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What a terrible mother she was, putting her child in this predicament. She ought to have trusted Amos to collect Mateo as soon as he was able. Her child wouldn’t have been any more traumatized by him than he was now.
Her phone gave a low buzz, startling her. Recognizing the number she had just called, she answered with a breathless, “Hello?”
A terse female voice asked in perfect American English, “Can you send me your location?”
“Yes, I think so. If it works.”
“Do it now.”
Who was this woman? She spoke in a calm but authoritative voice.
“Okay. Hold on.” Grace pulled her phone from her ear, swept a wary glance around her, then opened the map application. “Shoot, you’re not in my contacts. I think I have to add you first.”
“I’ll call back if I don’t get a pin in one minute.” Magdalena Montoya hung up abruptly.
With fingers that quaked almost to the point of being useless, Grace stared at her phone, trying to determine her next step. Her thoughts were paralyzed.
Think through your fear.
With a deep breath, Grace banished her fears and tapped into her thoughts. Within seconds, she had added Magdalena to her contacts and promptly sent her a pin.
With her heart thumping, she waited for a reply. A dog barked not too far away, but nobody stumbled across their hiding place.
At last, a text appeared. This had to be Magdalena.Walk toward the parking lot. I’ll pick you up in ten.
Grace gave a sob of relief. This was going to work. It had to work. But what parking lot? She stared at her map application, unable to make sense of where she was in relation to the tangle of roads appearing on her screen. The only thing she could do was get up and go looking for the nearest lot.
Gripping her phone hard, she hiked her backpack onto one shoulder and, with Mateo wrapped in her embrace, struggled to her feet. His skinny arm tightened around her neck, telling her he was too afraid to sleep.
Continuing uphill, away from the highway, she slipped alongside the abandoned building, realizing when she came to a window that it had no roof. Coming to the corner of the building, she encountered an old parking lot now littered with mounds of trash and broken glass. Three and four-story buildings surrounded the lot on all sides. Wan lights shone in filthy windows, suggesting people lived inside them. She ducked back into the alley, out of sight.
“It’s okay, baby. Someone’s coming to get us.” Her words were mainly a comfort to herself, for Mateo remained rigid and silent.
Waiting, highly aware of her damp shorts, she counted the minutes anxiously. Amos’s first message replayed in her head.That you could put your life so casually at risk when you mean so much to me and to Simon is appalling.
Did she mean enough that he would forgive her when this was over, or had she gone too far this time? It wasn’t as if she had ever been particularly kind to Amos, apart from thanking him with a hug the other night, at which point he had kissed her. And what a kiss it was! It had warmed her like the sun bringing a dormant seed back to life.
Please respond when you arrive. If you need help, I will find a way.
She hadn’t responded to his message yesterday because her phone had been dead, and then she’d kept it off to save battery power. He must have guessed that she needed help, but how could he have possibly known she was in Caracas? Only God could have known that.
A shiver moved from the top of her head and down her body.For I am with you wherever you go.Just a month ago, she would have scoffed at the familiar verse. At the present moment, it seemed remarkably true.
The sudden appearance of a small, unfamiliar car, rolling into the lot with its lights extinguished, encouraged Grace to ease cautiously into view. Would Magdalena be driving with the lights off? They blinked on suddenly, catching Grace in their glare. Before she could even flinch, the lights went out, and the car stopped moving.
Grace waited, her heart thumping. The reassuring sight of a woman pushing out had her starting forward again until she spotted a shovel in the woman’s grasp, a bundle in the other. Alarmed, Grace froze as the brunette beauty marched up to her.
“Get in the car.” Her soft whisper conveyed both confidence and a need for haste.
Reassured, Grace started for the car, curious to know why Magdalena had walked off with the shovel, down the same grassy alley where she and Mateo had hidden. Not wanting to give her any reason to leave without them, Grace climbed into the front seat of the small vehicle, tucking Mateo’s limbs around her so she could shut the door. She was painfully aware that she smelled of urine. At least the seats were vinyl.
Just who was her beautiful rescuer? The woman sounded American when she spoke, but she looked like a Venezuelan. What could she be doing with that shovel apart from burying that satchel?
In mere minutes, Magdalena reappeared with just the shovel this time. She carried it toward a mound of trash and lobbed it atop the pile before returning to the car. Grace swallowed hard as she got in.
Magdalena seemed surprised to find them both crammed into the passenger seat. She had to smell Grace’s damp shorts, but she didn’t say anything. Fastening her seat belt, she backed up and turned around, speeding them away again with the lights out.
Grace had thought the scary part of their journey was over. It didn’t take long to realize the streets were completely empty. “There’s a curfew?”
