His last words hung in the air and chilled me. If Sofia was here illegally, so was Valentina. And, if what Jack said was true, how would anyone ever find that little girl?
Chapter Four
My nausea continued on and off that night and into the morning, but the cramps let up. I’d looked up nausea and cramps in first trimester online, and was relieved to learn it was normal. Just not fun. For about two seconds I considered calling in sick, but it was only my second day, and I’d woken up with an image in my mind of a black-haired waif with huge eyes that begged me to find her and keep her safe. I couldn’t very well do that lying in bed. Besides, cowgirls aren’t crybabies—that’s what my dad had told me—and I had a feeling Jack ascribed to this point of view as well. It was Friday. I would call a doctor if I didn’t feel better by lunch; I could lick my wounds over the weekend.
I crawled out of the twin bed I’d slept in for most of my childhood. It was lumpy, thin, and saggy. I also didn’t love the western-themed matching bedspread and curtains as much as I had when mother had made them for me as an eleventh birthday present. I missed my California King back in Dallas, with the silver silk sheets and the black satin comforter. Come to think of it, though, I didn’t love them all that much, either. They were Rich, through and through. My next bedroom would be all about me, the grown-up Emily—whenever I could figure her the heck out—and nobody else.
I stood at the closet door and surveyed my limited choices. I hadn’t been thinking career wear when I’d bolted for home the day after Stormy had, well, stormed in on our romantic dinner—the one I’d made for Rich to celebrate sharing my great news with him. “The rabbit’s died” took on a whole new meaning when Rich’s scary secret lover showed up in our candlelit dining room, before I’d a chance to even tell him about the baby.
Also, because of that dead rabbit, my clothes would soon be snug. I’d have to get Rich to ship my things. And I’d need to shop . . . and tell Mother. The thought of admitting to her that I’d somehow gotten pregnant just before my husband revealed his double life as a cheating bisexual burned my biscuits. Almost as much as the dread of Rich learning about his baby, and the possibility of sharing custody with Rich and Stormy.
All kvetching about Stormy aside, it wasn’t even that Rich preferred a man. It was just that I’d chosen heterosexual marriage, and I thought Rich had, too. If I’d been thrown over for a genetic female, I’d probably be as crazy mad as I was now. But it wouldn’t be such a hot a topic of hometown gossip. So, yeah, fact: Stormy being a he who dressed as a she was probably never going to make my life easier. I put my palm over my abdomen. My little peanut and I would be delaying our announcement chat with Grandma as long as possible. Rich? Twice that long. I pulled out a stretchy navy pantsuit and held it in front of me. I would just wear this every day for the next two months and pretend I was stress-eating. Or not.
When I’d finished showering and dressing, I slipped into the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast. Not much appealed to me but, after dealing with the smell of Jack’s food yesterday, I knew I had to have more than toast. I tiptoed to the refrigerator in the semi-darkness and opened the door and retrieved a plastic jug of OJ.
“I made coffee and toast,” my mother said in her sparkly morning voice.
I startled, and the OJ jug hit the porcelain tile floor, cracking open. An orange lake formed in front of me and I jumped back. “Spit!”
“Sorry, dear.”
Muttering under my breath, I crouched to the floor and started wiping up the mess.
“Good morning, Mother.”
“How was your first day?”
Church activities the night before had kept Mother out late. I was asleep by the time she came home, so she hadn’t had a chance to grill me about my job then.
“Peachy.”
I threw the wet, orange paper towels in the trash under the sink.
“Did you enjoy working with Jack?” Mother asked. “He’s such a gentleman, and so handsome.”
Gentleman was not the word I’d have chosen to describe the man who told the chicken and the feather joke, but whatever.
“He was fine,” I said.
I sat across from her at the ancient kitchen table. Art Deco green Formica on a round top perched on chrome legs. It went about as well as you’d expect with the rest of the kitchen.
“You know, you’re thirty years old with only one Fallopian tube. If you’re really splitting up with Rich, you could do worse than Jack.”
