The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(48)

There was an uneasy stillness in the air. Somewhere in the store, a baby began to wail and could not be comforted by its mother. I gathered all my items and stood up, rubbing soreness from my knees. I was trying to decide if I should go back and tell the cashier that I needed a new carton, or just go home and have Marisela ask me why I couldn’t be trusted to bring home six unbroken eggs, when a teenage girl walked past me, giving me a wary look as she stepped out of the store. I had seen that look before, cast on misfits, maniacs, and madmen, warning them to stay away, as if what troubled them was a leprosy, contagious and incurable. Listen, I wanted to tell the girl, I’m not crazy. But the door had already closed behind her.

Write down the detective’s name. You can decide later what you want to do.

I put the carton with the broken egg in my grocery bag and left the market. In the parking lot, I noticed a car with a long hood, just like the one that had struck Guerrero—a Ford, it turned out, only this one was blue, instead of silver—and this fresh detail, especially at this particular moment, added to my anger and frustration. I was starting to realize that the more I tried to forget what happened that night on the highway, the more I came across reminders of it.

At home, I didn’t eat dinner, ignored the children’s pleas to join them in a game, lay on the sofa all evening, watching but not following the fútbol match on the screen. I feared what Marisela would say if I told her what had been happening to me, and yet I was not sure I could keep it to myself, either.

Tell her about the reward. Tell her.

I shook my head no. I had a good notion what my wife would say if I told her about the money. “See?” she would say. “It’s a sign that you should call. Tell the police what happened.” I had enough voices swirling around in my head as it was.

How daring this Guerrero had become. He had burst into my home, made himself comfortable on the corner chair, inserted himself into a conversation between Marisela and me. It reminded me of the old days, when I was still courting her. Back then, she would often lapse into long silences, her thoughts drifting to her first husband, dead only a year after they were married. Once or twice she even called me by his name—Ernesto. “There are plenty of beautiful girls in Torreón,” my cousin Alonso said, staring at my left ear. “Why are you still pining after this one?” But I didn’t give up, and look at us now. Twelve years, two kids.

After she put the children to bed, Marisela asked if I wanted to eat dinner now. “I saved you a plate,” she said.

“Maybe later. I’m not hungry right now.”

She came to sit beside me on the sofa. “Who’s winning?”

I hadn’t paid attention to the match, and now I couldn’t answer. The light from the television screen colored the living room in shades of green and red and blue. Years ago, I had waited out her dead husband. Worn him out until he left. Surely I could do the same with Guerrero.





Coleman




At home, all I heard for the next week was Brandon this or Brandon that. “Brandon thinks the Dodgers suck this year.” “Brandon invited me to go to the drive-in on Saturday.” “Brandon let me borrow the new Call of Duty.” It wasn’t much of a conversation, but at least Miles was talking to us now, he wasn’t shuttered up in his room all the time. He even volunteered to make waffles for breakfast, with strawberries and whipped cream, which he hadn’t done since we’d moved to California. “See?” Ray said as he loaded up the dishwasher afterward. “He just needed a little time to adjust. Like I told you, baby. He’s fine.” But I was still worried about his grades, so after breakfast that Saturday morning, I told Miles that if he planned to go to the drive-in with Brandon, he had to come to the library with me for a couple of hours. I wanted him to get away from his video games and do a set of problems from the new math workbook we’d bought for him. “Fine,” he grumbled, then stared at his phone the whole way to the library. When we got out of the car, he slammed the door so hard I thought it might go off its hinges. “I told you before not to do that,” I said.

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Of course, I can. I just did.”

“You’re not my mom.”

This hurt me so much, I could hardly breathe. Miles was an infant when Ray and I met, at a Fourth of July party given by one of my colleagues at Metro, a forensic pathologist who lived in Bethesda, Maryland. I got lost on the way there and by the time I arrived the only seats available in the backyard were next to Sharon from H.R. or next to Ray and the baby. It was an easy choice. The minute I sat down, Miles raised his chubby little arms up for me to hold him—and I did. Like I said, he was a mama’s boy. Later on, I found out that Ray’s ex-wife had decided shortly after giving birth that she had no interest in either marriage or motherhood, and had freed herself of both by filing for divorce and moving to Florida. My marriage to Ray hasn’t always been easy, either—we’ve had our share of tough times, especially after we bought our place in D.C. and money was tight for a while—but I’ve never had any doubt about Miles. He wasn’t my blood, but he was mine all the same. The way he smiled just before he made a winning move on the chessboard, that was me. The persistence he showed whenever he tried to solve a puzzle, that was me, too. I saw myself in him every day. Our bond, woven moment by loving moment for thirteen years, was strong. Yet now, glaring at me on the sidewalk, he was trying to break it. I couldn’t understand what had caused him to disown me, or why he’d chosen this particular moment to do it. “Why are you saying this?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.