by Brenda Novak
“Okay!” His enthusiasm gave her hope that he would actually remember and comply, but Max’s natural frankness was only part of the problem. She had no idea what would happen if she gave the patrolman a fake ID and he ran it through his computer. How much scrutiny could her new driver’s license withstand? And what was she going to do when the officer asked for registration and proof of insurance? The car could be stolen property.
Real or fake ID? Either way, she could be in trouble.
Breaking into a cold sweat, she felt in her purse for her wallet.
The patrolman’s boots crunched on the gravel shoulder as he approached. In her rearview mirror, she could see the pant legs of his taupe uniform, his black utility belt and holstered gun, and his badge, which glinted in the bright light of early afternoon. As he drew closer, in her side mirror, she made out a fiftyish face with salt-and-pepper hair showing beneath his trooper’s hat.
She’d let the red Toyota spook her into making a dreadful mistake. How could she have been so stupid?
Wiping away the perspiration on her upper lip, Emma pushed Juanita’s sunglasses closer to the bridge of her nose and pulled the scarf forward. Then she lowered the window.
“Good afternoon,” he said, his manner professional.
“Hello.” She took note of his name—Daniels—and tried to smile confidently. A lot depended on her performance in the next few minutes.
He bent his head to glance at Dominick, who was dangling over the seat in an effort to see him. “Where you headin’ today?”
“Sacramento.” Emma wanted to embellish the lie by saying she had family there, but she was afraid such a comment would draw Max into the conversation despite her bribe. They’d visited her family in Arizona two years ago, when Emma had tried to leave Manuel, and Max had loved it. He constantly begged her to take him on another “Zona vacation.”
“May I see your driver’s license?”
Offering up a silent prayer, she handed him her real license.
“Is this address correct?”
“Yes. Is something wrong, Officer?”
“You were speeding. Going nearly ninety miles an hour, Ms.—” he studied her driver’s license “—Beacon.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My son has diabetes, and I’m in a hurry to reach the next town so I can get him some food.” She shifted to make sure the backpack containing Max’s diabetes supplies was completely closed—and prayed that Max wouldn’t pipe up to remind her of all the snacks they had in there. She hated to lie, especially in front of her son, but if she didn’t do something, their bid for freedom and safety could easily end in the next ten minutes. Fortunately, Max thought it was all a game.
“What does he need to eat?” Daniels asked.
“Fifteen grams of carbohydrate, but he needs to do it right away or he could have an insulin reaction. He was just recently diagnosed, so I’m still getting used to the whole thing. Had I been thinking, I would’ve prepared better when we stopped in L.A., but I gave him lunch and forgot all about buying an emergency stash. For the past few minutes, I’ve been so worried he’ll go low and pass out that I haven’t been watching my speed.”
Emma risked a glance at Max in the rearview mirror, hoping he’d hold his tongue. Her stomach lurched when he didn’t.
“I need to eat something?” he said.
“Yes, sweetheart. You didn’t finish your lunch.” At least that part was true.
Daniels seemed to soften, but he didn’t return her driver’s license, tell her to be more cautious in the future and let her go as she’d hoped. “We’ll get you on your way as soon as possible,” he said. “May I see your registration?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have time for this.” She let the panic rising inside her enter her voice. “Maybe you could follow me to the next town.”
His eyes cut to Max. “I’m sure I’ve got something to eat in my car. I’ll get it before you leave, if he’s okay for the moment.”
Emma looked at her son. It was hardly possible to claim Max wasn’t okay for the moment when he appeared as alert, happy and curious as he did.
Shit! She’d gambled and lost. How badly she’d lost remained to be seen.
She rummaged through the glove box, completely unsure of what she might find there, and managed to come up with a Certificate of Registration. Along with the registration, she found a sealed envelope with her new name on it, but she had no idea what it could be and wasn’t about to open it right now. Shoving the envelope back in, she gave Officer Daniels the registration.
