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I take off.
The day is mild and sunny as I make my way out of the soup kitchen and down the street. My feet slap the concrete as I move with haste, and though it’s a short distance to Rosa’s hotel, I can’t help the mounting fear.
Inside the hotel, I walk-run across elaborate orange-and-blue tiles to the front desk.
“Sister Dee.” The manager smiles.
Though my stomach is turning, I smile back. “I lost my keycard to Rosa’s room. Can you replace it?” The truth is I never thought to keep one.
“Of course, of course,” he says, quickly making a keycard for me.
As calm as if this were all routine, I take it, smile, then hustle down the hall to Rosa’s first floor room.
I knock on her door. No answer. Removing a small .22 from my thigh holster, I flick off the safety, tap the keycard, then enter. Though the bed’s unmade, the room is clean. There’s no signs of a struggle. I sweep and clear the room, the bathroom, then go for the closet.
Something rustles inside. I know before I open the door who I’m going to find. I can hear his muffled sobs. Putting the gun away, I slide the door open and drop to my knees.
My heart breaks as Carlos rushes for me. Repressing my own cry, I grab the sobbing child in my arms and hold him tight, tight enough to convince him he’s safe. He buries himself against my body and his tears quickly soak through my tunic.
I rock him, offering him as much comfort as I can in this moment of sadness and regret. This is my fault for not pursuing El Rico. I was slow to act when I knew better, when fate presented me with the opportunity to help others. I let my family, who aren’t on the ground here, who didn’t come face-to-face with Rosa, make the call for me.
No more.
Carrying the shaking child out of the room and through the lobby, I tell the manager to call the policia, and then I ring the abbess and tell her I need her help at the hotel.
Waiting for them, I sit on a chair in the lobby and whisper soothing words in Carlos’s ear as I stroke his back. In my heart, I gather every last bit of determination to find Rosa and bring her home safely to her son.
* * *
An hourafter an exhausted Carlos has been taken to a loving couple in town, the hotel lobby is overrun with policia and my temper is fraying. I thoroughly dislike Comandante Javier Lopez.
“You see, my dear,” Javier says, “many women leave their children, so you are wasting your time. Go back and pray, Sister, and leave the investigations to us.” Dark hair, dark sunglasses—worn inside for some reason––and a half-foot shorter than me, his tone still tries to pat me on the head.
“Rosa didn’t leave her son, Comandante. She was taken.”
He waves away an approaching officer. “Her room is clean and nothing was taken. You are jumping to conclusions.”
Straightening my spine, willing myself not to seek the comfort of the bracelet on my wrist, I employ a tone of brisk frustration. “You’re the one jumping to conclusions. Rosa didn’t abandon her child.”
The comandante shrugs. “My experience tells me otherwise, but you have a too-kind heart. I know the cold realities of this journey, of traveling to El Norte, because I’ve seen it before. You think she is the first woman to leave her child?”
My fear and anxiety are morphing into stomach-turning rage. This man isn’t going to eventryto find Rosa. Hadn’t tried to find the women who’d gone missing in the past. Won’t try to find any that go missing in the future.
Of course, I know the statistics. Due to the horrible drug wars, drugs many in my country crave, ninety-three percent of crimes in Mexico go unsolved. Those are just thereportedcrimes.
Logic and self-preservation tell me not to push. My “too-kind heart” knows pushing won’t bring lost women home, and the last thing I need is to make a name for myself when I’m undercover on a separate assignment and yet… “If you never search, how can you know they’ve left their children? How can you know they weren’t taken?”
A disturbed frown etches lines around his full chin, reminding me of a puppet. “You live an entirely different life from these people. From us. You are sheltered, taken care of. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The rules here aren’t made by God, Sister. They’re made by men.”
With that, he lifts his sunglasses and stares at me with mean brown eyes. “Men like me.”
For a moment, his statement looms between us, as solid and immovable as the bars of a prison. I could continue to challenge him, but to what end? It would only serve to draw me more surely under his scrutiny and won’t satisfy my anger or growing suspicion of him.
Adopting the same confident calm I’ve seen Sister Angelica wear, I turn with a, “God sees all, Comandante.”
From behind, Javier whispers, “It seems to me that He must be blind.”
11
