WE SPENT THE NEXT HOUR TALKING in circles while we ate leftover pizza in Dustin’s room. We each had a different idea of what should happen next. Dustin, convinced Miguel was behind his accident and Reya’s car bombing, felt it was time to get some big government agency involved.
“Like the FBI, or the U.S. Marshals since this is related to Witness Protection,” he said.
I cringed, thinking of Bertram arriving in a nondescript car, asking, “On a scale of one to ten, how guilty do you think Miguel Rios is?”
Reya, mostly concerned about bringing Eli’s killer to justice, in spite of the attempt on her life, went smaller. “We need to get the flash drive. That’s our leverage. We should wait until night and sneak in my house.”
“We should think of a contingency plan. In case the flash drive is gone,” I said, already knowing it was.
That went on for a while, us saying the same things in different ways, never budging or offering improvements on anybody else’s idea. I liked it that way. Being unproductive gave me more time to think.
There had to be something that linked all the death and chaos and made sense of it. The why?
Money? Fear of imprisonment?
We were on our sixth my-idea-is-better-than-yours match when a thunderous door slam shook us all. “Dustin! Are you in here!?”
The mayor was home.
Dustin’s expression became a mix of fear and uncertainty. “Be cool, be cool,” he said, mostly to himself. He touched his cheeks and forehead like he was molding a mask of composure. He was putting on a brave face. Literally.
Reya whispered to me, “What do we do?”
Dustin answered, “Stay here, be quiet, and let me handle him. He likes to pop in, but never stays for long, not this early in the day. Be cool.”
I grabbed his arm as he was leaving. “Are you sure? We’ll come with. Strength in numbers.”
“No. Absolutely not. You’ll just make it worse.”
I let him go. It was his dad, he was better equipped. “You scream if anything goes down.”
He nodded, disappeared into the hall.
Reya stood in the center of the room, afraid to move, like one step in any direction might trigger another bomb. “Nick, we can’t stay here and do nothing.”
We could. That’s what Dustin told us to do, but I didn’t think it was smart. “We can’t trust the local cops,” I said, reluctantly admitting we were in over our heads, “but maybe the state police are an option.”
I crossed to Dustin’s desk, hesitated a moment as a memory of Carrey sitting in the chair came back to me. Pushing the thought aside, I sat, catching angry, unintelligible notes of Dustin and the mayor’s conversation.
Reya’s paralysis broke. She moved closer to the door. “It’s getting intense down there.”
Flipping up the screen on Dustin’s laptop, I saw a new email notification flash in the lower right-hand corner. A message from FuegoGirl@prworld.com with a subject line reading: IGNORE THIS . . .
I did. I opened the browser and searched for Virginia State Police. The website came up quickly. I clicked on it and was overwhelmed by the poor web design. Info, photos, and links bordered more stuff, like properties in a square around the Monopoly board. I could not find a phone number.
As I scanned, IGNORE THIS . . . popped in the corner three—four—more times. Dustin’s “conversation” with his dad grew in volume.
“Hurry, Nick,” Reya said, her phone drawn, ready to dial.
In the time she urged me along, two more messages from FuegoGirl appeared. In spite of the circumstances and the Virginia State Police’s frustrating website, my natural sarcasm broke through, and I thought, FireGirl should change her name to SPAMGirl.
I froze.
Fuego was one of the few Spanish words (besides profanity) that I knew. It meant fire. That was important. Not the word itself, but that it was Spanish. Why was it important? The notice flashed two more times. IGNORE THIS . . . , daring me to do the exact opposite.
I opened Dustin’s in-box.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of emails, all from FuegoGirl, all with the same taunting subject.
I opened one at random . . . nearly fell off the chair.
The message from the subject continued. IGNORE THIS SINCE YOU’RE SO GOOD AT IGNORING ME . . .
An embedded picture filled the rest of the window. A picture of a newborn boy in a snug blue knit cap and a mummy-tight blanket. There was no signature identifying FuegoGirl or a name for the child. Neither was necessary. I recognized Ricardo Elijah Rios instantly.
Dustin would, too.
They had the same eyes.