His eyes flicked over it. “This car is registered to a Maria Gomez?”
Emma had no idea how to respond. She could only hope that if the car was stolen, it hadn’t been reported yet. “Yes. Maria’s a friend of mine.”
“This might take a minute.” He walked back to his patrol unit. She could see his head and shoulders in her side mirror as he sat behind the wheel with his door slightly ajar, could hear the faint murmur of his voice as he spoke into a crackling radio. Was he running her license plate through some computer? If so, what would he find?
A semi rumbled past, muting all other sound. Several cars whizzed by, too. Emma’s hand hovered over the gearshift. She was tempted to join that stream of traffic, to run while she still had the chance. She couldn’t go back to Manuel. This time she’d lose Max for sure.
“Did I do good, Mommy? Do I get a toy?” her son asked.
“You did great, babe. But it’s not over yet. Be quiet a little longer, okay?” Resting her hand lightly on the gearshift, just in case, she watched the patrolman walk back to her.
“We’re almost done,” Daniels said, and handed her the registration certificate but not her driver’s license, which he’d attached to the clipboard he carried. From what she could see, he was writing her a traffic citation.
She let go of the gearshift. Daniels must not have found anything on her or the car, or he would’ve said something by now. That the car hadn’t raised a red flag surprised her, but the fact that she wasn’t in the computer didn’t. She knew Manuel would involve the police only as a last resort. He had too much to hide to draw that kind of attention. And because he’d found her so easily last time, he’d feel confident he could do it on his own.
“May I see proof of insurance, please?” the officer asked.
Suddenly hopeful that she’d have the chance to recover from her foolish mistake, she rummaged through her purse again and provided her insurance card.
He compared it to her driver’s license and passed it back. “Sign here, Ms. Beacon.” He held the clipboard out to her. “If you’d like to protest this action, instructions are on the other side. Signing the violation isn’t an admission of guilt.”
She didn’t care if it was. She’d sign anything to be able to get back on the road.
She scribbled her real name at the X and accepted her pink copy. But he stopped her before she could roll up her window.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket and gave it to her. “I had this in my lunch today. Hope it helps your little boy.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” He leaned down to look in the back seat. “You’re a handsome kid,” he said. “What’s your name?”
Charmed by the promise of candy, which he preferred to toys since he lived on such a restricted diet, Max didn’t hesitate. “Dominick,” he said, smiling broadly and completely forgetting his pretend name. “Dominick Escalar Rodriguez.”
Emma’s grip tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles grew white. “Get your seat belt on,” she told her son, her voice as normal as possible even though she was dying to escape—before anything else could happen. “You don’t want Mommy to get another ticket, do you?”
Grudgingly, Max flopped onto the seat and buckled himself in. “Are we going home now?”
The patrolman stepped away from the car. “You’re heading in the wrong direction for t
hat, I’m afraid.”
“We’re taking a little vacation.” Emma rolled up her window and, at the first break, merged into traffic. She was extremely lucky to be driving away. But she had no idea how long her luck would hold.
She needed to get out of California. Fast.
EMMA FELT SAFER once darkness fell. She hadn’t initially planned on venturing into Nevada, but after her confrontation with the California Highway Patrol, turning east instead of continuing due north seemed wise. And though she never would’ve anticipated it, she liked the harsh wilderness that made up this part of the state. She also liked the western feel of the tiny mining towns she passed. Carson City, Dayton, Ramsey Station, Silver Springs, Frenchman…Some weren’t even big enough to appear on her map. Others had a small casino that doubled as a motel or an old-style theater with the marquee advertising a movie—usually not a new release by the rest of the country’s standards. There was always a church or two, a diner, a gas station, maybe a post office, sometimes a public library or municipal building. In each one she saw older, well-kept homes at the center of town and some cheaper, not-so-well-kept homes at the edges, plus a handful of single-wide trailers scattered here and there, and more than the usual ratio of four-by-fours.