She just had to bring up my Fallopian tube. Not what I wanted to talk about at breakfast. Part of me could understand—she’d yearned for grandkids since the day Rich and I got engaged. I reached over and squeezed her hand.
“It’ll be okay, Mother. Really. Let’s let that go for now.”
She sat in silence for a moment. “Any interesting cases?”
I appreciated the change of subject. “Jack’s representing the woman who killed the guy who fell into the pool at the wedding.”
“No,” my mother breathed.
Without her war paint, she looked closer to her age of fifty-five. Lines radiated from her mouth and eyes. Her white-blonde hair hung limp and thin. But her eyes flashed with interest.
“She’s not even in this country legally,” she said. “How can she afford Jack?”
I nibbled a corner of toast experimentally and swallowed. It went down okay, so I kept going, talking between bites.
“The court appointed the case to him. He has to take it. That’s how it works.”
She harrumphed. “So that woman doesn’t pay a cent in taxes while the rest of us work to pay the bills for her defense when she murders a U.S. citizen in cold blood.”
What she said was the truth, or at least part of it. I knew well how Mother felt about this issue. Things hadn’t been easy for her, especially after Dad left, and she resented anyone she perceived as getting assistance that she didn’t or couldn’t get. It was harder for me to decide exactly where I stood on it. Especially after meeting Sofia yesterday.
“Well, she’s our client, so you’re going to have to make the best of it. Besides, her daughter is missing. She’s only six.”
She shook her head, pulling her pink, flowered housedress together at the collar. “What will my friends think when they hear you’re working on her case?”
“Hear? Why would they even need to?”
“Well, you know. They’re all very interested in what’s going on with you.”
I munched my toast and closed my eyes. I wondered if Jack would represent me pro bono if I accidentally committed a violent felony against my mother.
***
Right on time I walked through the door of the Williams & Associates offices. Snowflake was waiting for me. I hefted my purse onto the desk and pulled out a baggie. In it, I’d saved a toast crust for her.
“Sit.” The dog sat her tiny bottom on the floor immediately. “Good girl.” She took the snack I offered her and smacked it with gusto. “Where’s the resident despot?” She swallowed but didn’t answer.
As expected, the remaining odors of Jack’s spicy breakfast lingered in the air. I activated my emergency plan, snatching a baggie of saltines from my purse and popping one in my mouth. I sucked lightly on it, absorbing the salt into my tongue and softening the cracker before chewing slowly. Ah.
I took a seat at my desk. The computer was already on and I wiggled the mouse to wake it up. Shaking my head, I typed in my username and the RodeoQueen password. The computer logged me in and pulled up my home screen. The background was rodeo me, in a crown and sash. I growled, long and low. Jack knew not what he was doing, messing with a pregnant woman first thing in the morning. I opened my settings and clicked through options until I was able to change the offending image. I replaced it with a nice, soothing beach scene and exhaled.
Time to beard the lion in his den. I rang the bell with vigor.
Silence.
Picking the bell up, I started walking down the hall, ringing it for
all I was worth.
“Ready or not, here I come.”
No answer.
From inside Jack’s office, I heard a creak and a thump. Rustling and clacking noises. Then a smack. I made it to the doorway. I sucked in a breath for courage, and breached the ramparts.
Jack sat at his desk, laptop open in front of him. From this view, without his hat on, I could see gray woven into his hair.
He looked up. “Yes?”
I scanned the room suspiciously, looking for signs of the twenty or so people it would have taken to make all that racket. Or possibly a herd of runaway steers. The room was empty, though, except for him. Empty and normal looking. God knew what he’d been doing in here, and I sure as heck didn’t want to know myself, but somehow I couldn’t keep from asking anyway.
Walking to his desk, I said, “What was all that noise?”
“What noise?”
“It sounded like you were having a party. Or a bomb went off.”
He shook his head. “I dropped some books.”
“Huh.” Maybe. “Well, whatever it was, I just wanted to tell you, you’re a thief.”
