Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(54)
“Hey!” she called, looking to Mal for help, but he just shook his head hard.
“Let it go,” he said.
Let it go? “But my computer and my—”
“Good faith,” he said quietly. “We’re showing good faith.”
She got out of the car slowly, automatically holding out her hands to show how empty they were. And full of good faith.
Rifle Man fired off some Spanish.
One of the teenage boys came around and started patting down Mal for a weapon. He didn’t move, but held his hands out, allowing them to inspect him.
Mal nodded to her. “Let them do the same to you,” he ordered.
She did, extending her hands, letting him pat lightly over her waist, hips, and legs, and the man with the rifle signaled to the other boy and shouted an order. The kid—who couldn’t have been fourteen and was grossly underweight—gestured for them to follow him.
Surrounded by Rifle Man and his boys, Chessie and Mal were taken to the back of the building, then toward another barn-like structure. Chessie’s blood thumped wildly as she looked at Mal, but he didn’t give away anything. Not fear, not worry, not a plan for what to do if these people were taking them into the barn to shoot them.
She didn’t speak, but gave him a pleading look and got nothing but a nearly imperceptible headshake in response. Basically, just shut up and do what they want you to do. Like she had a choice at this point.
She followed the youngest boy, who stopped at a huge padlock on the barn door. He turned to their leader, Rifle Man, who gave a gruff order.
The boy disappeared around the back, and they all stood in the merciless sun for five minutes until he returned with a key, which he slipped into the lock.
Rifle Man stepped up to the door and glowered at Mal, speaking in hushed Spanish.
Mal replied in Spanish, then he glanced at Chessie. “I’ve just promised on the lives of our own families that we will never reveal what we’re about to see. Tell him the same thing.”
She blinked, then looked at Rifle Man. “I promise,” she whispered.
“In Spanish,” Mal urged. “Say ‘le prometo.’”
She repeated the words exactly as they sounded.
Finally, the man ripped off the padlock and slowly opened the barn doors.
Excerpt, it was no barn. It was a massive warehouse full of desks, chalkboards, maps, and at least twenty children ranging in age from toddler to teen.
“Esta es la Escuela Ramos,” the man announced with pride.
“The Ramos School,” Mal translated.
Chessie took a breath and let her gaze slide over all the little faces full of surprise and curiosity. Was one of these her nephew? Her throat tightened with hope so tangible she could taste it.
Chapter Seventeen
It didn’t take long for Chessie to figure out where she wanted to go in the little schoolhouse. There were several small “sections” that were loosely divided into age groupings. The older kids in the back, the midsize ones along the sides, and up front, the very youngest.
Chessie gravitated to these kids, maybe age five and under, scanning their little faces, looking for any sign, anything at all, that she might be staring at her brother’s son. There wasn’t a blue eye in the bunch, so that ruled out her most obvious clue. The little Cuban faces were a sea of beautiful and expressive dark eyes, delicate but deeply tanned features, and constantly moving mouths that smiled easily and laughed heartily, despite the fact that they were in hiding, obviously hungry, and living on the hairy edge of real poverty.
Nestor Ramos, their rifle-carrying host, relaxed more with each passing moment, obviously deciding that some prayer had been answered as he walked from one side of the warehouse to the other, observing the guests carefully.
The lessons were in full swing within an hour or two. Reading from new books. Writing with colored pens. Even some math, counting out wrapped candies to learn addition and subtraction.
Chessie tucked herself in a corner with the toddler-age little ones, a boy and a girl on her lap, introducing them to Winnie the Pooh, with pages in both English and Spanish.
She divided her attention between the book and the precious little faces, who beamed heartfelt, gap-toothed smiles as she stumbled through the Spanish, their slender fingers wrapped around her arms as if to keep her there.
Every time she looked up to scan the room and drink in what was going on, her gaze fell on Mal, who was on his knees in front of a few teenage boys, getting a purely marvelous reaction while he used Chessie’s laptop to show them a video game, which apparently held universal appeal for boys in any country, under any political regime.
“Otra vez! Otra vez!” one of the children on her lap cried, pulling Chessie’s attention back to her own circle of students. She didn’t have to know Spanish to understand the plea of a child who wanted a story read a second—well, a fourth time. And she didn’t mind, except this wasn’t getting her any closer to finding the child she’d come here for.
“I have an idea!” she said brightly, lifting the two from her lap and waving over several others. “Let’s play the…” How could she find out which child was Gabriel? What did she know about him other than his name and… “The birthday name game!”
They all stared at her, utterly confused.