Nevada was truly the last bastion of the Old West, Emma thought as she dodged a tumbleweed blowing across the highway. Folks here didn’t have spectacular coastline views and multimillion-dollar homes. They didn’t even have many trees—just sagebrush, mostly. But they lived a simple life in wide-open spaces. And they seemed more likely to mind their own business.
She rubbed her burning eyes. Max had fallen asleep in the back seat hours ago, after a short dinner break at Lake Tahoe. If she wasn’t so tired, she would’ve preferred to forge ahead, but hour had marched after hour and it was nearly eleven. She’d been driving all day and the tension in her muscles was making her back ache. She needed to find a place where they could spend the night, and she needed to test Max to be sure the insulin she’d given him with his meal hadn’t pulled his blood sugar too low.
Reaching over the seat, she touched her son’s head. He wasn’t sweating, which was a good sign. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She could probably wait another thirty minutes to test him, until she found a motel. But she was never completely certain of such a decision. Battling diabetes was as much a guessing game as anything else. Except, like their game today, there wasn’t anything fun about it.
A loud thump, thump, thump warned her that she’d just swerved into the center of the road. Momentarily startled, she jerked the car back into her own lane. She was practically alone on the highway, but she had to stop driving—before she crashed into a ditch or a telephone pole.
Fortunately, she saw city lights ahead.
MANUEL STRODE around his desk and slapped down a map in front of his trembling gardener. “Where?” he shouted. “Where is she going?”
Sweat trickled from Carlos’s temples, and his dark eyes darted furtively toward Richard and Hector, two of the men who worked for Manuel. “I—I do not know.”
“That’s what you told me the last time I asked,” Manuel growled. “Say it one more time, and I’m calling Border Patrol. Your American Dream will disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
Though heavyset, Carlos wasn’t very tall. At Manuel’s words, he seemed to shrink into himself. “W-what makes you think I help her, amigo?”
“Carlos, I saw you.” Hector unfolded his lanky body from the chair where he’d been sitting several feet away, shoved a hand through his long dishwater-blond hair and moved closer. “I keep an eye on the house, you know? This morning, when I was turning into the neighborhood, I saw you talking to someone in a white Taurus.” He scowled. “Only I thought it was Juanita.”
“Sí, it was Juanita,” Carlos insisted. “I already tell you that.”
Manuel couldn’t help himself. He hauled off and hit Carlos so hard he could feel the gardener’s nose break beneath his fist. Carlos’s head snapped back against the wall, and he nearly fell from his chair. The blow seemed to surprise everyone, but only because it came without warning. Manuel knew his men weren’t opposed to violence—they thrived on it.
Carlos’s arms flew up to protect himself from further blows, fear gleaming in his eyes.
“Don’t make me do that again,” Manuel said, shaking the sting out of his fingers. “Tell me what I want to know or I swear I’ll have you deported.”
Carlos began to sputter, “Amigo…”
“I’ll have your mother deported, too,” Manuel added. “She’s old and sick. She doesn’t need to have Border Control knocking at her door, eh?”
Pulling his hands away, Carlos stared down at the blood on his palms. “Señor, please…por favor. No trouble. I—I have a family.”
“Then tell me what you know about my family!” Manuel wanted to hit him again. This man had cost him Vanessa and Dominick. He wanted to kick him until he was nothing more than a bloody blob on the floor.
Carlos must have sensed the malevolence inside him because his trembling grew worse.
“Whose car was Vanessa driving?” Manuel pressed. “Where did she get it?”
When he said nothing, Manuel hit him again. Twice. He would’ve kept hitting him, except Hector finally pulled him away. “Manuel, not here. You’re not thinking.”
He wasn’t thinking. He couldn’t think. Since he’d come home to find Vanessa and Dominick gone, and had begun to suspect the worst when they didn’t return, he could only want. He wanted Vanessa and Dominick back, and he wanted to punish this man for helping them leave.
