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“How do you know?”
Estrella glared at her sister and shook her head. “Esperanza!”
“But—”
“No, you can’t. He’ll find out. You know he will.”
Esperanza gave her sister a mutinous look and went back to hunting for eggs. The smell of chickens and their waste made Deborah wondered why anyone would be a farmer. “Look, if you know something, it would really help. It’s not right if something happened to your sister and no one did anything about it.”
Estrella crowded her sister, her back to Deborah. “We don’t know anything.”
Deborah forced herself to relax against the opposite wall. “You said she didn’t go to California. Tell me how you know. We’ll do everything we can to protect you from your dad.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Yes. And he’s in Kansas. He’s looking for you. You have to let us help you. We can protect you.”
Estrella’s face crumpled. She began to sob. Esperanza put her arm around her sister. They huddled together. “Momma said we didn’t have to worry about him coming after us no more. That he couldn’t ever find us. She lied. She lied to us, and now you’ve probably led him right to us. As if Uncle Ezra isn’t enough.”
“Why? What does Uncle Ezra do to you?”
Esperanza’s hands fluttered around her face as if to protect it. “Beats us with a belt buckle. And he . . . he touches us, me and Estrella, but not the boys.”
Thick, wooly blackness swooped over Deborah, blocking out the light. It took her a few seconds to realize the sharp, angry cry had come from her own mouth. She gripped her hands together hard, focusing on the pressure of her fingers tightened against each other. “We’ll get you out of here.” Her mouth was dry, making it hard to say the words. “Before Ezra Dodge comes back.”
“Where are we going? Foster care? Then we’ll get separated.” Estrella’s voice was level, but her shoulders trembled under the thin material of the cotton sundress that hung below her knees.
“We’ll do everything I can to help you. So will Detective Baker, but you’ve got to help us. Your sister is dead. We found her remains on the ranch of a friend of ours. She’d been buried there for years with no one knowing. No marker. All alone. Alone. Do you think that’s right?”
Esperanza sobbed some more. Estrella hugged her against her skinny chest. “Don’t think about it, sis. We agreed. No thinking about it.”
Estrella jerked away from her sister and turned to stare up at Deborah. “We saw him do it.”
“Who?”
“Papi.”
“What did he do?”
“I skinnied up the tree,” Esperanza explained. “Estrella was on the ground, catching the pecans when I threw them down. I looked over at the porch. Nina had made drawings on the porch with chalk, andPapiwas making her clean it of. She started crying. He grabbed the shovel and swung as hard as he could. Hit her in the head. She fell down. She stopped crying.”
The matter-of-fact recitation chilled Deborah to the bone. She sat down on a three-legged stool. Perspiration soaked her blouse despite the frigid north wind that rattled the henhouse. “Why didn’t you do anything? Say anything.”
“Because we were afraid he’d do it to us, too.” Esperanza sounded angry at having to explain the obvious. “He said he would do it to us.”
“Nobody’s gonna hurt—”
The door to the henhouse swung open. In the sudden piercing light, Deborah could only make out a shadow. A figure holding something—something with a long barrel.
“Get away from my sisters or I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Forty-two
Alex whirled and stared at Clarisse Chavez. She cowered behind the kitchen table, her expression wild like a feral cat. He advanced on her, hand outstretched. “Where’s the key?”
“I can’t let her out. He’ll punish me.” She raised her arms in front of her face as if fearing a blow. “You don’t know what he’ll do to me. She’s strong-willed, like her sister. She has to be taught. She has to learn the lesson.”
“Give me the key now, or I’ll blow the padlock off.” Cooper put one hand on the gun on his hip. “Now.”
