Except for the brief time he’d glanced at Joann’s grip on her hand, he hadn’t once looked away from Milla’s face, and that was the most unnerving thing of all.
“I’m told you find people,” she said softly.
Behind her, Joann made an abrupt movement. “Milla—” she began sharply, and Milla knew she was going to say this wasn’t a good idea, maybe she should reconsider, and all the other sensible things that could be said. Diaz’s gaze didn’t waver, and Milla lifted her hand to forestall her friend’s objections.
“Sometimes,” Diaz said.
“The one-eyed man, at that meeting Friday night. I want to find him.”
“He’s nothing. He isn’t important.” There was a slight inflection to his speech, not in his tone but in the way he shaped his words, as if perhaps English wasn’t his first language. He spoke English perfectly and with a west Texas accent, but there was still something, beyond his name, that spoke of Mexico. If he’d been born in the United States, she’d find a hat and eat it.
“He’s important to me,” she said, and drew a breath. Success was once again singing its Lorelei song, beckoning to her. This man gave her a real shot at finding out what had happened to her son, and if she was dealing with the devil, then so be it. “Ten years ago, my six-week-old son was stolen from me. My ex-husband is a doctor; he and some of his colleagues had set up a free clinic in one of the poorer areas of Chihuahua and we lived there for a year. My baby was born there. I was at the market and two men jerked him away from me, but I fought back, and clawed out the left eye of the man who had my son. The other man stabbed me in the back, and they both escaped. I haven’t seen my baby since.”
Something was glimmering in his gaze, some minute change that signaled a sharpening of his attention. “So you’re the one.”
“The one?” she parroted.
“Who blinded that pig Pavón.”
Pavón. Oh, my God, that was his name. After ten years, she knew his name. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, her hands clenching into fists. Her heartbeat had been settling down a bit, but now it was thundering even harder in her chest, deafening her with the roar of blood through her veins. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to jump up and find him right now; she wanted to slam his head against a wall until he gave her the answers she wanted. But two of those things she couldn’t do, and one she refused to do, so instead she pressed her violently trembling fists against her eyes and fought for control.
“Do you know his first name?” she asked in a constricted voice.
“Arturo.”
Arturo Pavón. The letters branded themselves in her mind. Just as she had never forgotten his face, she would never forget his name, or this moment. For so long she had struggled and persisted with practically nothing to go on; now all of a sudden things were changing so fast she felt as if her world had tilted on its axis. Logically, she had known she would likely never find Justin. Emotionally, she had been unable to stop looking. Now, at last, the real possibility existed that she might at least be able to find out if he had lived. And if she could actually find him, find her little boy . . .
“Can you find him?” she asked, leaning forward as if by sheer force of will she could bend events to her wishes. “I want to talk to him. I want to find out what he did with my son—”
“Your baby was sold,” he said flatly. “Pavón wouldn’t know to who. He’s a pendejo, a gañan.”
Milla blinked. Gañan she understood: “thug.” But unless she was mistaken, Diaz had also called Pavón a pubic hair. Obviously she missed some of the nuances of idiomatic Mexican Spanish. “He’s a what?”
“He’s nothing. He’s a little man who follows orders.” Diaz shrugged. “He’s also a mean, worthless son of a bitch, but the bottom line is he doesn’t have any authority.”
“He’s still my only link, and I have to follow the chain to find my son.”
“You can follow the chain, but the odds are it won’t lead anywhere except back on itself. Smugglers don’t keep records. He’ll remember you, of course, and probably your baby, but all he’ll know is that the baby was taken across the border and sold. That’s it.”
She couldn’t accept that the trail led nowhere. Pavón wouldn’t have been in any shape to take Justin to the border himself; the most likely person to have done that was the second man, the one who stabbed her. Pavón would know that man’s name. And when she found that man, he would know another name. If she just kept digging, eventually she would find Justin.
“I still want to find him,” she said stubbornly. “You were watching him that night, you kept me from—”
“—getting yourself killed.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Probably. Not that protecting me was your intention, you just didn’t want them to know anyone was watching. But since you’re trailing him anyway, why can’t you—”
“I’m not tracking him in particular,” Diaz interrupted. “I’m following the snake back to its head.”
“But you know where he is.”
“No. I don’t.”
She felt like screaming in frustration. She wouldn’t accept a dead end now; she simply wouldn’t. “You can find him.”
“I can find anyone. Eventually.”
“Because you don’t give up. I can’t give up, either. If it’s a matter of money, of course I’ll pay you.” She couldn’t in good conscience let Finders foot the bill, but she would give him every penny she had in savings, and beg more from David if she had to. Not that there would be any begging to it; David would do anything to help her find Justin.