Richard, who was nearly as tall and skinny as Hector, but had red hair, put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Call Border Patrol instead, okay?”
It took Manuel several seconds to regain control. He was still breathing hard when he walked around his desk and called information. “Border Patrol, please.”
Tears streamed down Carlos’s face as Manuel took the number. When Manuel hung up, then lifted the receiver again, Carlos finally lurched to his feet. Blood streamed from his nose. His lip was cut and beginning to swell. And one eye was half-closed.
“Wait, por favor. Listen to me. She was so unhappy. I—I had to help her.”
“Where did she get the car, Carlos?” The menace in Manuel’s voice was a promise he intended to keep.
Forgetting about his damaged face and the blood, the gardener rocked nervously from foot to foot. “It belonged to my mother. Vanessa, she—she no have much dinero, you know? And when she come to me, I—I feel sorry for her. So I tell my mother I will get you another car soon. We will save. We have plenty of opportunity in this country.”
“Illegal aliens can’t register a car here, Carlos,” he said. “Who’s listed on the registration as the legal owner?”
Tears mixed with the blood running down his face. “Mi amiga.”
“What friend?”
“Her name, Maria Gomez.”
Manuel had never heard of her, but it didn’t matter. Hector might have let Vanessa slip away earlier, when he thought she was Juanita, but he’d written down the make, model and license number of the car she’d been driving. He did that with every car that visited the house.
“What else?” Manuel demanded.
Carlos attempted to wipe the blood from his nose. “That is all,” he said. “I give her my mother’s car. No more.”
Hector pulled the bandanna he wore almost everywhere off his head and mopped his own face with it. “What do we do now?”
Manuel glared at Carlos, wondering whether he needed to have Hector or Richard kill him. He deserved to die, but it was never easy to get rid of a body. And for a man like Carlos, deportation would hurt badly enough. “We call the police.”
“What?” Richard cried.
“I thought you didn’t want to involve the police,” Hector said, obviously just as spooked.
Richard and Hector had spent most of the past decade avoiding the law. But the p
olice could be a powerful tool, if used in the right way.
“I don’t,” Manuel said. “We won’t have anything to do with the call. At least not directly. Carlos and his friend Maria will simply report the Taurus as being stolen.” He smiled. “Then the police will start looking for it, too.”
ACCORDING TO THE MAP, Fallon served as the agricultural center of Nevada. But it was too dark to make out the surrounding farmland. As she came into town, Emma saw a string of restaurants and stores that were far more modern than any she’d noticed in Nevada since Carson City—a Jack in the Box, a Dairy Queen, even a Wal-Mart. A few budget motels sat right off the highway, but she didn’t want to stay in those. She was hoping to find a little hideaway where she wouldn’t have to worry that someone driving past might spot her car. She had no way of knowing if Officer Daniels had later realized that she was someone he should’ve detained.
Doubling back when she reached the end of town, she turned left at a sign that said Yerington to see what might be off the main drag. But Fallon didn’t seem to be nearly as deep as it was long. Almost immediately, she left the city behind and started into the country. The inky-black sky looked like crushed velvet overhead, and the smell of livestock and green growing things drifted through her closed vents.
It wasn’t a bad turn to have taken, though. About a mile from the highway, she found exactly what she’d been hoping for—a small, low-profile motel. A sign in front read Cozy Comfort Bungalows and the word Vacancy glowed red in the bottom right corner.
Weak with gratitude and eager for a short reprieve, Emma wondered if a motel like this was ever full. Fortunately for her, she didn’t think so.
She pulled into the gravel lot outside the long, narrow series of attached rooms, which weren’t bungalows at all but your basic budget motel, and parked as close to the office as she could. Then she contemplated whether or not to carry Max in with her while she registered. He was getting so heavy.
After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to lock the doors and watch the car instead.
