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“They found her. They found Nina.” Esperanza’s voice dropped to a whisper when she spoke her sister’s name.
“Found her—they couldn’t—she’s—” Dom looked shocked and confused. “She’s lying.”
Deborah took another step forward. “No, I’m not.”
The boy lifted the rifle so the sight was just below his eye. “Move again and I’ll blow your head off.”
Esperanza began to sob. “Dom, please. Why won’t you let them help us?” She dropped to her knees, her hands on her face. “I prayed. I prayed so hard. I asked God to send us help. And he did. He sent us the police. Please, can’t you see?”
“If God sent them, why’d it take them so long to get here? They done almost killed us already.”
Deborah opened her mouth and shut it. She was too new at this religion thing. A question like that would keep her up many nights to come—if the boy didn’t shoot her first. “I asked that question a lot when I was a kid. My mom’s boyfriend hurt me. Like Ezra has been hurting your sisters. Day after day, week after week. No one did anything to help me. Not even my own mother.”
It was a relief to say it. To say it to someone who would understand. Someone who wouldn’t feel pity. Wouldn’t offer platitudes.
Estrella sighed.
Dom nodded, but the rifle didn’t move.
Deborah searched for the right words, the words that would keep the boy from doing something he would have to live with for the rest of his life. He needed a chance to start over. She wanted to be the one to give it to him. “It took me years to understand something. A good friend of mine explained it to me. God didn’t make evil, he fights it. He wants us to fight it, too. He’s here with us, holding on to us, helping us get through it. Without him, we’d be overwhelmed, we’d drown in it. But we don’t, we hang on.”
As she talked, she let her gaze trail over his shoulder to the door. She needed to get the rifle from him. Or make enough ruckus to get Baker’s attention. A shadow flickered on the open door behind the boy. The snout of Baker’s gun came in first, then his arm, followed by his potbelly. No need for a ruckus after all. Deborah didn’t move. She focused on Dom. “Please, let us help you.”
The boy rested the rifle but against his shoulder and swiped at his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “No.”
“Dom, put the rifle down.” Baker had his gun two inches from the back of the kid’s head. “Now. Put it down nice and slow.”
Dom sobbed, a heartbreaking squeak of a sob, but he laid his weapon on the ground.
“It’s okay, son.” Baker looked up at Deborah and grinned. “You can’t do that much damage with a BB gun. Enough to hurt, but I don’t think you’d killed them.”
The boy crumpled on his hands and knees sobbing. “I want to kill them. I want to kill Ezra. And my dad. It’s the only way we’ll ever be safe. He’s coming to get us and he’ll kill us. You can’t stop him. He’ll kill us.”
Deborah got to him first. She threw her arms around him. The physical contact didn’t bother her. Not with this kid. He was a walking gaping wound. “Your dad’s outnumbered, Dom. He’s going find out what real justice is. Count on it.”
“That’s right.”
Deborah looked up. Alex stood in the doorway. “And so is Ezra Dodge. Wait until you see what we found in the kitchen—who we found.”
He put a hand on her arm as if to help her up. She jerked away. The look on his face sent an ice pick ripping through her heart. “Hey, I thought—” He backed away, hands in the air. “Sorry.”
“Please. I—just don’t touch me, okay?” She was drowning in the fear and the distrust that had whirled to the surface when the girls had talked about what Ezra Dodge had done to them. It was all back, front and center, like it had just happened. “I don’t need help.”
Chapter Forty-three
It only took Alex, with Baker and Cooper’s help, about ten minutes to find the makeshift grave where Ezra Dodge had buried private investigator Simon Phillips. Alex squatted next to the grave site, covered with overgrown weeds and rusted farm implements. He rested his hands on his knees. The sick feeling that had lodged in his gut when he’d seen Nadia lying on that filthy bedding bloomed, made it hard to breathe. That and the memory of the hard look in Deborah’s eyes when she’d rejected his help.
“The cavalry has arrived.” Baker pointed a finger toward the line of cars streaming along the dirt road that led to the main house—an evidence unit with equipment for digging, ambulances, more Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office vehicles. “Guess I better go direct the show.”
Alex stood. “We have to find Ezra Dodge and Tómas Chavez—now. Those kids haven’t got a chance until we make sure neither one can ever get close to them again.”
Baker started down the incline. “I’ve already issued an APB for Chavez and a BOLO for Dodge’s pickup, but they’re not coming back here. They’re probably hiding out until the commotion dies down. The kids are safe for now.”
Alex went in search of Deborah. Her about-face had him baffled. And angry. He wouldn’t let her get away with it. They’d come to far. He found her mothering the kids, who were gathered around her as if they’d found a port in the storm.
“What are you looking at?” An acerbic tone punctuated the frown when she finally looked his direction.
Why was she so mad at him? “You. You got a problem with that?”