He raised one eyebrow, framing the amber eye below it perfectly. For a second, I stood there, mesmerized. My super-irritating boss really did have arrestingly beautiful eyes. I gave myself a mental slap. And I was pregnant and not-yet-officially divorced and he had posted my Miss Rodeo Amarillo picture on my computer.
“The picture of me? My computer background?”
“Ah, yes. No, not a thief.”
I waited several long seconds for him to elaborate, but of course he didn’t. I threw up my hands and let them fall back against my thighs. It was only 8:05 in the morning and already he had me discombobulated. I’d have to learn not to let this man get my goat.
“Well, I’m here. What would you like me to work on?”
He lifted a file from his desk into the air. “Here’s Sofia’s file. Find out everything there is to know about her.”
“Not a problem. I’ve tracked down enough people in my years as a paralegal—if Sofia’s information can be found, I’ll find it.”
I reached out for the file but he held onto it. I put my hand down.
“And call Judith,” he said. “Tell her we’ll be there by noon tomorrow and can meet with Paul Johnson after lunch. Ask her to make all the arrangements.”
“Who’s Judith?”
“My secretary.”
Ah, the missing secretary. “Can I get a phone number?”
He offered the file and I grabbed it. He scribbled something on a piece of paper. I grabbed that, too, and read the number. The area code was 575. I held the paper up.
“Where’s 575?”
“Tularosa.”
“Tula-huh?”
He cocked his head at me. “New Mexico. Near Alamogordo.”
I still drew a blank.
He shook his head. “Southwest of Ruidoso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe?”
“Oh. Never heard of it. Why do I call her there?”
“Because that’s where she is.”
My hand itched. Did I really want to slap my boss? I’d never been a violent person before my pregnancy. I clenched my fist and used my most patient voice: “Why is she there?”
“Because that’s where my office is.”
“I thought this was your office?”
“This is my office, too.”
“You realize you’re about as clear as a mud puddle right now, don’t you?”
He spoke very slowly and distinctly. “I have offices in Amarillo and in Tularosa. We are going to New Mexico tomorrow. Do you hear me now?”
“We, Kemosabe? I don’t recall you asking me if I could travel. And for how long?”
He raised his left brow, the dimple side. The man had a lot of left-centric talent, I’d give him that.
“You have other plans?” He asked, sounding shocked at the thought.
Forget slapping. I wanted to strangle him, which made him the second person I’d imagined inflicting injury upon in the span of an hour. Was it them or was it me?
Them. Definitely them.
***
By noon my nausea had abated enough that I decided I didn’t need to see a doctor. There was almost nothing I hated more than doctors, even at the best of times. I’d been in Amarillo for two weeks now and still hadn’t set up an appointment with an obstetrician. It was pretty much a guarantee that, once I did, my cat would be out of the bag. No point in rushing to get to someplace I wasn’t ready to go. Plus, I’d seen a doc in Dallas after I’d first peed on a stick. He’d said everything looked fine. I wasn’t the first pregnant woman in the history of the world, and I’d survive.
Working diligently through the morning, Snowflake and I learned all there was to learn about Sofia Cristiana Perez of Amarillo via Mexico: nada. As in not a darn thing. Although the file on Sofia that Jack had given me was anorexically thin, I already knew from it that she had no prior criminal record, or any other kind of official record for that matter. Still, I double-checked everything imaginable. I also knew most of the information she’d given us was bogus. She’d submitted the Social Security number of a woman named Maria Delgado to her employers at the Wyndham/Ambassador. In fact, that’s the name they knew her by. The phone number she’d given them was a throwaway. The address matched a mailbox storefront. When she was arrested, she’d given the police a different address, one for a very sketchy apartment complex that didn’t have a name, in an even sketchier part of town. That’s also when she’d told them about Valentina. The police and CPS had gone to pick the girl up, but she was gone.
That was about all we knew.
