inspected the backyard, but if he was willing to take them back there, she wanted to see things for herself, too, so they went around the side of the house to the back.
The backyard was neat and enclosed with chain-link fencing. There was a swing set and slide, several toy dump trucks where the little boy had evidently spent a lot of time moving dirt from one place to another, and a plastic tricycle against the fence.
“I figure he climbed on the tricycle, got a handhold, then made it the rest of the way over the fence,” Baxter said. “It’s the only way out that I can see.”
Diaz gave an absent nod, his cold gaze inspecting the surrounding area for anything that would attract a little boy’s attention. “A dog, maybe,” he said almost to himself. “A puppy, a kitten. Hope it wasn’t a coyote.”
Milla’s throat tightened. She hoped it wasn’t any kind of predator, animal or human, that had lured the little boy from the safety of his backyard.
“You don’t think he was going to Granny’s house?” Baxter asked.
“Probably. But if a little dog or cat wandered by, he could have taken off after it. You know how kids are.”
“Afraid so.” Baxter sighed, his eyes worried.
Diaz went to the point of the fence where Max had climbed over, and squatted down as he surveyed the ground, then lifted his head and slowly surveyed the surroundings. It was something the Finders often did, got down on the missing child’s level, to see things as he saw them. Adults, looking down, would sometimes miss a hidey-hole or the interesting shape of a rock.
“A lot of people have trampled the ground here,” Diaz said, meaning they had obliterated any tiny sign he might have seen. “You have a dog on the way?”
“He’ll be here in about an hour.” To Baxter’s credit, he wasn’t getting sideways with Diaz’s questions. But then Baxter didn’t feel he had anything to prove; his goal was to find the missing child, nothing else. If Diaz could help, that was fine with him.
Diaz grunted. The little boy had already been missing for over two hours. Another hour to get the dog here, get him oriented, give him the scent—they could be looking at four hours for the little boy to be out in this heat, sick, no water.
Baxter consulted his clipboard. “Okay, Milla, let’s get your people organized.” Joann gave him a list of their names and he added it to his sheaf of information, then began calling off names two by two, and ticking them off the list as he gave them their instructions. He pointed to Diaz and Milla. “I want you two to head straight for the mountain.” He eyed Diaz. “You strike me as a tracker, and Milla has a sixth sense where lost kids are concerned. Maybe he did follow a dog, or something.”
He gave everyone Max’s general description—black hair, brown eyes, wearing a white Blues Clues T-shirt, denim shorts, and sandals—then sent them on their way.
She and Diaz fell into step as they threaded their way through mostly grassless lawns and alleys, often getting down on their hands and knees and crawling as they peered under cars, bushes, structures, anything that a small boy could squeeze under. Every few feet Milla would call Max’s name, then stop and listen. A sharp rock dug into her knee; a piece of glass cut her hand. She ignored all those physical discomforts, ignored the heat, concentrated on looking, calling, and listening. She had done this more times than she could remember, and yet every time her sense of urgency was just as great.
They were half a mile from the house when Diaz found a child’s footprint in the dust. They had no way of knowing if it was Max’s, but it was something. Milla crouched beside him and examined the print. It looked small enough to belong to a four-year-old, and the print was made by a shoe with smooth soles, rather than a sneaker.
“You’re bleeding,” he said abruptly.
Milla glanced at her hand. “It’s just a shallow cut. I’ll take care of it when we get back.”
“Wrap it now. Don’t contaminate the trail with your blood scent.”
She hadn’t thought of that. She stopped, drew the roll of gauze out of one of her cargo pockets, and began wrapping her hand. She could wrap it efficiently enough, but with just one hand she couldn’t tie off the bandage. Diaz pulled a wicked knife from his boot and cut the gauze, then sliced the end into two long strips that he then wrapped around her hand and tied in a firm knot.
“Thanks,” Milla said. She looked around. “Have you seen any coyote prints?”
“No.”
That was good. Small animals were a coyote’s food, anything from a rat to a pet to a child.
They went back down on their hands and knees, thoroughly searching everything. “Max!” Milla called. “Max!” She listened. No answer.
She was so hot she was getting a little sick to her stomach, so she took a drink of water and handed the bottle to Diaz, who also drank. If she felt like this after half an hour, how did Max feel, after almost three hours? If he was anywhere near, he should have heard them calling.
An idea struck her, and she fished out her walkie-talkie, keyed it. “This is Milla. What’s Max’s full name?”
A few minutes later the answer crackled over the radio: “Max Rodriguez Galarza.” She slipped the radio back into her pocket, put her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and channeled her own mother. “Max Rodriguez Galarza, you come here right now,” she called in the sternest voice she could muster.
Diaz flashed her a surprised glance, and a tiny hint of amusement kicked up one corner of his mouth.
“M-mommy? Mommy!”
The little voice was faint, but understandable. Shock jolted through her that the tactic had actually worked; then the sweet flash of success made her turn a huge grin on Diaz. “Got him!” she crowed. She raised her voice again. “Max! Where are you, young man?”
“Here,” said the little voice.
That was helpful, she thought. But Diaz suddenly cut across a backyard to the right of them, so maybe it was helpful.
“Come here this minute!” she called, so he would say something else. He seemed to respond to the voice of authority.
“I can’t! I’m stuck.”
A pickup truck was parked in the backyard two houses over, and Diaz went down on his knees beside it, peering under it. “Here he is,” he said. “The back of his shorts is snagged.”