His wife brushed her hand under her eyes. “How can you be so sure? You can’t know it wasn’t him.”
Amara turned to face the woman beside her. “Tell me about the text.”
“A message came about two hours ago from a number I didn’t recognize. ‘Help me, Mom.’ That’s all it said. When I tried to respond, my phone said the number was no good.” She flattened her palms on the table and took a deep breath. “I know it’s from Benjamin, our son. I can’t explain it, but the text is from him.”
Amara dangled her arm across the back of the seat. “Have you called your son to see if he’s okay?”
“Detective”—Mr. Reyes grabbed his wife’s hand and squeezed—“there’s no point. Benjamin’s been dead for three years.”
2
Sunday mornings in the office weren’t good for much besides playing catch-up. Amara shuffled through the paperwork covering her desk. The Reyeses would be coming by sometime this morning. Meantime, she planned to get her notes from the prior week into the computer. A rash of burglaries in Leon Valley consumed her working hours. Lots of paperwork, lots of interviews, lots of angry homeowners, and zero leads.
Another thirty minutes or so and it’d be time for a late breakfast. Mama’s leftover vegetable enchiladas, covered in chili sauce to jump-start her taste buds. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation and she hunched forward, covering her belly with her arms in a futile attempt to disguise the sound.
One of the other detectives eyeballed her. “Hey, Alvarez. Do you mind? Trying to work over here.”
“Whatever, Dotson. Not like I haven’t heard any noises from your direction. Keep it over there, okay?”
He chuckled. “More room on the outside, right?”
She threw a paper clip at him. “What are you, like, six? Grow up already.”
Another detective joined in. “She’s right, Wylie. Lay off the late-night burritos, for all our sakes.”
Dotson stood and hitched his pants up around his waist. “And risk losing this figure? No thanks. After my tours, I promised myself that when I left the service, I’d eat whatever and whenever I wanted. Oh, and Alvarez, fifty-eight years young come next Thursday. Be sure and buy me something nice.”
“Case of Pepto?”
He laughed and plopped back into his chair. “Eh, I’ll settle for whatever you brought for lunch.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but no leftovers from last night.” At least not enough for both of us. And if he gets to the food first . . .
“Uh-huh. Never known Mama not to send food home with you. Everybody must’ve been extra hungry.”
She shrugged. “The nieces and nephews brought friends. I was lucky to scavenge enough scraps for Larry.”
He leaned around his monitor to get a better look at her. “I can’t believe you took care of your iguana instead of me.”
“Larry’s nicer to me. Smells better too.”
Dotson rubbed his chin and nodded. “Point taken. What have you got going today?”
“Got to head out to Leon Valley later. Paperwork till then. You?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Got a B&E at a Best Buy over by North Star.”
“They get much?”
“Don’t know yet. Probably a bunch of VCRs and stuff.”
She grinned and turned back to her computer. “VCRs. Yep. They’re the hottest thing on the black market these days. Hey, while you’re there, see if they’ve got any good deals on record players. Honestly, you’re the lead detective. You could at least make an effort to stay in the right century.”
Her desk phone buzzed and the lobby receptionist announced that Enzo and Marisa Reyes were here. Great. She shouldn’t have offered to meet with them, but it seemed the polite thing to do at the time. No surprise that they’d taken her up on the suggestion. The pain of losing a child must be unbearable. Whether cruel joke or wrong number, the text message flared new hope in the mother, and the woman would do anything to turn that hope into reality.
She asked the front desk to escort the Reyeses to a meeting room and tell them she’d join them in a moment. Mama’s enchiladas would have to wait a bit, unless Dotson found them first. After a stop in the break room to hide her breakfast under a container of some sort of pasta that had transitioned to a science experiment, she took the stairs down two flights and paused.
Keep it short. No commitments. She pasted on a smile and stepped inside. “Mr. and Mrs. Reyes. Thank you for coming in.”
Enzo Reyes stood and extended his hand. “Thank you for meeting with us, Detective.”
“Of course. Mrs. Reyes, how are you feeling today?”
The woman clutched a tissue in her hands. “About the same. Sorry to be such a problem yesterday.”
“Nonsense,” Amara said. “I understand completely. The death of a child is—”
“He’s not dead,” Mrs. Reyes said.
Her husband placed his arm around her shoulders. “Honey, you’re making this worse on yourself. Don’t dredge it all up again. We have to keep moving forward. You know Benjamin wouldn’t want you to suffer like this.”
