Oscar’s heart pounded. He stood and grabbed Max’s arm, pulling him to his feet. “Say it.”
Max’s face was pale, and the pain in his eyes was sharp and real. “My father.”
Oscar’s grip tightened. “No. You lie.” He had to be lying.
“I didn’t know at first, and when I did...” Max looked sick. “I loved her, Oscar. You know I did.”
Max wasn’t lying.
Max went on, his voice harsh. “I wish to God it had been mine. I would have taken care of her. I would have let her have the baby—not push her to have an abortion.”
Oscar dropped Max’s arm, stepping back like he’d been punched. Maria Carmen would never let one of those butchers kill her baby. “She wouldn’t. She didn’t.”
Max fell into the chair. “She didn’t want to. She begged me to help her.” Max’s voice shook and he ran a tired hand over his face. “He was drunk. I was... I was out of my head. We fought but... he shoved her into the Bentley.”
The Bentley that had gone over the side of Canyon Road. Oscar felt sick, just like he had that day when he’d heard Max’s sobbing voice on the telephone.
“I’ve gone over it a hundred times,” Max said softly. “I should have stopped them, somehow.”
“You let me put the blame on you.” And let Oscar beat him bloody in front of every man in thecolonia.
“I was the only one left to take it.”
“She wouldn’t have done it,” Oscar said, voice breaking.
Max looked down at his hands. “I’m not sure what she would have done.” He shuffled the newspapers. “You think you know someone, Oscar, but it turns out you don’t. There are places—parts of ourselves—that nobody knows about. Not really.”
Oscar figured he was talking about Minerva Sinclaire now. They’d both been fooled by her. Like they’d both been fooled by Maria Carmen.
What had Padre Ramirez said? Something about the people closest to us hiding secrets. Oscar had thought he’d known Maria Carmen. But the woman Max described was a stranger. He thought he knew Max, but it turned out he didn’t know his cousin all that well either. Even Francesca was hiding something, according to Mamá. It seemed only Padre Ramirez knew everyone’s secrets, and he was bound by the seal of confession.
Why was this coming to him now, with Roman’s and Angel’s lives at stake? With Minerva missing? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t ignore the direction of his thoughts. Padre Ramirez saidhe wasn’t the only one hiding something in thecolonia. And who went to confession except for him and Lupita and the old women?
“Max.” He turned on his cousin. “Alonso... he said he saw you. Upstairs at the party.”
“Yeah.” Max slumped over the newspapers, his head in his hands.
“Where?”
“In the hallway—hey, where are you going?”
Oscar grabbed his sodden hat and rushed to the door, puzzle pieces clicking together.
All this time, he’d been wondering what Max had been doing in the upstairs bedrooms, when he should have been wondering about Alonso and his get-rich schemes.
Francesca, confessing to Padre each week.
The typewriter in the back office of thesociedades.
Could it really be Alonso all along? Oscar put Maria Carmen, what Max had told him—all of it—into a corner of his mind. He’d think on it later. Right now, he had somewhere to go. “Max,” he said as he opened the door, “find her.”
“So you can turn her in?” Max sounded defeated.
Oscar was halfway out the door, pulling his cap down low on his wet hair. “Just find her.” He prayed he was wrong. Then he prayed he was right. Then he thought of the dead Chinese butler and prayed that he wasn’t too late.
MINA
It was long past midnight. I was lightheaded with hunger and shivering wet. I stood before a meandering drive, identical white bungalows and dripping palm trees lining each side.
