Desert Angel (8 page)

“TJ? Rita. Hey, I got trouble. Serious. Guy’s after a friend of mine. Broke in my house.”

It was so dark inside the garage that Angel could see the glow of the cell phone, and she listened while a male voice buzzed through the receiver. When she couldn’t follow the man’s side of the conversation, she sank back in the seat, unable to concentrate, unable to keep her eyes open. She jerked when Rita started the car.

“Let’s wait at LaDonna’s,” Rita said, twisting to look out the rear window.

Bad idea. Angel knew it. They’d be visible again, moving, maybe brake lights. “He could see us,” she told Rita. “If Scotty asked what you drive, if he knows your car, he could find us when you stop.”

Rita didn’t answer. She hunched over the steering wheel, careful, quiet, slow-rolling out of the driveway, shifting, gliding away at idle speed.

*   *   *

L
A
D
ONNA ANSWERED THE DOOR
in a soft pink nightgown, hair in curlers, pillow creases on her face. She let them in and nodded toward the couch. “What’s going on? You okay?” she asked. “Fight with Vince?”

“Weird school parent,” Rita said. “No big deal. We just don’t want to be hassled anymore tonight.”

“You safe?” LaDonna asked. “Want me to wake Ricky?”

“No. Let him sleep. We’re fine. We’ll rest here a bit and then we’ll lock up when we leave. And, hey, there’s some chance you’ll need to open school tomorrow.”

“Whatever,” LaDonna said, turning. “You want anything, kitchen’s yours.” She nodded toward the room on her left as she padded away. “You need anything, call me.”

*   *   *

“G
UTIERREZ CHECKED HIM OUT
, let him go before I got your call. Far as we can tell, he’s left town.”

Angel opened her eyes to see a man in a khaki uniform and cowboy boots, flat-brimmed hat in hand, speaking to Rita, who was seated on the couch beside her.

“Guy said he got sleepy driving. Pulled off the highway, found that open area to take a nap,” the man said, rolling and unrolling his hat brim. “Gutierrez checked his plates, license. No warrants. Guy pulled out and drove off.” The man shook his head. “Goot’s been off a few days. Wife’s sick.”

Rita nodded her head. “Inez? I heard. Chemo?”

The officer nodded. “Looks bad. Anyway, Goot missed the heads-up from Cathedral City. This guy fits the person of interest in a federal investigation over by Joshua Tree.”

“He killed my mother.” Angel couldn’t believe she said it. Sleepy, groggy, stupid. She could feel Rita looking at her while she herself studied the brown man’s face. He was hard to read but Angel didn’t think he believed her. Or maybe he just didn’t hear what she said. The extended silence told her she was wrong. He heard her. He thought she was a liar and wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Your name?” he asked. “You made a report? Filed charges?”

Angel said nothing.

He shifted his gaze to Rita for a cue.

“This guy’s been chasing her. Tore up my house looking for her,” Rita said. “Something pretty serious happened.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a serious charge,” he said, looking back at Angel. “Evidence?” he asked her.

She thought about it. Trailer burned. If he moved her mom’s grave … She shook her head.

“Maybe you ought to think it over before you say things like that to a law officer. False charges get you in trouble.” He looked at her for a moment longer. “You already in trouble?”

“She’s been helping me at the preschool,” Rita said. “Take a look at my house. We haven’t been back but we saw the guy go in. Heard him break things. The guy’s stalking her. She’s underage. You got to stop that.”

Angel pushed herself to a sitting position so she wouldn’t seem like a child.

“You sure it’s the same guy? You weren’t home at the time, right? You can make a positive I.D.? What color’s his hair?”

Rita looked away.

“That’s what I thought,” he said.

“Brown, green eyes,” Angel said.

“That’s pretty good night vision at a distance,” the man said, looking up and away as if he found LaDonna’s curtain rod interesting.

“Hey, TJ, cut her some slack,” Rita said, putting her arm around Angel’s shoulders. “She’s been through a lot.”

They were distracted by LaDonna entering the room, now wearing a quilted robe and a scarf over her curlers.

“What’s going on?” she asked Rita, as she came to stand by the couch.