“He texted us, Enzo. Why can’t you accept that?”
Amara shifted in her seat. “Mrs. Reyes, your son was one of the children killed in the accident down in Cotulla, isn’t that right?”
“Yes. I mean, no. We thought he was, but then we got this text and . . .” She dabbed at her eyes, took a deep breath, and stared at her hands.
Amara pushed a box of Kleenex across the table and waited for the woman to recover. Cotulla. Seventeen kids on the school bus. All dead. The train had been traveling at full speed, and if the impact didn’t kill them, the subsequent explosion and fire did. Counting the bus driver and two engineers on the train, twenty people dead.
The president called the incident a national tragedy when he visited the site. For the families of those who died, “tragedy” seemed far too weak a word. Mrs. Reyes was a living testimony of that fact.
Amara cleared her throat. “Ma’am, every detail of the incident was scrutinized to the nth degree. DNA tests confirmed the remains of all the children on the school bus, including Benjamin’s. Remember?”
Mrs. Reyes pulled a clean tissue from the box. “Mistakes happen.”
“Sure they do.” Her heart ached for the woman, but giving her false hope would only add to the pain. “There’s overwhelming proof Benjamin died that day along with the other kids. There’s absolutely nothing to indicate he didn’t. I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”
“What about the text message?”
Mr. Reyes squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “Wrong number. Cruel prank. Who knows? You have to let it go, baby. You have to.”
“I can’t. If there’s the tiniest hope, I’ll always wonder.”
Amara clasped her hands together. “Mrs. Reyes, your son was six years old at the time of the accident. Would he even know your phone number?”
“He knew our full names, address, and phone number. We used to make him recite them to us. The school recommended all parents do that in case their child got lost, or worse.”
Smart. Sad, but smart. “I see.” Amara studied the mother as her thoughts battled one another. Don’t offer. Don’t. “Tell you what. How about I get our tech guys to take a look at your phone? See if they can figure out anything on the text. Would that make you feel better? Maybe put this all behind you?”
Mrs. Reyes reached her hand across the table and clutched Amara’s. “Would you do that? We’d be so grateful.”
“We would,” her husband said. “I know how busy you must be.”
“It’s no problem. Really.” Amara forced a smile. This is going to be a huge problem.
The woman slid her phone across the table. “How long will you need it?”
Amara rubbed the back of her neck. “A day or two probably. Will that be an issue?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not. Anything for Benjamin.”
“Okay. We won’t answer the phone or any te
xts while it’s in our possession. Did you disable the lock screen?”
Her husband grunted. “It’s always disabled. I tell her that’s not safe, but she says it’s a headache to always have to unlock the thing.”
Amara stood and tucked the phone in her pocket. “Well then, if there’s nothing else . . . ?”
The Reyeses glanced at each other and shook their heads.
“Fine. I’ll get this right to the lab and give you a call when I hear from them. Oh, one more thing. The cell provider will contact you to get your signature on a couple of forms. You’ll be giving us approval to look at the history of your incoming calls and messages. Are you okay with that?”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Reyes said. “Thank you again, Detective. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have someone working on this for us.”
Working on this? The poor woman must think we’re opening an investigation. Hard to do with no evidence of a crime. She placed her hand on the mother’s arm. “Please don’t get your hopes up. I don’t want to mislead you. I’m assigned to the Property Crimes Division. I typically do burglaries, robberies, that kind of stuff. I’m happy to help, but I firmly believe your son passed away. I’m not investigating his death. I’m simply seeking an explanation for the text you received so you can have peace about it.”
Mr. Reyes placed his hand under his wife’s elbow and guided her to her feet. “We understand, don’t we, honey? And Detective Alvarez, gracias.”
“De nada.” She held the door for the couple and pointed the way out of the building. “I’ll call you when I know something.”
She remained staring as the couple wandered from view. Had the pain of their son’s death faded at all over the past three years? Or at least moved into the realm of acceptance? And now, the grieving would begin anew. Emotional scars would be ripped open and nothing she did would heal them.
The dead remained dead.
Hope couldn’t change that.
Tom Threadgill is a full-time author and a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the International Thriller Writers (ITW). The author of Collision of Lies, Tom lives with his wife near Dallas, Texas. Learn more at www.tomthreadgill.com.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Praise for Collision of Lies
Half Title Page
Also by Tom Threadgill
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
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Epilogue
Go Back to the Beginning . . .
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
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Network of Deceit Page 32
