56

Nobody saw him, Axel’s sure of it. No one made an outcry. No vehicle came after him on the estate road.

It’s over, and he’s glad of it. Glad he didn’t encounter anybody in the house. So very glad he didn’t have to frighten Billy’s girls, his wife.

It is truly over. He bears him no malice anymore. No … enmity. He thinks of Quino and smiles.

The ferocity of local thunderstorms is often short-lived, and when he reaches the eastern outskirts of Matamoros the thunder and lightning have dwindled to a few last muted rumbles and glimmers, though the wind yet sporadically gusts and the rain is still steadily falling.

He hasn’t been able to get Billy’s dead daughter out of his mind. He has two others, yes, and the pictures on the wall tell of his love for them and theirs for him. But thoughts of the dead one bring up an old question … what if something were to happen to Jessica Juliet? Something can happen to anybody anytime. If she got killed in a car crash tomorrow, what could he tell himself except he’d been a goddamned fool to wait for a better time to try to see her.

The river’s right there. And the Gulf just a little ways back. That’s where she lives. She’s not thirty miles from you right this second. At this hour she’s probably home. With this rain, be easy to slip up to the house unseen, unheard, sneak a look at her somehow, slip away again. One look, that’s all, and you’ll have it the rest of your life. This could be your best chance ever. And if she’s not there, she’s not there, and what the hell, you tried, and you can still try again another time. Nothing to lose.

He turns north into the heavy traffic on Avenida Cinco de Mayo and it takes him to the river and he crosses the Veterans Bridge into Brownsville—the first time he’s been back in his hometown since Charlie’s high school graduation day.

What the hell’s this? Billy wonders when Axel makes the turn onto Cinco de Mayo. Then follows him at a distance and over the bridge, staying several cars behind him. Then they’re on the interstate for a mile or two before Axel exits onto the Boca Chica road. Billy stays more than a quarter-mile behind him, thinking he might be going to Port Isabel or Padre Island. But Axel passes the junction to those places just before an old Volkswagen microbus turns off of it, and Billy slows to let it meld in ahead of him. The road now leads nowhere but the beach. It’s the only way there, the only way back.

Why would he be going to Boca Chica? No matter. Press on and see how it plays. Might never get a better chance at him.

The microbus’s interior lights are on and he sees four people in it, kids, one couple in the front seat, another in the back. All of them gesticulating, seeming to be talking at once. Going to the beach on a rainy night. Have a few beers, share a joint, get it on.

He envies them their youth.