pit of his stomach sloshing like a vat of sour milk.
He drove up South Presa, reassuring himself he hadn’t made a mistake. It didn’t matter. Stumbling across the old preacher didn’t matter.
In a few hours, Will would have his money. He’d be on a chartered jet to Mexico, and from there, anywhere he pleased.
Navarre and Barrera would make the exchange, one way or another. They would bring the money, and the boy…
Will’s hands felt sweaty on the wheel.
He wondered what Pastor Riggs would say if he knew his intentions.
You came to me on purpose, Brother Stirman. You want to be cleansed of that hatred.
Will wished it were so. But he knew what he had to do. He knew he couldn’t be satisfied, couldn’t put Soledad’s spirit to rest unless Erainya Manos never saw her son again.
He pulled his Camaro over the railroad tracks and onto Roosevelt, passing storefront signs without reading them, fighting a desire to drive straight to the highway and head south-leave now, follow the road he knew so well to the Mexican border.
Eight years ago, his last night with Soledad, she had tried to get him not to run. She sat next to him on the sofa while he loaded his gun. She took his hands, and placed them on her chest.
“If you run, mi amor, ” she said, “you’ll be doing what they want. Why please them?”
He could feel her heartbeat through the cotton dress. Childbirth had swollen her breasts to a pleasant size, filled out her face so she looked younger and healthier than when he first brought her north from the burning sugar fields.
She smelled of honeysuckle she’d clipped that morning-a fragrant clump of white and yellow flowers now blooming in a water jar by the window. She’d taken such care with it, as if she’d be here long enough to watch it grow roots.
Will had their bags almost packed. One for clothes; two filled with enough cash to last a lifetime. He had three guns, two phones, and an assortment of passports and fake IDs still to pack. He’d already told Dimebox Ortiz he was leaving. He had one last call to make-to Gerry Far, warning him to keep his head down for a few days. Will and Soledad’s plane would be in the air in half an hour.
“I have to finish packing,” he told her.
She carefully shifted her weight on top of him, her arms circling his neck. The warmth of her thighs pressed against his legs. She kissed the bridge of his nose, the space between his eyebrows. Her Saint Anthony medal dangled against his chin.
“Stay,” she told him.
A Ziggy Marley song played-one of Soledad’s favorites. She always said the music reminded her of heat and salt water, of a trip she’d made as a child to the beach near Matamoros. Soon, Will promised her, she would live on the beach. She would have heat and the ocean every day.
He touched her necklace. “You never finished telling me about Saint Anthony.”
She kissed him. “San Antonio, loco boy. My protector. He’s the patron saint of lost things.”
“What have you lost?”
She smiled, a little sadly. “Maybe I’m what was lost.”
He realized his question had been stupid. She’d left her homeland, her aging father, her childhood. All for the sake of a better life in the north. And now Will was taking her away from that.
She unclasped the necklace, pressed it into his hand. “Stay with me here, mi amor. Cancel the flight.”
She kissed him again.
He felt the blood stop pounding in his temples, start collecting lower in his body, stirring a different kind of pressure.
They hadn’t made love since the baby arrived. It was probably still too soon.
She had not delivered in the hospital, of course. Stirman wanted no paper trails, no legal questions. Soledad was his creation. Their marriage had been secret for the same reason. He would not share her, or her child, with anyone.
But the delivery had been difficult. The old curandera midwife had commented on the amount of blood. For the first time, Will had seen fear and pain in Soledad’s eyes, and he resented the child for that.
She slipped her hand underneath his belt, bit his ear.
Then the baby started crying, setting Will’s nerves on edge.
He didn’t want to take the child with them. He wished she had agreed to his idea of giving the baby away. He felt no guilt about this, only the need to not offend Soledad.
“Go on,” he said, seeing her attention divided. “Tend to him.”
Her lips brushed his forehead. “Let your enemies break against you, mi amor. They cannot hurt you.”
“Don’t forget to make an extra bottle.”
She looked in his eyes for what would be the last time-the same undaunted look she always gave him, mutely reminding him that she had faced every horror a woman could face, some of those because of Will, yet she was not afraid. She had stayed with him this far. She didn’t want to leave, but she would go into exile with him, or walk into gunfire. She would do whatever was needed to protect him, because as much as he claimed to own her, she had purchased him.
She rose to tend the child.
Will stared down at the silver necklace in his hand. In a flash of resentment, he dropped the medallion into the space beneath the floorboard where he normally hid his cash.
Let Saint Anthony stay in San Antonio. Soledad would have no more need of him. Will would protect her. He would make sure she never suffered loss again.
He closed up the secret place in the floor, and made his phone call to Gerry Far. A moment later, the apartment door exploded.
A police siren brought Will back to the present.
The patrol car was several blocks up Roosevelt, red lights flashing, the cop tapping his bullhorn as he pulled through traffic.
Will was prepared to turn on a side street, to run if he had to, but a block away from him the police car veered into a residential neighborhood.
Probably nothing to do with him.
He turned on the radio. Immediately, the newscaster said, “-alleged leader of the Floresville Five.”
Will turned it off. He didn’t want to know. His nerves were frayed enough. It was seven in the evening, sun going down. He needed to find a store to rob.
Finally a corner sign caught his interest- ZUNIGA’S PRODUCE. The name sounded familiar, though Will was sure he’d never seen the place before.
Its walls were an odd color of stucco, like Chinese skin, so veined with cracks they seemed ready to fall apart. The doors were propped open with Black Diamond watermelons. Heaped outside were wooden crates of other produce-tomatoes, avocados, chili peppers, plantains.
No cars were parked out front. No customers at all, that Will could see. The store wouldn’t have much cash in the till, but it wouldn’t have surveillance cameras, either. Maybe the workers would be illegals. The owner would have no great desire to call the police.
Zuniga.
The name tugged at Will’s memory, but he put it down to nerves.
He imagined Reverend Riggs’ laser-blue eyes staring into him, trying to burn a hole in the small part of Will’s conscience that still believed in God.
He parked the car. He’d hesitated long enough.
Inside were two aisles-one for groceries, the other for produce. There was no one behind the counter-just a curtain to a back office, a cigarette rack, a black-and-white television with a Spanish telenovela flickering on the screen.
In the produce section, an aging Latino in a tank top and sweat pants and rubber galoshes was spraying