“Not much, honey,” Rita said, putting her other hand over LaDonna’s on the sofa arm. “TJ’s just helping us deal with a nutcase that’s been following Angel. We’re trying to get it squared away,” she said, standing to join LaDonna.

“So, it wasn’t a parent?”

Rita shook her head.

“He’s coming here?” LaDonna looked back toward her bedroom, alarmed.

“He’s gone,” TJ said.

“He doesn’t know we came here,” Rita said. “He left town. It’s okay.”

Angel made herself be still, face blank. Scotty might have driven off, but it wasn’t okay. Not even close. And it was getting worse.

*   *   *

A
NGEL FOLLOWED
R
ITA AND
TJ
OUT TO THE STREET.

“Just to make sure you two are safe,” TJ said, opening the squad car door, “and I want to see the house damage. Maybe we need to put a BOLO on this guy.” He noticed the look of confusion on Rita’s face. “Be on the lookout,” he explained.

She nodded.

“We’ll give this guy another scan. Call Cathedral and see if they’re still interested.” He offered Rita his hand and helped her follow Angel into the backseat.

“He catches eagles and sells them,” Angel said, but the noise of the car door shutting covered her words. She had very bad feelings about getting into the back of a sheriff’s car, even for a two-block ride. She was starting to get caught in the system and the system was going to get her killed.

15

“I know you’re tired, but we need to talk.” Rita was standing directly in front of Angel in the middle of her living room, where they’d waited while TJ investigated the break-in damage.

Angel could see TJ’s cruiser through the living room blinds. He’d left telling them not to touch the doorknobs or light switches. Said he’d have a lab person come tomorrow morning and check for prints. Said he’d wait outside till a female deputy arrived to spend the night.

“Talk tomorrow,” Angel said. “I’m wiped.”

“No. No way,” Rita, adamant. “You’ll wait till I sleep and then you’ll run? I don’t want to stay up all night neither, but I have to know what all’s happened, what you think this guy’ll do next. I need my own plan. Protect my kids. And hear this clear,” she said. “I really like you and I don’t want you to leave. I—do—not—want—you—to—leave.”

Angel looked away from her to the front door, picturing walking out and wondering what TJ would do if she did. “You’ve seen it,” she told Rita, trying to decide if the front door was dead-bolted. “He’s chasing me. When I disappear for good, he’s home free. Mom had no family, I got no family. Nobody wanted either of us. We were there for the taking. Scotty knew that.”

Angel was antsy to get on her way but she didn’t want to seem obvious. She took her eyes off the door and surveyed the nearby furniture like she wanted to sit.

Rita walked over and steered Angel to the love seat by the standing lamp, where she often read stories aloud to her children. She sat as Angel sat and angled herself till they were touching knees. “So tell me,” she said.

Okay, no rush,
Angel thought.
In a while I’ll say I have to pee and I’ll go out the bathroom window
. She closed her eyes and was quiet for a minute, uncomfortable about retrieving those memories. “When this all started I wasn’t ready. For any of it. I just knew I didn’t want to die. I wanted to kill him for what he did.” Angel felt in her jeans pockets, made sure the folded money was still there. She looked back to Rita. “I don’t care so much now, either way, but I don’t want to take anybody with me. No need for anybody else to…” She stopped, not knowing how to end the sentence.

Rita waited.

“We’d only been with him a few weeks and every night he and Mom would drink and snort stuff and fight. If he was loaded and Mom locked him out of the bedroom, he would come to get with me. I started leaving the trailer and sleeping outside.” She rested her head against the back of the couch and let the story spool into the room, floodwater slowly pushing over a door’s threshold.

After Angel told the part about Scotty burning the trailer and nearly killing her, Rita leaned over and smoothed Angel’s forehead with her thumbs. Ran her fingers lightly over the healing burns and scrapes on Angel’s face. “Why don’t we take a little break?” Rita said, her voice as soft and smooth as her fingers. “Let’s go to the bathroom, get some juice…”

They did, both in the small room together, one finger-combing her hair in the mirror while the other finished. Angel knew this messed up her plan to leave but she was tired and she knew another opportunity would come up, maybe when the woman deputy arrived.

