Midnight Crossing (Josie Gray Mysteries #5)(29)

Josie nodded.

“Too much thinking goes on up here.” She dropped Josie’s hand and tapped a finger to her own temple.

Josie smiled and noticed Nick doing the same. “I’ve been told that,” she said.

“We do the best we can, and we let the rest go,” she said. She braced her hand on the table and slowly stood. “I want to show you something.”

The woman walked into the kitchen and then called for Nick. She pointed to a box on top of a kitchen cupboard in the corner. “Reach up there and pull that down.”

He did so, and she carried a small glass bowl to the table. Several bullets rattled around in the bowl as she placed it in front of Josie.

Se?ora Molina sat down beside her again and said, “When I was fifteen I married a man much older than me in my village. He was a mean man. When he drank, his anger boiled up into a volcano of hatred for me. The longer we were married, the more he hated me. But I had nowhere else to go.”

Her voice was so broken and cracked with age that Josie wasn’t sure she’d be able to finish her story. Nick pointed to a clay honeypot on the tray and Se?ora Molina nodded. He lifted the lid and twirled the dipper to gather honey onto the stick and then drizzled it into her tea. She stirred her tea and drank from it, allowing her voice to rest before she continued.

“One hot summer night he was in the horse stable and I was inside the house. I could hear banging and yelling. He’d been drinking tequila all day. He’d skipped the supper I had laid out for him. Then he started yelling my name, and I went to him. Why did I walk into that barn full of trouble and hate? I can’t tell you. That’s what victims do, they walk into trouble. I found him lying on his back in one of the horse stalls, pointing his gun at me. He fired as soon as he saw me. He looked right into my eyes. Six times he pulled that trigger. Time enough to stop and think, regret, feel something other than hate for me, for the woman who cooked his meals and shared his bed.”

She reached up with hands crooked, probably from arthritis, and slowly unbuttoned the top buttons of her smock. She looked at Josie with eyes distant from memories, and she ran her finger from the hollow at her neck down and over to an indentation under her collarbone. She slipped her finger into the hole like a plug in a socket.

“That’s where all the hatred from one man’s soul buried inside me for eternity. If I push hard enough, I can still feel the lead.” She reached her hand into the bowl of bullets and picked one up, showing it to Josie. “He died that night. Drank himself to death. Later I stood in the barn with his rusty pocketknife and dug the rest of these bullets out of the wood in the barn stall. I’ve kept them all these years.”

She motioned for Josie to fix the buttons on her top. When Josie was done buttoning them, Se?ora Molina studied her again. “You have your own lead bullet lodged inside your heart. Don’t let it poison you. That night I committed myself to doing good in the world. And I don’t let the hatred inside that bullet escape.” She tapped her chest where the bullet was buried. “You protect yourself with people who care about you. With good men like Nick. Yes?”

Josie nodded and felt her face flush.

Se?ora Molina brushed at her sleeve with the back of her hand as if brushing off a worry. “Now. I’ve talked too much. Tell me why you came to see me.”

Josie looked at Nick. She was so overcome with the woman’s story she wasn’t sure she could make the right connections just yet.

Nick set down his cup and said, “We came here looking for information about the two young women. Can you tell us what you remember about them? Any details about where they came from so we can search for their families? Our problem is, we have the young woman in our trauma center, and we know her name but don’t know where she’s from. She speaks some English, but she’s said little more than Josie’s name since we found her.”

Se?ora Molina nodded. “A rancher who lives five miles downriver from here brought the women one afternoon. He found them hiding in his barn. They wouldn’t talk. His wife fed them and let them clean up. They’d been staying in the barn.”

“Did they talk to you?” Nick asked.

“The first day they slept. I made them a pallet of blankets on the floor and they slept for hours and hours. The next day they talked and talked. A horrible thing that happened to them.”

“Did they speak English?” Josie asked.

“Spanish. To me anyway. They are from Guatemala.”

Josie looked at Nick. It was a good start.

“Did they tell you what city?” he said.

She pursed her lips in thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No. I don’t remember that. They come from all over. I can’t remember all of them.”

“Did they tell you why they were heading to the U.S.?” Josie asked.

She tilted her head as if it were a frivolous question. “Same as all the others. Going to a big city to get a job and send money home to family.”

“Did they give you any information about the men who had been transporting them?” Nick asked.

She thought for quite a while and finally said, “Two. I remember they said there were two of them. And one of them was a very bad man. He forced himself on them. They could barely speak of it.”

“Were the men from Guatemala too?” Josie asked.

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. All these details. They mix up with all the others. I remember I tried to get them to go home. Back to Guatemala. But their families had spent precious money on their trip. They had to make it to the U.S. I remember that. And that’s when I sent them to you. To Josie.”