“So you took something? Of his?” Oscar stood and in two steps was nose to nose with Alonso. “What was it?”
Alonso stepped back, glancing away.
“Tell me.” Oscar’s voice was a low threat.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alonso stammered.
Francesca crossed herself.
“You remember Feng, the butler?” Oscar reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture Brody had given him. “Whatever it is, they thought he had it.” He threw the picture down on the table, beside the glowing lamp. “Do you want to be next?”
Francesca gasped and wobbled. Alonso looked at the picture, and then his mother, his face draining of color. Francesca rushed to the corner of the kitchen and pulled the gas stove away from the wall.
“Mamá!” Alonso said again, but too late.
Francesca fished a blue-bound notebook from behind the stove. She hurried over to Oscar and threw it on the table in front of him as if it had burned her. “Take it. Take it.” She crossed herself again and backed away.
“You took this? Stole it?” Oscar couldn’t believe it. Alonso and Francesca. His family.
“He hadn’t paid us in weeks!” Alonso burst out. “I read the newspapers. These people will pay plenty to keep their dirty secrets. I figured it was our ticket to a better life.”
Alonso. Always looking for a quick way to get rich. Always wishing to be likeamericanos. And look what it led to.
Oscar picked up the diary. It opened to a creased page. He struggled to read the English in a messy slanted hand, but after a few sentences, he got the idea. “Did you even read it?”
Alonso hung his head. “I could make out some. I figured it is something bad, from the way they talked.”
Oscar couldn’t believe it. Just the few words he’d read confirmed it was something bad, all right. He stuck the book in his pocket, feeling like he was carrying a stick of dynamite. “And soyou stole this, and what? He found you in his room, so you fought and killed him?”
“No! No, Oscar. That isn’t what happened.” Alonso stepped back. “He wasn’t there. I only found it in his room, I swear. He was downstairs still, at the party. And then the next morning, he was dead... I don’t know anything about that. I swear that’s the truth.”
Oscar waited, wanting to believe him. Hoping it was true. “Then what? Lester was dead so you tried to blackmail Señora Lester? You sent the note asking for money?”
Alonso tried to explain. “Oscar, they are bad people—Señor and Señora Lester. I just wanted what was owed me... and maybe a little more. What we deserved.”
Oscar shook his head. He turned to Francesca. “Where was it?” For all the love in heaven, he was going to get some answers.
She twisted the cloth in her hands. “I clean his bedroom. He keeps it... under his pillow.”
Under his pillow? This? This book of secrets—what Feng had been killed for—and he’d hidden it under his pillow like a child hiding bad marks on a report card?
Alonso sat down in the straight-backed chair and put his head in his hands. “I didn’t kill him, Oscar.”
Oscar believed him. Alonso was stupid and greedy and deserved a good beating, but he wasn’t a killer. First Maria Carmen, and now Francesca and Alonso. Did he really know anyone? “Did Lupita know about this?”
Alonso shook his head. “I thought... she would tell you.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding. She probably would have, and they could have turned this over to Brody. Maybe even saved Feng’s life and cleared Mina’s name. He shook his head. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Do you understand?” They bothlooked at the floor, shamefaced. “I’ll do what I can to keep you out of it.”
He went back out to the Ford, idling on the street. Alonso and Francesca were good people—he’d known them all his life. But even good people can do bad things if they tell themselves a few lies.
MINA
When I woke it was still dark outside, but a light glowed in the hallway. A quilt was tucked around me, and a cat—patchworked in every color a cat could be and missing part of an ear—curled warm alongside me, purring like a freight train. The cat sat up, blinked at me, then jumped to the floor, looking back as if telling me to follow.
I did. To the kitchen, where Max sat at the table in a puddle of light. The newspapers were folded in a neat pile, and coffee percolated on the stovetop. He was wearing dark trousers and a white dress shirt, but his feet were bare and his hair was damp. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his jaw was shadowed. He stared at the cigarette dangling from his fingers.
I sat down across from him. “You haven’t slept.”