Rita listened to the rest of the story, not interrupting with questions, and making a sound only once: a chuckle when Angel told how Abuela fooled Scotty by swapping clothes at the church. When Angel was done, Rita rolled her head around her shoulders, loosening her neck, and took a long breath.

“That’s a lot more trouble than I imagined,” Rita said, “more than anyone should have to go through.”

“There’s probably a lot worse happens everywhere,” Angel said. “I’m still breathing and he didn’t get on me that last time.”

“You know if you leave, he’ll find you,” Rita said. “That’s what he does.”

“Yeah, well, I run. That’s what I do. Easier to hide than find.”

“Not much of a life,” Rita said.

Angel shrugged.

“And there’s another thing you’re kind of losing track of,” Rita said.

It didn’t matter to Angel but she said “What” because the rhythm of the conversation was soothing.

“You can’t do it alone. Alone you’ll die, ’cause you don’t have any resource. If you steal, sooner or later you’ll get caught and he’ll get you.”

All these words. Angel was having trouble making herself pay attention.

“So you have to bring other people into it,” Rita said. “How many so far?”

Angel heard that all right. Not good. Didn’t want to think about it. She started to get up and was stopped by Rita’s hand.

“You’re tough. We both know it,” Rita said, “but how many people you brought into this?”

Angel tore her arm out of Rita’s grasp.

“What’s it cost so far?” Rita asked, shifting until she could look right into Angel’s face.

“That’s not my fault. I didn’t ask for help.” Angel could hear how loud she was getting and jammed her fingernails into her palms for the control that pain would bring.

“What about Matteo? What about Celina’s car and the Gomez livestock?” Rita asked, her voice gentle against Angel’s volume. “Gomez family chose to pay that price?”

Angel stood and Rita stood with her.

“Ramón, Carmen, Momo, me, Vincente, Jessie? We just fence posts you running past? Too bad if we got trouble? You just doing what you got to? We pay our money, take our risk, tough titty if we don’t like it?”

“Shut up!” Angel didn’t want to hit her but she might.

“You a little like Scotty? No heart, no conscience? Owe nobody nothing? Everyone for himself?”

That was way too much. She was not like Scotty. Never like Scotty. Never in a million years.

“Are you nuts?” Angel’s voice echoed. She glanced out the window to see if TJ was getting out of his car. “You know I’m not—” Surprise tears washed from her eyes, ran from her nose, collapsed her words into staccato hiccups. She wanted to stay on her feet but her wail took all her energy and she fell against Rita, pounding at her chest. Rita stepped inside the blows and Angel’s punches went wide, glancing off Rita’s shoulders. Rita held the girl tightly, turning her face to the side so Angel wouldn’t butt her.

*   *   *

W
HEN THE DEPUTY ARRIVED WITHIN THE HOUR,
she found them on the floor, Rita wrapped around Angel, arms and legs, like you’d hold an enraged four-year-old to keep her from hurting herself during a tantrum. The woman walked them to Rita’s bedroom, covered them with a blanket, put a chair outside their door, and sat waiting for daybreak.

*   *   *

N
OT LONG AFTER DAWN
, Rita woke and brewed coffee for the deputy. Took a shower and made phone calls. Checked in from time to time to see that Angel was still sleeping. When she finished these chores, she made the deputy a fried-egg sandwich. She herself would eat later with Angel.

“Would you ask TJ to give us one more day of protection?” she asked the deputy when she collected her plate. The woman nodded and got on her cell phone.

*   *   *

A
NGEL ROSE AND CLEANED UP
while a lab tech dusted the doors and light switches. When she was ready she joined Rita at the kitchen table and wolfed down her sandwich. She noticed Rita looking her over, appraising. Angel had chosen clothes from Rita’s closet that would be good for travel: two T-shirts under a brown hoodie, cargo pants, battered running shoes. Different from the thin polo shirt and long shorts she’d worn the previous day.

“Find everything you needed?” Rita asked, voice level.

Angel blushed, nodded.

“I called LaDonna, and she’s doing school today,” Rita went on. “Another mom’s coming in and they’ll go to the beach, get wet, pick up things for collages. We’ll stay here. I want you to tell me more about Scotty.”