-
Tuesday, May 31
En route to Pecos, Texas
Alice Amanda Aaron, J.D. lived in a small stucco house a couple of miles east of downtown Pecos. The bare lot was dotted with a few succulents and the rest was covered by landscaping rocks of various sizes and shapes.
Xeriscaping, they called it. The point was to eliminate the need for irrigation.
Kim was sure her mother would be horrified by the xeriscaping style. Kim felt more comfortable around the lush green gardens of her childhood.
She imagined Alice had found the dry brown land unfamiliar. Alice was born and raised in New York. She went to law school at Harvard in Boston. Lawns and flowering annuals planted in the spring must have been baked into her DNA, too.
But Alice had been in Pecos more than ten years now. Whatever she thought about the land, she’d chosen to make her life here. Like everything else that felt strange at first, Alice probably got used to it after a while.
The house was a rectangular box, maybe twenty feet by forty feet. One end was a two-car garage.
The house was painted the color of sand and blended into the xeriscaping seamlessly.
The front door was closed, but there were lights on inside, which suggested Alice was home and awake.
Flint parked the SUV in the circular gravel drive near the front door and turned off the engine. Kim removed the alligator clamp, unlatched her seatbelt, and allowed it to retract. She slipped the clamp into her pocket and opened the door.
She slid out of the cool interior of the SUV’s cabin into the sunbaked heat. Instantly, Kim began to perspire. Almost as quickly, the perspiration evaporated.
They walked abreast to the recessed front door, which had been painted a dull turquois sometime in the distant past. The paint was faded now, unable to withstand the constant sun and heat.
No need for an overhang across the door.
Kim had read that Pecos was blessed with an average of thirteen inches of annual precipitation. From the looks of things, there hadn’t been rain or snow around here in a very long time.
But a shield over the door from the unrelenting sun would have been welcome.
Kim pressed the bell. She heard the tinny sound peal from a small box mounted on the inside wall. Which was probably all the notice of visitors or deliveries Alice ever needed. The house wasn’t large enough to require a more elaborate system.
After much too long, Kim heard the deadbolt slide back. Cool air rushed out to meet them when Alice Aaron opened the door.
She was tall and thin and dressed in white pleated trousers paired with a white tank top tucked into the waistband. No makeup. No jewelry. Her dark hair was cut short.
Her skin was brown and weathered, as if she’d spent way too many hours in the hot Texas sun. She looked forty-five, but she was ten years younger according to Cooper’s file.
The total effect was casually elegant and mature without Alice having given her appearance an ounce of thought, probably. She didn’t seem like the type to obsess over superficial things.
“I’m Michael Flint. This is Kim Otto. May we come in?”
“You’re late. I expected you earlier.” Alice stood aside to allow them to walk into the gloriously air-conditioned house. She closed the door and threw the deadbolt behind them.
“Yeah, sorry,” Flint said.
The layout of Alice’s home was similar to the safe house in Dallas. Maybe they called it a Texas ranch style. The garage was on Kim’s right and the bedrooms were on the left. The center of the house was an open floor plan decorated in a minimalist Southwestern style.
The interior palette was the same as the exterior. Sand and turquoise with a few yellow and red accents. The wood was stained dark, but there was precious little of it.
The walls and cabinets in the kitchen were painted the same sand color as the exterior of the house. The countertops were turquoise laminate. Even the appliances were turquoise. The floors were terra cotta tile.
If Alice meant to leave her east coast sensibilities behind, she’d made a good start with the decor.
Kim heard the faint noise of a television playing in one of the bedrooms. Otherwise, the house seemed quiet.
Alice noticed Kim’s visual scan of the room. “Yeah, it’s a little much, isn’t it? This was the builder’s model. His decorator went a little crazy with the Southwestern charm. I bought it completely furnished. I keep thinking I’ll change it someday, but I’ve been here seven years, so…”
Her voice trailed off and she shrugged, leading them into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” she asked, nodding toward a carafe that was almost empty. “I can make a fresh pot, if you like.”
“Just a bottle of water, if you have it,” Kim said through her parched throat, pointing toward the water bottle in Alice’s hand.
“In the fridge there,” Alice nodded toward the appliance.
“Grab one for me, would you?” Flint asked.
Kim opened the fridge, which was full of bottled water and condiments. Whatever else she was, Alice Aaron was no gourmand, for sure. Kim collected two cold plastic bottles and handed one to Flint.
“Thanks for coming to the house instead of the office,” Alice said to Flint. “I just got back in town, and it’s been one crisis after another. I thought we’d have a bit of privacy here, but no luck.”
“What do you mean?” Kim asked, craning her head around to look.
“Somebody else here?” Flint asked.
“Yeah. A client. It’s an evolving situation, so we may have to cut this short,” Alice said. “She was arrested last night. I managed to get her a hardship release from jail, but then she didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Arrested for what?” Kim asked.
“Existing on the wrong side of the line. I’m an immigration lawyer. I do pro bono work for migrants who have entered the country illegally,” Alice replied, offering a steady stare. She would brook no disparagement of her work or her clients.
“Sounds like tough duty,” Flint said. “The individual situations can be tragic, but Texas has a tough policy on illegal immigration for a lot of good reasons.”
“The work is definitely not easy.” Alice nodded. “I don’t handle the criminal cases or the drug runners or any of that. We have plenty of those in the country already. We don’t need any more. If we manage to catch them and kick them back, so much the better.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” Flint replied.
“The migrants I represent are just normal people looking for a better life. They believe they can find it here,” Alice continued. “But most of the time, that’s just a lie someone used to steal everything they own.”
“So what can you actually do for the ones who qualify for your help?” Kim asked.
“Not much. Sometimes, I can get them asylum. In some circumstances, they can get temporary visas while we work toward something more permanent.” Alice shrugged, swiping a weary palm across her forehead. “But usually, it’s a matter of making sure they get back across and returned safely to their homes south of the border. Many don’t even have homes to go back to, so they’ll have to start over once they return to their own countries.”
“Are they Mexicans?” Flint asked.
“About half,” Alice nodded wearily. “Some come from farther south. There’s a sizable group from other continents, too.”
“How’d you get started in this work, anyway?” Kim asked. “You have a law degree from Harvard. You could have any number of great jobs.”
“Yeah, and they’d pay better and be way less heartbreaking,” Alice replied with a smile. “Are you sure my parents didn’t send you here?”
Kim smiled, too, and shook her head. “No, but I have similar parents myself. My law degree’s from Georgetown. Divorced. No kids. Mom tells me every day that I could settle down and have a great life.”
“I hear ya, sister,” Alice raised her water bottle and they touched plastic. When she’d swallowed a healthy swig, she said, “Actually, I came here on a five-year plan. Young, starry-eyed, you know? Trying to give back and all that. I had a girlfriend at the time. We were supposed to get married in year six, move to New York, represent hedge fund managers and make millions.”
“So what happened to the plan?” Flint asked.
“We broke up before year five and I just never left Pecos.”
Flint laughed and Kim chuckled.
Alice said, “How about you, Flint? Should we start a support group? Are you a colossal disappointment to your parents as well?”
He shrugged and drained his water bottle. “Dunno. I grew up in an orphanage. Never met my parents. I’m sure they’d be just as embarrassed by my choices as yours are. How much time do we have before you need to leave?”