No Witness But the Moon(61)

Vega was breathing hard, keeping a tight grip on Diablo’s leash. Adele noticed the leash was muddy and wet. Where had he been?

“Damn this dog!” said Adele.

“Don’t damn him yet,” cautioned Vega. “He may be the only one who can lead us to Sophia.”

Diablo strained at the leash. His floppy triangle ears were on alert. His tail was curled like a giant question mark. His nose glistened in the moonlight. His whole body seemed poised and ready for action. But what sort of action?

They left the pavement and stepped onto the gravel at the end of the cul-de-sac. Diablo jumped over a fallen tree limb. His leash snagged on a branch and Vega undid it. Adele wondered if the dog would just run off but he waited while Vega tucked the leash in his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight.

“Stay here. I’ll find her.” Vega began scrabbling over the limb.

“I’m coming, too.”

“Adele—”

“She’s my daughter!”

He held out his hand and helped her over the limb.

“Sophia!” she called out. Her voice felt tight and raw. No answer. A montage of frightening possibilities flashed through her head. Sophia had been abducted. She’d fallen and hit her head. She’d been struck by a car crossing the street. She was lying in a ditch bleeding. Her baby. Her life. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to save her.

Nothing.

Diablo continued to push on. There were no real trails back here. Just uprooted trees, skeletal bushes, and thickets of dead limbs that tore at their clothes. Vega could barely keep up with the dog. Adele could barely keep up with Vega.

“Sophia!” Vega called out. His voice was deeper and stronger. It seemed to rattle the darkness. There was a note of desperation in him, too. She could hear it.

And then she heard something else. A child’s soft whimper.

“Sophia!” cried Adele. “Where are you, lucero?”

Vega waved the flashlight in an arc before him. Thorny bushes and dead limbs absorbed the yellow haze. Beneath an overgrowth of dormant vines was an overturned metal shopping cart. A wheel stuck up out of the dirt, rusty and bent. Sophia was here somewhere. Why wasn’t she walking toward them?

The dog raced down an embankment and then backtracked to Vega. Adele followed them both until she could make out the silvery thread of a stream. It had the viscous glow of liquid mercury under the haze of moonlight. And then she saw it. On the other side of the stream. A purple coat and a pair of mud-streaked fuzzy pajama bottoms.

“There!” she said.

Sophia was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth, rubbing the ankle of her muddy snow boot.

“Mommy!” At the sight of her mother, Sophia burst into tears. “I dropped Diablo’s leash! He ran when I tried to pick it back up. So I chased him. I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay, lucero. We’re coming!”

“My ankle hurts.”

“Call nine-one-one,” said Vega. “Ask them for an ambulance and fire truck response. Tell them to meet you at the entrance to the woods on Spring Street.” He handed her his flashlight.

“Don’t you need the flashlight?”

“I’m not sure I can carry Sophia back up this muddy incline.”

“What are you going to do?”

“If I can’t move her? Stay with her. What else?”

Diablo panted beside Vega. He turned and rubbed a knuckle against the dog’s head. “Good dog.”

“Good dog? Are you kidding?” asked Adele.

“He found Sophia.”

“He’s the reason she’s in this mess in the first place!”

Vega frowned. Even in the pale glow of moonlight, his dark eyes registered the truth: We’re the reason she’s in this mess. Not the dog.

Adele watched Vega’s shadow fade into the blur of darkness, the dog at his side. The embankment was steep. Even in heavy-soled boots, it would be hard for anyone to negotiate at night. Adele took out her cell and dialed 911 and gave them the information Vega had instructed. On the other side of the embankment, she heard loose stones scatter like rice down the rocky, crusted hillside. Branches cracked and snapped in the darkness. There was a quick, deft splash of water—likely Diablo—followed by a heavier sloshing sound that was likely Vega. She heard her daughter’s soft, panicked cry and Vega’s soothing voice.

“It’s okay, mija. I’ll wrap you in my jacket. Put your arms around my neck and I’ll see if I can get you out of here.”

Adele pointed the flashlight down at her feet and maneuvered through the broken branches and tree limbs until she found her way onto the street. The pale yellow wash of street light felt glaring after the darkness of the woods. The trip into the woods had seemed so long. The trip out, so short. What felt interminable now was the wait. She bobbed up and down on the curb to stay warm, her breath clouding up before her, and waited for the sound of the sirens.

Sophia would be all right. Adele knew that. Despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins, the nervous pins and needles draining the feeling from her limbs, her logical mind knew that Sophia was not in mortal danger. Even if the child’s ankle was broken, she was with Vega. They would get her to the hospital. Sophia would be fine again in a few days or so with a great story to tell her friends. This wasn’t anything like what Marcela’s daughter, Yovanna, probably just experienced on her 2000-mile trek from Honduras to here. This wasn’t anything like the terror that Marcela and her family were experiencing now.