Had somebody been there the whole time? If so, why hadn’t they answered the door?
He returned to the house, knocked again and, like last time, no one came. He knocked louder, rang the doorbell repeatedly. The dog started to bark. Good. He intended to make a nuisance of himself.
Finally, it worked.
He heard the lock turn. The door opened as far as the security chain would allow. “What do you want?” a woman said in a thick Mexican accent. She looked worried, tired, anxious. Connor could relate.
“I need to ask you about Carlos.”
“I have nothing to say.”
She began to close the door, and Connor instinctively pushed on it from the other side to stop her. “Wait. It’s not about him exactly. It’s about his doctor. Dr. Callahan?”
She stopped trying to close the door, and Connor stopped trying to hold it open. She looked at him in a way Connor couldn’t quite describe. “The surgeon?”
“Yes.”
“You’re too young to be police.”
“I’m not.”
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you. Could you let me in?”
The woman looked at him a couple of seconds longer, then closed the door, unlatched the chain, and reopened it. “Come.”
Connor stepped inside.
As soon as he had, the door was closed and bolted shut again.
The living room he found himself in felt dark, even with the overhead light on. That was more likely a trick of the mind than fact—a result of having sheets (mismatching sheets, Connor now noticed) nailed over the windows. An overturned crate served as a coffee table. A small TV sat on the floor. The sofa was old, supported by a brick where one of its feet should have been. But the house was also tidy. Connor could tell the floor had been recently swept and all other surfaces had been dusted.
The Rottweiler barked ferociously from another room. Connor tensed up.
“He’s locked up,” the woman said, perhaps noticing the subtle change in Connor’s stance.
“Is your name Adriana?”
The woman nodded.
The little girl who had taken the trash to the street peeked out through the kitchen doorway.
“And that’s Rosa?”
At the sound of her name, the little girl disappeared. Adriana nodded again.
“What do you want?”
“The police have been by here to talk to you?”
“Every day. They come every day. I don’t talk to them.”
Connor thought about what Adriana had said before she opened the door. You’re not police. “Why not?”
Adriana glanced at the kitchen, and Connor suddenly realized he already knew the answer. “She’s not legal, is she?” It was possible neither of them was.
“You said this is about doctor. Tell me what you want,” Adriana said.
“She’s my mother.”
“So?”
“I know you probably don’t like her. I understand. Believe me, I’d probably blame her too, for what happened to Carlos, if I were you.”
“I don’t blame her for what happened to Carlos.”
“What?” Connor said, surprised. “But—” He wasn’t sure what he was going to say next, and before he could figure it out a timer went off in the kitchen.
Adriana went to take care of it. Connor followed.
She turned off the timer on the stove and pulled a plate of cookies out of the oven. Oatmeal, Connor guessed, from the look of them.
Rosa appeared from the only other doorway that led into the kitchen. She spoke to her mother in Spanish and in that sort of pleading tone children got when they wanted something.
“English, only,” Adriana said as she used a spatula to transfer the cookies from baking sheet to plate.
Rosa’s eyes cut to Connor and then back. “Can I have a cookie? Pleeeeeeeeease?”
“You are still hungry, mi cielito?”
Rosa nodded.
“Okay, you can have one cookie.”
Rosa snatched it off the plate and ran back the way she had come.
“They’re hot!” Adriana called after her. “Don’t eat it too quickly.” She sighed, returned her attention to Connor. “Speak. This doctor. Your mother. What about her? Why are you here?”
“She’s missing.”
“The police. This is why they come by? They think I have something to do with her missing?”
“They just want to talk to you,” Connor said. Of course the truth was they thought she might have something to do with it, but saying that to a woman who was already hostile toward him seemed like a bad idea. “They’re trying to find out where she is.”
Adriana threw the spatula into the sink. “They want to talk to me because they think I am responsible.”
“Please, Mrs. Hernandez, do you know anything that could help them find her?”
There was a breakfast table in the corner with three chairs, just enough for the family before Carlos had died. The window adjacent to it was also covered with a sheet. Adriana sat down in one of the chairs. She sighed. “You know why Carlos was in hospital?”
“No.” It was probably in the records, but Connor had only read enough to get the name and address.
A pained expression crossed over Adriana’s face, then disappeared. “We needed money. Carlos, he said he could get it. Said he had a friend, needed him to do some work. He wouldn’t tell me what, but I knew. He had talked about it before. I told him, no, don’t go. We don’t need money that badly. We find another way. But he goes. He does it anyway. And now . . . no Carlos. No money.”
Connor felt his cellphone vibrate. He knew it was his and not his father’s because of which pocket it was in. He slid the phone out just enough to see who the caller was. Olivia. He could phone her back when he was done doing her job.
“What was it? This work he was doing?”
Adriana sniffled, did her best to hold back her tears. “It doesn’t matter. But see, your mom, this not her fault. This is . . .” Her voice wavered and she stopped talking. She straightened up, tightened her fists, then continued, once again in control of her voice. “This is Carlos’s fault. Your mom, she came to see me after Carlos died. You know that? She came and stood right over there in my living room
