They were exhausted when they reached El Paso. It was after midnight, and they’d had an early start that morning and been on the go for over eighteen hours. She had taken over the driving at Carlsbad, so she dropped Rip off at his hotel and drove home, taking extra care because she was so tired.
When she opened her garage door and drove inside, she almost didn’t notice the pickup truck parked in the other bay of the double garage. Slowly she slid out of her seat, staring at it. The bastard had his nerve, after what he’d done. She hadn’t wanted to have this scene now, while she was almost punch-drunk with fatigue, but she wanted him out of her house and out of her life.
She let herself in through the garage and went into the kitchen, dropping her purse and the file on the table. A light was on in the living room, and then he was there, leaning against the door frame and watching her.
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. A tremor ran through her every muscle and she leaned against the table.
“Susanna rolled,” he finally said. “She’s been arrested. True, too. Just a few hours ago.”
“Good,” she said briefly, noting that there wasn’t a word of explanation about where he’d been, why he’d left in the middle of the night, or any questions about what she’d been doing for the past two days. Finally she looked at him, her fury and hatred clear in her eyes. “Get out.”
He straightened from the door frame. His expression had been faintly quizzical, but now it shut down, in an instant as blank and remote as she’d ever seen it.
“You didn’t check closely enough,” she said. “There was a security camera. Caught you in the act.”
He was silent for a moment, watching her, letting the time tick by. Then he said softly, “It was the best thing to do. It’s time to let him go. It’s been ten years. He isn’t your kid now, Milla, he’s someone else’s. It would have wrecked his life if you’d shown up.”
“Don’t talk to me!” she said fiercely. He didn’t understand; he had no idea about her or how she felt. “You . . . had . . . no . . . right! He’s my child, you bastard!” She screamed it at him, then caught herself and knotted her hands into fists.
“Not now, he isn’t.” He stood there like judge and jury combined, untouched by human emotion, and she wanted to kill him.
Tears began running down her face, tears of rage and hurt and from the superhuman effort it took to keep from attacking him. “It didn’t work. She had copies.” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I’ve got all the information I need now to find him, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now get out of my house. I never want to see you again.”
Because he was Diaz, he didn’t stand there arguing his side. He didn’t even shrug, as if to say, If that’s what you want. He simply walked past her and left. She heard the garage door open; then his truck started, and he was gone. Just like that.
She sat down at the table, laid her head on her crossed arms, and sobbed like a child.
25
He looked like David.
Milla kept the field glasses trained on him as he darted around the fenced schoolyard with an excess of energy that seemed to be shared by most of the boys his age. He seemed to have three or four particular buddies, and they shoved one another, laughed uproariously at one another’s jokes, and generally postured and strutted all the while they pretended they were cool. Maybe, to other ten-year-olds, they were cool.
Her heart was right in her throat, pounding so hard she could barely breathe. Her eyes kept stinging with tears and she kept blinking them back, because she couldn’t bear to miss a single second of watching him. She picked up the expensive camera from the seat beside her, and focused the zoom lens on him, then snapped several shots in rapid succession.
She had parked far enough away from the private school that no one would notice her. She didn’t want to alarm anyone, least of all Justin. But she’d had to see him, had to watch him just a little longer to feed these memories into her starving heart. This morning she had parked down the street from the Winborns’ house and noted what he wore when he skipped and hopped down the steps to meet the bus that took him to school. Rhonda Winborn had stood at the front door and watched until he was safely on the bus, and he’d given her a cursory wave. He’d been wearing the khaki pants and blue shirt that was the school uniform, and a bright red windbreaker. The windbreaker, which he wore now as protection against the chill breeze, helped her pick him out from the other boys.
She had sobbed aloud this morning when she’d watched him get on the bus, watched him wave to another woman. Everything about him was so familiar, from the color of his hair to the shape of his head, even the way he walked. His face was still a child’s face, but it was taking on the stronger lines of approaching adolescence even now. His hair was blond, his eyes were blue, and his grin was pure David.
Milla was so shaken and ecstatic that she wanted to get out of the rental car and throw her head back on the loudest, longest yell she could muster. She wanted to run up to the fence and scream his name, though of course everyone would think she was crazy and the school authorities would immediately call the cops. She wanted to dance, she wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. There were so many emotions storming inside her that she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to stop strangers and point to him and say, “That’s my son!”
She’d never been able to do that, claim him in public, and she couldn’t do it now. Protecting him was the most important thing in the world to her, and she wouldn’t mess this up by scaring him, by breaking the news to him in the worst possible way.