Buried (Hiding From Love #3) (9 page)

Amanda’s mother was heard screaming as she exited the house, running toward her daughter amidst a final round of gunfire from both sides. Then the Escalade peeled off, heavily tinted windows preventing bystanders from seeing who was inside, and a blacked-out license plate further hampering any possibility of identifying the shooters.

I’ve read the account so many times that I now know what types of guns were used, all the places in the yard and house where the bullets were recovered, and the names of the BBz who were involved. I also know how many bullets tore through that girl’s tiny body and the hysterical words her mother screamed when police and paramedics found her clutching her baby four and a half minutes later.

But knowing all of this tells me nothing. Nothing more about whether Juan was there, whether he fired a gun, whether he killed a child. All knowing the details of that horrible, tragic day does is make me feel like giving him the benefit of the doubt might make me somehow complicit in the cycle. The cycle of violence and abuse and denial. I don’t want to be part of that cycle. I don’t want Juan to be part of that cycle. I just want it to all go away so I can have that beautiful boy back. I want to be the sixteen-year-old Beth who loved the seventeen-year-old Juan. Both of us so innocent, so idealistic, so untried.

But the world doesn’t stop because I want it to. Time doesn’t stop because people get hurt or make mistakes or die.

While I don’t find answers to my questions about Juan’s participation in that day, there are reams of information on Juan and his time with the RH. I read it all voraciously, desperate to understand his choices, his actions, him. His arrest record goes back to when he was eighteen and convicted of possession for the first time—an amount so small that the conviction was only for a misdemeanor. I find the investigating detective’s report on Juan’s relationship with the head of the Austin RH. The notes indicate that Juan was a member of the boss’s inner circle. He was made a captain at the age of nineteen and put in charge of his own team of mules, runners, and dealers.

I feel my stomach flip when I read the details. How could Juan be this person the reports talk about? I can’t picture him as a drug lord, sitting in some sleazy room somewhere, counting out cash and distributing heroin and meth to teenagers who then go out and spread the poison to other children and junkies.

The disparities between the Juan I knew growing up and the Juan in those reports are more than my mind can process. Juan was scared when his mom got deported, yes. He was lonely and worried during those days he stayed with my family, but how could he have been so desperate he’d turn to complete strangers? Strangers who a kid as smart as Juan had to have known would get him involved with very dangerous things? As much as Juan has tried to explain it away, I know it makes no sense. I know that what my family so easily accepted seven years ago isn’t the truth—or at least not all of it. I need a new way to get to the truth. I need fresh eyes, a creative approach to the puzzle, and I know exactly who can give it to me.

Uncle Max isn't really my uncle, but he's known me and my brothers and sisters since we were born. My dad's best friend from Mexico, Max came to the US just a few years after my dad and managed to get a law degree while he went through the process for citizenship. It was Max my family turned to when Juan's mother was deported. It would have been Max who braved the INS to try to stop Juan's deportation if Juan had let him.

I walk into Uncle Max's offices late in the day, hoping to catch him after he's done most of his work. His secretary, Isabella, looks up from her desk and smiles indulgently. "Well, look who wandered in off the street. How are you,
mija
?"

I lean over and give Isabella a kiss on the cheek. "I'm good. How are you?"

"I can't complain, but don't tell Max that. I like him to think I'm always slightly unhappy so he'll do things like give me longer lunches or pay for my health club membership.” She winks, and I laugh.

"Speaking of, is he around?"

"Sure. Just go on back. And I'm heading out in fifteen minutes, so I'll see you soon?"

"You got it, Isabella."

I walk down the carpeted hallway past the offices of Max's two partners and reach his corner suite, where the door is ajar. I knock twice.

"Uncle Max?" I poke my head in to find Max in his shirtsleeves, leaning over a conference table with stacks of papers and open books spread all over. "Uh oh. Looks like you're busy." I can't keep the disappointment out of my voice.

"What?" Max looks up as though he's been in a different world. "No, no. Come in,
mija
." He walks over and grabs me in a big bear hug. "I'm so glad to see you. Your timing is perfect. I've been looking through the documents in this case for hours. I can't do it another minute. Come in. Sit down. What brings you by?"

I sit in one of the big armchairs facing the desk while Max goes to the bar fridge in the corner of the room and takes out two bottles of water. He hands one to me before sitting in the other armchair.

I place my hands in my lap, take a deep breath, and jump in, telling Max everything I know about Juan, his last seven years, and the conviction. When I’m done, Max sits quietly, nodding for a moment.

"So what we all assumed about why he ran to the RH—that he was scared of getting deported—you don't believe it anymore?"

I look at Max, his astute gaze boring into me. And I realize he never believed it.

"You don't either."

He shakes his head, seemingly deep in thought for a moment. "I've never had any real proof. It was a hunch based on something his
madre
said to yours years ago."

"Maria? What did she say?"

"She told your mom that she could never go back to Mexico because of Juan's father. She said he was a dangerous man and she'd taken Juan and run from him when Juan was a baby."

