Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(72)

Ana touched Tres’ hand. “Go on. Your appointment is waiting.”

“It’s only the police,” he said. “They can wait.”

“No. Go on. You can, um . . .”

She rolled her eyes toward Ralph’s cousin, who was trying to pass out tamale samples to the nurses.

“Right,” Tres sighed. Then he announced to the room, “Come on, everybody, Ana needs her rest.”

There were protests, hugs and kisses, some last-minute arranging of flowers and cards.

Tres didn’t look happy to leave either, though Maia knew his last round of meetings with the DA wouldn’t be so bad.

Charges would be considered. Tres’ PI license might still be revoked. But the true killer, Hernandez, was behind bars. In the end, he had confessed to everything freely, including Franklin White’s murder. He planned to plead guilty. Much to his lawyer’s exasperation, Hernandez had not even bargained for a plea agreement that might spare his life.

Hernandez was unlikely to face retribution from the White family. According to Madeleine, her father had taken a turn for the worse over the last week. He was now confined to his bed twenty-four hours a day, allowed no visitors except nurses. Madeleine offered no comment to the press about Hernandez’s arrest, but rumors were flying that she had other things on her mind. A purge was underway. Madeleine was swiftly consolidating control of her father’s organization. A fresh slew of bodies had begun turning up in the San Antonio River or dumped in the fields off Mission Road. One of the victims was a mobster named Alex Cole. He’d been shot through the forehead at point-blank range.

With all that for SAPD to worry about, with all the bad press about the head of homicide being a killer himself, felony charges against Tres for aiding and abetting a fugitive would do no one any good, legally or politically. The city didn’t want any more publicity to come out of this affair than it had already gotten. Nor did it want to face scrutiny for the false DNA match that had led to Ralph Arguello’s murder. Eventually, Tres would go free.

Ralph’s sister gently picked up baby Lucia, who fussed in her sleep but allowed herself to be resettled against her aunt’s shoulder.

At the door, Tres looked back. “Maia, you coming?”

Maia met Ana’s eyes. An understanding passed between them.

“You go ahead,” Maia said. “We have some girl talk.”

Tres hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Ana promised him. “I won’t keep her long.”

MAIA HELPED ANA DRINK SOME CHICKEN broth.

After a few spoonfuls, Ana sat back, her head cratered in the pillows.

As often happened in quiet moments, Maia felt a fissure expanding in her chest—the raw, painful absence of Ralph.

Before she could lose her nerve, she said, “I’ve got something for you.”

From the bag at her side, she pulled the photo album she’d found in Lucia DeLeon’s garage—Ana’s baby book.

Ana took the album, ran her fingers over the cover. “You looked through my mother’s things in the garage.”

“Yes.”

“What’d you decide?”

“The same thing you did, I imagine.”

Ana studied her wistfully. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Oh, boy.” Ana sighed. “That’s a yes.”

She opened the baby book to the first page, traced her fingers over her mother’s picture—Lucia Sr., looking battered and exhausted and terribly young in her hospital bed, her parents holding newborn Ana.

Maia remembered the look of Ralph’s face. He had died with his head against her shoulder. She’d felt his last breath against her forearm.

It wasn’t fair. A childish protest, but Maia couldn’t help it.

He’d taken one bullet. He’d gotten attention faster than Ana had. He should have lived.

The doctors talked about tissue damage. They talked about point-blank range. The only thing Maia really understood was that he’d absorbed the shot meant for her, kept the damage inside himself, shielded her completely. And he’d left Ana to raise a child alone, just as Ana’s mother had done.

Ana turned a page in the album—a picture of her first Christmas, her grandfather holding her up to catch an ornament.

“How old was your mother?” Maia asked.

“When she had me?” Ana murmured. “Just barely twenty. Nineteen when . . .”

“When she was raped,” Maia finished.

“She never admitted it until I was in high school, but by then I’d figured it out. I didn’t understand the whole story . . . the truth . . . until I started looking into Frankie White’s death.”

She stared at the yellowing pictures of herself as a baby, eating yams, opening presents, grabbing at her grandfather’s spectacles.

“How did your mother meet Guy White?” Maia asked.

“They must’ve met at one of the clubs down on South Alamo.” Ana looked almost relieved to be concentrating on it, as if it felt good to slip into her professional self, to hold her life at the distance of a case file. “I figure White would’ve been about thirty-two. My mom was nineteen. She was pretty. Willful. She wasn’t afraid to talk to men. Perfect prey.”