“Oscar!Gracias al Señor.You must come.” She went on, something about the newspaper and Mamá and the rain. Before he could think, she pulled him through the room and out the door.
The rain poured off the brim of his hat. He shrugged out of hiscoat and threw it over Lupita. She ran through the rivers of mud holding his hand tight. “Come. Hurry.”
Alarm shot through his body. Had Minerva been found out? By the time Oscar burst into his house, rain and fear had cleared his head of the tequila. Mamá sat on the straight-backed chair, her arms crossed, looking at the floor. Lupita babbled. Minerva Sinclaire was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is she?”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Lupita sat him down. “You must go after her. You’ve got to find her.”
“No. She is gone and good riddance,” Mamá said, her voice hard.
Gone? She couldn’t be. “Where? How long ago?” His gut twisted. Did they find her? Would someone else get the reward?
“She is all alone,” Lupita appealed to Oscar.
He sat down, his head spinning. Maybe he wasn’t sobered up yet. “Tell me what happened.”
Mamá pointed to theamericanonewspaper on the table. The one Brody had given him, with the headline of the reward. But below the fold... He smoothed out the pages and read. The beat of the rain on the roof filled the silence.Qué?Minerva Sinclaire, a... He knew she wasn’t an innocent child, but this? He looked at Mamá, questioning. “Did you... Is this true?”
“She said yes.” Mamá’s words were clipped and short.
His stomach turned over in disgust. She had lived under his roof, eaten his food, and he had believed in her innocence... Minerva, a woman who took money for... All this time, he’d been protecting her, but she’d played him for a fool. And Max... all those things he’d said—about her being innocent, needing help—had he known all along what she was?
Because of this—this woman who sold herself—and her lies, he’d turned on his own brother. And now Roman and Angel were taken from them. How could he have been so stupid?
“I told you what she was, my son,” Mamá said.
He didn’t need her I-told-you-sos, but he figured he’d earned them. “You were right, Mamá.” He crumpled the paper in his shaking hands. He needed something to hit, some way to vent his mounting fury. He’d find her. He’d find her and he’d bring her to Hearst. Then he’d get Roman and Angel back home. His decision was made. “She gets what she deserves now.” Even Padre Ramirez couldn’t argue with that.
Lupita turned on them both, bright spots of color on her cheeks. “Forgive me, Señora Dominguez, but you are wrong.” Mamá’s mouth dropped open. Lupita’s words came quick and fierce. “And you are wrong also, Oscar. And pigheaded and stubborn and... uncharitable.” Her eyes flashed fire.
It was like a stab in the back. Sweet Lupita, defending that... thatprostituta.
Lupita went on, her hands jabbing the air as she talked. “Don’t you know how lucky we are? We have our people. Our family. But Mina, she has no one. No friends except that woman in the papers. Sometimes people do bad things because they have no other choice.”
“How could that—” he poked at the newspaper, his mouth twisting in revulsion—“be the only choice?”
Lupita put her hands on her hips and squared off at him. “You are a stupid man,” she said, her voice rising. “A stupid, stupid man! You have no idea what it is like to be a woman. I think about what I would do if I were in her place. It’s not so hard to understand.”
“You would never—” Oscar sputtered.
“Because I am not alone. But —” she raised up on her toes, her face close to his— “but I do know what it is like to have no choice. Every woman does.” Her eyes shone with tears now. “And you yourself have done things not to be proud of, have you not, Oscar?” She stared at him.
He flushed. But a reckless kiss was hardly the same as what Mina had done. What had gotten into Lupita? Was she defending a prostitute? Wasn’t Oscar the one who had saved her to start with? Besides, Minerva Sinclaire wasn’t alone. “She has Max.”
Lupita pointed to the newspaper. “Do you not see? Max is the one who saved her from this—” Lupita stopped suddenly.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, and her hand dropped down.“Nada.”Lupita picked up his sodden hat and coat, shoving them both toward him and pushing him back toward the door. “Go to Max. You will find her there.”
At least they agreed on one thing. That’s where she must be. He’d find her and turn her in. That’s what he’d do. And if she ends up dead like Feng? a small voice—his conscience, he guessed—whispered. Well, then, may God have mercy on them both.
——————
It was almost midnight when Oscar pulled into the Garden of Allah.
When he’d left his house—and the angry woman who used to be sweet Lupita—the Model T was sitting in a puddle the size of a small lake. He opened the ignition, hoping it was dry enough to start. He cranked. Nothing. He tried again and then again, until his arm ached. It was no use. He was under the hood of the Ford for what seemed like forever, cursing and replacing spark plugsbefore he finally got it cranked into life, then goaded the auto through streets running with water and mud.
