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“You’ve got gum all over your face.” The look on her face stopped him dead in his tracks. “Maybe you should go get cleaned up. They’re just little girls. I can handle them.”
She whirled and walked away.
“Fine.” Alex ignored the grin on Baker’s face. “I’ll just check on Coop.”
Clarisse’s kitchen smelled like rotting bananas and coffee grounds. Alex found Cooper sitting at the kitchen table and Clarisse pouring coffee into two heavy ceramic mugs.”
He rapped on the door frame and then moved into the room. Clarisse jumped and sloshed coffee down the side of the mug. It dripped on the cracked, black-and-white-checked linoleum. “What do you want? You got a frog in your throat, too?”
“Just a little bubble gum on my face.” Alex kept his tone light. He glanced at Cooper. The detective raised his eyebrows, but didn’t speak. “Mind if I wash up at the sink there?”
“Don’t suppose there’s much I can do to stop you.” She slammed the mug down in front of Cooper, spilling even more of the hot liquid. “What y’all want from me anyway?”
Alex washed his hands and then rubbed his face a little. Who cared about bubblegum at a time like this? He turned around and leaned on the counter. His gut told him something big was about to break this case wide open. He didn’t want to miss it.
Cooper took a sip from the mug. Clarisse started toward the door. Cooper set the mug down. “What happened to Nina?”
Clarisse’s face blanched white. Alex straightened and took two quick steps forward, thinking he would have to catch her when she fainted. She laughed instead, a high pitched, quivering sound that held no humor.
Alex stopped in the middle of the room, waiting. Finally, maybe someone would tell him how that little girl ended up in a shallow, unmarked grave, all alone, for five years.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nina who?”
Or maybe not. Forget it. He plunged in ahead of Cooper, sick of waiting, sick of the disingenuous attitude of the adults who should’ve been the ones who took care of her and protected her. “Mrs. Chavez. We have the records from the CPS visits, from the school. We have her birth certificate. Do you know where she is? What happened to her? If you do, you better tell us. Now.”
“She’s not here.” Clarisse clasped her hands together as if she were praying and teetered toward the table. Cooper pushed a chair out so she could sit. “You’re talking about my youngest, I guess. We called her Marie. That was her middle name. That’s why I didn’t catch on right away who you were talking about. You mean Marie.”
Alex hovered over her, keeping the pressure on. “So we know you have Esperanza and Estrella at the high school and Dom and Frankie at the middle school over in Abilene. Nina—I mean Marie—she’d be ten now. Fifth grade, maybe. No record of her going to school here. Where is she?”
“It was too much for me, too much. I had too many children to take care of so Ezra decided—so we decided to send Marie to live with his sister in California.” Her gaze darted to the door every few seconds, her mouth trembling. “Yes, she was a handful. Very difficult child. Unruly. Strong-willed. Tómas—Ezra—we thought it’d be best.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. Alex could see them banking in the corners. Finally, one slid down her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of a red, dishpan hand. He felt no empathy for her. “Mrs. Chavez, I know your husband isn’t dead—your second husband—Tómas—because my colleague and I have talked to him. He doesn’t know what happened to Nina. He thinks she disappeared with you. And he’s looking for you.”
“No. No. Did you tell him where to find me?” Fury billowed in the words, a fury nurtured for several years. “If he finds us, he’ll kill me. And the kids. Tómas knows what happened to Nina.”
“How does he know?”
“Because he did it.”
“Did it? He killed her? And you didn’t do anything about it?”
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Alex let his anger billow through the words. She jerked as if he’d slapped her. Another tear joined the first one, trailing quickly to her jaw line. Cooper took another sip of coffee, looking like a spectator watching a tennis match, his gaze bouncing from Alex to Clarisse and back, his lips stretched in a tight line across his mouth.
Clarisse’s breath came in short spurts like a cornered animal’s. Finally, she spoke. “I was afraid. So afraid of what he’d do to the other kids. If he killed one, he could kill them all. I had to run. I ran.”
“So you ran to your ex-husband, a man you’d already left once.”
Her head jerked up. “You know?”
“Yes, we know. You were never married to Tómas Chavez because you were already married to Ezra Dodge. Why would a man like Ezra Dodge take you back?”
“To punish me.”
He should feel pity for her, but he didn’t. He kept seeing the skull peeking out from under the clods of dry earth. The scraps of faded pink material. The plastic barrettes. The bones laid out on the ME’s table. So neat and precise. “He’ll show up here any minute, Mrs. Dodge. We know he left San Antonio yesterday to come to Kansas. He’s already in the state. He’s probably watching, waiting, waiting to pick the perfect moment to swoop down and give you what he figures you deserve. You better tell us what happened. Tell us the whole story, and we’ll find a way to protect you and the kids.”
“How?” Her face turned whiter than the milk she’d left sitting on the counter. “How does he know?”
“He found out a private investigator came up here four and a half years ago looking for you and never came back. You know anything about that?”