"So he was probably abusing her." I gnaw on my lip for bit. "You think she told him his dad was dangerous and that's why he was desperate not to go back?"

"It certainly makes sense," Max replies.

I stand and pace up and down the length of the office. "So she was scared he'd find them and hurt her or Juan. And I can understand that when Juan was a child, but by the time she got deported, he was seventeen. I mean, doesn't it seem a little excessive to be that worried about your grown son and the father he wouldn't even remember? And obviously the guy hasn't found her, because Juan told me she's near Monterrey and fine."

Max shifts in his seat. "I agree. It seems excessive, but it's like she'd put the fear of God in Juan. He was really damn desperate to stay out of Mexico, no?"

Something in my gut kicks up a notch. Desperate is definitely the word for it. Juan's desperation was apparent in his decision to join the RH, and it’s apparent now in his refusal to accept any help or consider the possibility of another way out of his situation. Could an abusive father he's never known really make him this desperate?

"This is a clue, Max," I say definitively, coming to a stop in front of his chair. "But it's not the final answer. We need to find the answer. I can't just let him disappear again."

Max sighs as he leans forward and places his elbows on his knees. He looks tired and every one of his fifty-something years, but he’s nothing if not loyal to his best friend's family. He's never had a wife or children of his own, just his law practice and the annoyingly loyal Isabella. He's always had an extra-soft spot for me, something I’m afraid I know and use to my advantage.

"All right,
mija
. You know I can't deny you much of anything." He runs his hands through his hair before standing. He walks over to the large conference table and starts stacking papers up, slowly clearing half the surface. "Bring all those documents here and we'll sift through them, see what we can figure out. You're going to be spending a lot of nights and weekends here for a while. Hope you like whatever Isabella orders to eat. The woman tortures me with crap from that vegan place down the block whenever she gets the chance."

I laugh and wrap my arms around Max's ample middle. "Thank you,
2
Tio
," I say softly. "This means a lot to me."

"Eh. Thank me after we've actually figured something out. I have a feeling it's not going to be that easy."

1
Hermanita = little sister

2
Tio = uncle

A
FTE
r my meeting with David, Beth doesn’t come back, and I realize just how much I wish she would. It’s wrong, selfish, destructive, but God, how I wish she would. I'm lonely in a different way than I have been in years. In the RH, I had people to talk to, spend time with, distract me. In prison, I had my life to protect constantly, and that leaves very little energy to be lonely. Now, I have time in a safe place, and I have a vision—a vision of Beth and David and the life I once thought I'd lead. It makes me miss people and things that I haven't in years. It makes me so lonely that I physically ache inside.

Then, out of nowhere, on a sunny Friday afternoon, as I’m walking around the corner of the yard, bringing some fertilizer to put on the rosebushes, there she is.

Her hair is loose, a few little pieces blowing gently around her face. I see her reach up and pull a strand away from her lips where it’s stuck in her lip gloss. She’s wearing a pair of cut-offs and a lacy, white top with ruffles and tiny straps. It ends a good couple of inches above the waistband of her shorts and I can see her smooth, tan skin there, beckoning me like a sweet piece of caramel. The urge to lick that little strip of flesh is so strong that I have to stop walking for a moment and take a deep breath.

When I look up, she’s watching me, the expression on her face so serene and beatific that I momentarily think I must be looking at an angel.

“You came back,” I say softly as I step closer to her.

“I told you I wasn't going to let this go," she tells me matter-of-factly.

"I thought, once David explained everything, you'd get some better sense." My words are harsh, but my tone is tender, because I realize that, even if I was furious with this woman, I could never speak harshly to her. She will always be that gorgeous little girl in the floral sundress I need to protect above all else.

"I have plenty of sense." A tiny smile turns up the corners of her lips. "What I don't have enough of is men I care about and want to keep in my life."

"Ah,
linda
." I sigh. "You're killing me here. You know that, right?" I move a bit closer to her now, almost near enough to touch.

"Then stop fighting it," she whispers.

I take the last step, leaving only an inch between us, head to toe. I can see the shine on her sweet cherry lips and smell the cinnamon in her hair. "It'll never work. I'll never be free, and I won't bury you with me."

She gazes up at me, and there's so much trust in her eyes, so much faith and pure devotion, that it literally steals my breath away. For a moment in time, everything stops. The birds in the trees, the cars rolling by on the street, the sun beating down on my skin—all of it just stops as if someone hit the pause button. I look into her eyes, and I can't fight it any more than I can fight the gravitational pull that keeps my feet on the ground.

My head tilts incrementally to one side and lowers bit by excruciating bit until her breath feathers across my face and my lips meet hers. I press against their softness, hearing the tiny gasp that she makes. The lip gloss is slick, and I can't help but think of all the other places on both her body and mine that I'd like to make slick. I feel my breathing ratchet up a few dozen notches as my mind goes to static. I haven't kissed a woman since the night before I went behind bars, and my engine is revving at full throttle.