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She rooted around in the pocket of her apron and flung it at Cooper. “I won’t be responsible for what he does.”
“No, ma’am, but you are responsible for what you do.”
Alex crowded Cooper as he fumbled with the lock. He threw the padlock on the floor and wrenched open the door. It was a tiny, barren room, meant for storage, just as she’d said. Instead, they were using it as a cell. The shelves were empty. A soiled bunk mattress laid on the floor. Next to it was a pail partially full of stinking excrement. No furniture. No toys. Nothing. Just an elfin-size girl who curled up in a ball in the corner. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ezra, I promise I’ll be quiet.” The arm she’d thrown over her face muffled her voice.
Alex brushed past Cooper and took two steps into the room. There was hardly space for his frame. He squatted down so he wouldn’t tower over her. “Sweetie, I’m Alex Luna. Who are you?”
She dropped her arm. Alex swallowed. She had beautiful green eyes, fair skin, and dark black hair chopped short around her face. She looked about four or five. “I’m Nadia.”
“Hi, Nadia. I’ve come to take you out of here.”
He stood and held out his hand. She rolled up on her knees and tried to follow suit. Her legs collapsed under her. “What’s the matter, darling?”
“My legs don’t work.”
Alex glanced back at Clarisse Chavez, who stood half-in, half-out of the room, as if poised for flight. “Cerebral palsy.”
He scooped the girl into his arms. She didn’t weigh more than thirty-five or forty pounds. She smelled of urine and worse.
He stopped next to where Clarisse stood, staring down at her, baffled. “He killed Nina, but you were already pregnant with another baby, weren’t you?”
She didn’t answer. “Weren’t you?”
“Yes!” She screamed the word, her mouth wide in agony. “Only I didn’t know it until I got here. And Ezra didn’t want nothing to do with some other man’s baby. He’s made my life a living hell over it. She was another mouth to feed who would never being able to pull her weight. He wanted to kill her, drown her like a baby kitten. I begged him to let me keep her so he said I could—as long as I kept her out of the way.”
She said it as if it all made perfect sense.
“So you punished her for being disabled by locking her in a storage closet.”
“No. No. No.” Clarisse screamed the word again and again. She rocked back and forth, animal sounds coming from her mouth. “He punished me. He raged against me. I made her with another man, so he punished me.”
Alex turned and walked away, hugging Nadia close to his chest, murmuring comforting words. She snuggled against him, her eyes closed. His gaze caught Cooper’s. The man looked a hundred years old. He held out his arms. Alex handed him the child. He smiled. “Now I know why I don’t retire.”
Alex nodded. There might be one more Nadia out there who needed rescuing.
* * *
“Are you Dom?” Deborah kept her tone casual as she contemplated the space between the rifle and the door to the shed. She couldn’t get past it. Not without taking a chance that this kid would accidently blow her brains out and end any chance he had of ever having a real life. The barrel dipped and shimmied in his shaking hands.
“Shut up. I’ll ask the questions.” He sounded like grown man. He couldn’t be more than twelve. “Get your hands in the air.”
Deborah stood, her hands high. “Dom, I’m Detective Deborah Smith, from San Antonio. I’ve come to help you.”
“You’re a cop. I knew it right away when I saw you walking out. You got a gun under that jacket. I want it. You best take it out real careful-like with two fingers and lay it on the ground.”
“Dom, she wants to help us.” Estrella took a step toward her brother. “She’s a police officer. She’s saysPapi’scoming after us. They’re gonna protect us from him. You can’t shoot her.”
“And you believed her?” Dom’s tone said his sister was no more than a stupid girl. “No one will help us. None of them. They’re just more adults who’ll tell us lies and keep us apart and send us to awful foster homes until Momma and Ezra get us back and beat us some more.”
The despair in his voice, the desolate lack of hope, sounded so familiar to Deborah. Her body hummed with the desire to tell him it would be okay, but she couldn’t make that promise. It hadn’t been okay for her. Not really. Through high school, college, the academy, she’d pretended it was all right, but it wasn’t. The hole inside her had gotten bigger, not smaller.
Maybe that was just a defect in her. Maybe these kids still had a chance to get over the despicable things adults had inflicted on them. God was giving them a chance to escape the terrible cycle—through her. “Esperanza and Estrella witnessed the murder of your sister. If they testify your father will go to prison, and you won’t have to worry about him any more. Ezra Dodge, we’ll take care of. We can protect you.” Deborah tried to put every ounce of persuasion in her voice. “We can protect you.”
“You can’t protect us. You don’t even know the half of it. Momma’s as bad asPapiwas. And when Ezra comes back and sees you here, we’ll just get another beating. This time I’m gonna fight back. I don’t need you to fight my battles, just your gun. Hand it over. Now.”
The boy cocked the rifle and took another step toward Deborah. She put her hand on her holster. “You won’t shoot me, Dom. Let us take your sisters where he can’t hurt them anymore. Let us help you protect them.”
“No—the only way is to kill him—”
