“Me neither. But last night I saw that girl you mentioned murdered so I don’t want to take any chances.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re not the one I’m worried about.”
Leila drops her hand from her face, quickly looks around the diner.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to make sure you haven’t been followed. That you won’t be followed when you leave there. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now leave a couple bucks for your coffee and head back to your car.”
Her head whips around, the woman suddenly realizing that I’m watching her. First she looks around the diner again, then out through the window at the parking lot, and then across the highway at the truck stop.
“Don’t worry about where I am. Just pay for the coffee and head to your car. Believe me when I say I want to get this over with just as much as you do.”
Leila pulls three dollar bills from her pocket and lays them on the table as she slides out from the booth. The phone to her ear, she starts toward the exit.
“Where am I going?”
“Turn right out of the parking lot and head west.”
“How far should I go?”
“I’ll tell you.
“Will you call me back?”
“No. You and I are going to stay on the line until you get there.”
Am I being overly paranoid? Maybe overly cautious is the better term for it. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to trust this woman, but the simple fact is I don’t know anything about her other than the little I’ve read online this morning. Her card was found in the bag of a dead girl, along with a Velcro wallet containing five crisp one-hundred dollar bills and a pinkie finger. Oh, and a baby.
No red flags have gone off in regards to this woman yet, but that doesn’t mean I still shouldn’t be cautious. There’s no reason to believe she has anything to do with the men who killed the girl from last night, but I still have to be certain before I allow myself to put Star in her care.
Less than a minute later Leila has pulled out onto the highway heading west. I watch the diner parking lot for a moment, then double-check the truck stop parking lot. As far as I can tell, nobody rushes to follow her. In fact, nobody even coincidently pulls out of either parking lot.
Keeping the phone against my ear, I start the engine and pull out onto the highway.
Eight
I don’t draw this out any longer than I need to. Soon it becomes clear Leila Simmons—and by extension, me—isn’t being followed. I keep watching the rearview mirror, but the cars back there look as normal as cars typically look on a weekend afternoon driving miles and miles in the middle of nowhere.
We don’t speak. Leila tried asking more questions, but I kept telling her to wait, that I would talk to her when we got there, and finally she fell silent. She doesn’t have the radio on in her car, and neither do I. Besides the noise of the highway whipping past beneath our tires, the only sound coming from the phone is the woman’s soft breathing.
After several miles on the highway—nothing in the desert around us except buffalo grass and creosote bushes and cholla—a rest area looms ahead. It’s so small and pathetic you might miss it if you blinked.
I make a split-second decision and pull off into the rest area. Leila’s probably already a good half mile farther down the highway.
“Did you see the rest area you passed?”
“Yes.”
“Make a U-turn and head back to it.”
Leila doesn’t answer, but I sense her frustration on the line between us.
“Leila, did you hear me?”
“I’m making the U-turn now.”
The rest area doesn’t have a bathroom. Just two weathered picnic tables and a trash bin. A slanted and rusting aluminum overhang that looks like it was built fifty years ago shadows the tables.
There aren’t even any parking spots, just enough gravel for cars to temporarily park so that people can stretch their legs for a few minutes.
I’m already parked and waiting by the time the Jetta pulls into the lot. As Leila Simmons eases her car to a stop next to mine, I open my door and step out into the dry summer day. The cloudless sky above a dark blue, the only imperfection a 747 leading a puffy contrail.
I keep my door open, the P320 resting on the seat.
Leila watches me from behind the steering wheel, clearly trying to gauge the situation. She doesn’t step out and instead lowers the Jetta’s passenger side window.
“Where’s the baby?”
“She’s not here.”
Despite the sunglasses on her face, I can tell her eyes dart past me at the empty car. She shakes her head, her jaw tightening.
“What is this bullshit?”
“Relax. The baby is fine. She’s in good hands.”
“What is this—some kind of shakedown? Do you expect me to pay you money?”
“No. Like I told you, I witnessed the girl you mentioned—”
“Juana.”
“Yes, Juana. I saw two law enforcement officers murder her last night. As far as I could tell, they didn’t seem like good law enforcement, either. So I want to be careful.”
Leila Simmons doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally she seems to make a decision. She undoes her seat belt and steps out of the car. Crosses her arms and looks around the rest area like there are a dozen people standing nearby.
“Why did you bring me all the way out here?”
“I told you—I wanted to make sure you weren’t being followed.”
“Who would follow me?”
“Who were the men who killed Juana last night?”
She doesn’t answer at first. A slight wind picks up, blowing her curly black hair around, and she pushes a few strands from her face.
She says, “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m just a woman who likes to mind her own business.”
“Tell me what happened.”
So I tell her. I tell her about how I was heading home from work last night when I heard the girl calling out behind me. How