I sighed. What now? Snowflake sighed, circled three times, and curled up in a ball under my desk. I rubbed the little ball of fluff with my toes. Jack had left for the courthouse two hours ago, so I was on my own for additional ideas. I found a notepad in the desk drawer that said Williams & Associates at the top in the same stylized text as the wall hanging behind my desk. I co-opted it and started a list.
1. Call apartment’s office.
2. Find the real Maria Delgado.
3. Call CPS to find out what they know from looking for Valentina.
I chewed on the capped end of my pen, then added
4. Find out more about Spike Howard.
No phone number was listed online for the nameless apartments. I pulled up the property records for their address. A Michael Q. Scott owned them, though what possible middle name started with a Q, I couldn’t imagine. I did a white pages search. Found him and his phone number. Dialed it. When he answered, I explained why I was calling.
His voice was high-pitched, and very loud. “Lady, I don’t give out no information on my renters without a court order. They got as much a right to privacy as anybody.”
“But—”
“I already told the police and that CPS fairy. Ain’t nobody named Sofia Perez rent from me. That apartment’s rented by a totally different feller. He’s all paid up through December. That’s all I care about.”
“Could you ask him to call me, Mr. Scott?”
“What, are you deaf? I don’t give out no information on my renters.”
I thought hard. What did I have left? An appeal to his humanity? “I’m not asking you to give me information, just to have him call me. A little girl’s life could depend on it—a little girl that lived in that apartment.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know no little girl that lives there neither. So bring me a court order or leave me alone.”
He hung up.
Well, I knew more than I had before I’d called, but still nothing about Sofia. I would just have to visit the apartments on Monday. Not something to look forward to, so I prayed I’d find leads that would point me in a different direction. That meant back to my list. I put a star by the apartments’ address and moved on to the next item. Find Maria Delgado. Nah. That one would be hard. I skipped to the third one. Call CPS. Much easier.
I dialed the number fo
r the CPS investigator listed in the file: Wallace Gray. An automated voice answered and asked me to leave a message. I said my piece and ended the call. Crap. I looked at the fourth item. Find out who Spike Howard is. That was no easier than “find Maria Delgado,” so I skipped back to item two.
I started by hunting for the Maria Delgado that matched the Social Security number Sofia had used for her job. I plugged the name and number into a couple of different databases. On the tenth one, PeopleFinders—voila—I found a phone number with an 806 area code. I dialed and someone picked up on the first ring.
“Hola?”
“Is this Maria Delgado?”
“Yo soy Maria.”
I whipped out my stumbling college Spanish on her, and I managed to glean that a) she had no idea who Sofia Perez was, b) she had no idea how Sofia Perez had gotten her Social Security number, and c) she didn’t know nothing ‘bout nobody. Not that I believed her, I just had no leverage to get her to talk. I asked for her address, but she refused to give it to me.
That’s okay. I had it from the Internet. I read it to her. “Si?”
She hung up.
I put a big star by her address. More fun follow-up for Monday.
Spike Howard was next. According to the Amarillo Globe News articles about the shooting, he worked for an import business and was visiting Amarillo on behalf of his employer. I Googled him and found a mother lode of information. I clicked, shuddered, scrolled, grimaced, and printed screens. Mr. Howard was from Roswell, New Mexico. All I knew about Roswell was that some spaceship supposedly crashed there and was covered up by the feds. That, and it was the location for the supernatural show we in Lubbock followed with cult-like glee while I was in college, since Roswell was only about a few hours away.
But where Spike Howard lived wasn’t the most interesting part of what I found—though maybe interesting was the wrong word for it. More like the most disturbing part. Spike boasted a criminal record with assault charges going back to his teens in Dona Ana County, which was pretty far south from Roswell. In fact, it was on the border. Those crimes were bad enough, but it got worse. He’d done time under the “sexual conduct with a minor” section of the New Mexico criminal statutes. My stomach roiled as I read an article from the Roswell Daily Record that said he and an accomplice—an Amarillo man named Harvey Dulles—had exposed themselves to the ten-year-old daughter of Howard’s live-in girlfriend in Roswell, then had taken turns making her touch them down there.
Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) Page 6
