“I don't know about your friend,” Salvador Torres insisted. He stepped forward, filling the now open doorway and blocking her view inside.
His voice was firm, but he wasn’t impolite about it. Which was surprising—and telling—given that she’d just opened the door and almost walked in after he’d blatantly refused to answer her knock.
Joule was done with bullshit. She shouldn't have been so bold, but she had nothing left if not boldness. “Yes, you do. You know something.”
He looked at her a little askance. “I heard you were out in the desert looking for her.”
“You heard about me? Being out in the desert looking for Sarah?” Joule crossed her arms and cocked one hip out, her eyebrows following suit, as she questioned why he knew anything about her at all.
He pressed his lips together, giving nothing more.
She didn’t have time to waste on his self-preserving silences. “So, you, or someone you know, was headed out toward the desert and saw my car?”
He only blinked. She read it as a yes.
“Were you following us?”
“No.” This time his answer was clear and crisp. The other one had been a yes.
“If you weren’t following me, then you were headed out to the desert anyway on your own,” she pushed, testing him. His lips pressed together. “You were going to the same spot, but we happened to already be there.”
When he didn’t say anything, she tried to hold back, but it boiled out of her. He was leaning on the doorjamb and blocking her way inside but looking so casual. She hated him for it. Her emotions were running wild, and she was losing the tether.
“Your interference got Sarah kidnapped or killed! And trying to find Sarah got my brother and Sarah's mother also taken!”
“What?” Salvador asked. He stood up straight at the idea of it.
Almost before she could react, he reached out, grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside, slamming the door shut behind her.
Joule should have been faster. This wasn't a good position to be in. She was on his territory, and he hadn’t proved himself useful yet. He was likely even dangerous. But she was in, and unless she wanted to scrap the whole thing and turn and at least try to flee, she should see it through.
It would have been better had she told anyone where she was going.
She hadn’t turned off her tracking app though. Maybe that would save her. Maybe it would get her killed. She didn’t know.
Deciding to stay and look as confident about the decision as she could muster, Joule looked around the apartment. The easy conclusion was that it had been decorated by Salvador’s grandfather, or maybe his grandmother. What looked like hand-tatted doilies sat in a neat row, one on each of the back headrests of the couch. Another was draped over each of the arms.
A recliner sat at the edge of the room, just under the front window, a throw blanket disguising what she could see from a few edges was worn and tattered fabric.
“You're missing two more?” He seemed genuinely surprised and concerned.
Joule felt the last of her worry disappear. It was probably a shitty decision, but she didn't feel afraid of him. She was likely playing this poorly, but she suddenly felt that—whatever he was—he wasn't the problem.
“What do you mean my interference got Sarah killed?” He was pushing her this time. And this time she held her tongue until he talked again. “You're right. We saw your cars. We were headed out Monday night. But when we saw you, we didn’t even get out of the cars, just turned around and called it off.”
She still didn’t say anything, hoping for more.
He gave only a little. “Because of you, we didn’t get water into the desert.”
“You and Gretchen Mueller?”
He tried to hide it, but his head snapped back just a little at the mention of the other name.
Click, Click, Click. Little puzzle pieces snapping together.
“You know,” she tried to play casual like he had, “Mueller’s on the DEA’s radar.”
“Of course, she is, they've arrested her several times.”
“But not you . . .”
He crossed his arms again, huffed out an irritated breath, and looked off to the side. The white tank top, maybe even the same one he'd been wearing the other day, straight black jeans and bare feet telling her he hadn't intended to go anywhere. At least not right away. “Gretchen takes the fall. She's in her fifties. She's white. She's blond, blue eyes. German ancestry. She figured she'd be the last one of us who would actually get blamed.”
“What else do you do?” Joule asked, curious if it lined up to what she'd been told.
“Food, water, clothing, occasionally directions . . . medicine.” He shrugged. “We try to interact as little as possible. Just get them somewhere safely and alive. It's a hard road.”
Joule felt her eyes narrow, there was something in the way he said the last part. “You know the road?”
He caught on. Meaning she wanted to know if he had traveled it himself.
“My parents and my older brother did. I was born just after my family got here.”
Something in his eyes told Joule to wait him out.
“My brother didn't make it. He was six. He got all the way into the U.S., partway through the desert.” Salvador waved his hand toward the back of the apartment, as if motioning into open land behind him. “He got a fever—something he caught along the way. My parents carried him and tried to help, but they had no real medication, nothing like that.”
This time the lull in the conversation had him turning and looking at Joule, really looking at her to see if she understood. His arms uncrossed, straightening down his sides, fingers curling almost into fists. Not quite in anger, if she was reading it correctly.
“You can't tell anyone what I just told you.”
“I don't want to tell anyone anything,” Joule admitted. “I just want my brother back. I need Sarah and Aurora Walker back, too.”
“What happened to your brother and Sarah's mom?” Salvador asked. This time he seemed to really want to know. He motioned her into a seat on the blanketed recliner. And she took it.
Joule needed to ask more about what they were doing out there and when and what they might have seen. He had to know or at least have an idea what was happening beyond the migrants.
So, she told him what had happened to Cage and Aurora. About the trail the group followed trying to find them.
Salvador nodded slowly. This wasn’t news to him. Which was news to her.
He swallowed and said, “Yeah, about that . . .”