Do Not Become Alarmed(49)

“I don’t know!” she cried. He could kill her, but he could not go after Oscar and the children.

“She doesn’t know!” George said. “And now we have another fucking body to deal with! That’s how we got into this mess in the first place!”

“Please,” Maria begged, “give her to her family. She has a son.”

“We can’t,” George said wearily. “Not with a bullet in the head.”

Raúl dropped the gun from Maria’s forehead to turn to his brother. “You do nothing but criticize me!”

“You do nothing but give me reasons!”

Maria was panting with nausea. She thought that George should not speak to his brother that way, not when Raúl had a gun in his hand. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She put a hand there to muffle the sound, but George heard it and crouched beside her.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Give me the phone.”

Maria stared at him, paralyzed.

“Give it to me!”

She handed it over, but not before seeing Oscar’s name on the screen. George accepted the call and put it to his ear. “Hello, Oscar,” he said calmly. “I’m here with your mother. Where are the kids?”

Maria waited.

“You sure?” George said, eyes on Maria. “You have no idea?”

Dark blood was pooling on the stone floor around Consuelo’s head.

“You’re a bad liar,” George said. “You will return the children to me now, do you understand?”

Maria could hear Oscar’s tinny voice, pretending ignorance.

“Don’t fuck with me, Oscar,” George said, and his voice was all threat.

She heard Oscar say he didn’t know anything, and then he must have hung up. Maria prayed that he wouldn’t be lured back here by worry for her. She’d had her life. She couldn’t bear to lose her son.

George stared at her with wonder. “So you took the children.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I was trying to help them,” he said. “And now this woman is dead, because of your stupid plan, because of your lies. Is that what you wanted?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Where is Oscar taking the children?”

“He doesn’t have them.”

Raúl shouted, “We’ve always been good to you! And this is how you repay us? We even paid for the funeral for your slut daughter!”

Maria started to weep. But Raúl didn’t shoot her. He stomped upstairs.

George reached out and flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. He flipped it again. She watched him, holding her breath, and she saw him understand. “You turned the power off,” he said.

“It went out. It goes out.”

“You turned it off,” he said, amazed.

She said nothing.

“For the gate!” he said. “And that’s how Consuelo got in.” George laughed, and leaned back against the wall, and the laugh became a groan. “Tell me what you did, Maria. I want to help the children. As much as you do. Just tell me what you did.”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“You can’t do this alone,” he said. “You need my help. You couldn’t save Ofelia alone.”

Her breath caught at the pain and truth of that.

George crouched beside her in his pajamas and looked at her with the frustrated, thwarted brown eyes she had known since he was a child, as he watched his brother get away with everything. “Maria,” he said. “Tell me. You can tell me. Raúl isn’t here.”

“Oscar is taking them to the embassy,” she whispered.

He nodded, and put a hand on her shoulder. It was warm. “Good,” he said. “That’s good. That’s what I was going to do, in the morning. Does he have a good car?”

“No,” she said. “His uncle’s Impala. I’m worried it won’t run. Don’t tell Raúl.”

George nodded and squeezed her shoulder.

Raúl came back downstairs with a shirt on, boot heels striking the stairs. “I’m going to find them.”

George stood, stretching his knees. “Oscar’s driving them to the embassy.”

“No!” Maria cried.

“Oscar?” Raúl said.

“In an old Impala,” George said.

Maria stared up at him. The good brother.

George pointed his finger at her. “That’s for fucking with me, Maria,” he said. He had a strange look in his eye, one she had never seen before.

Raúl stepped over Consuelo’s body in the doorway and staggered out into the night. There was the sound of the Jeep engine starting up.

Maria had always thought George was better and nobler than his brother. But it turned out he was worse. There was something missing in Raúl. He felt nothing, he couldn’t even help it. But George knew he had just cleaved her heart in two.

“The children,” she said. “My son.”

“They have a long head start,” George said. “They’ll be fine.”

“Please stop your brother,” she said. “Please.”