Desert Angel (15 page)

She finished cleaning the scrapes on her hands and knees, stuffed the torn cargo pants in the garbage, and set the bloodstained top in the tub to soak. The phone! She found it in the thrown-away cargo pants. The cover was cracked and the screen was dark. Maybe it had turned off when she fell. She pushed the red button and it stirred to life.

As she put on the clothes she’d arrived in, her old T-shirt and Carmen’s baggy green jeans, she immediately thought about Momo.
I look stupid.
Was that what … was that why she was acting so dumb? Man-hungry like her mom? She stood through another wave of fury. She didn’t want him, didn’t need him … She could feel tears welling again and that made her even madder. Hurting herself over a guy? An older guy who wasn’t interested? She stopped herself from hitting the mirror. Rita didn’t need more damage.

Okay, a promise. She’d swear. From now on she’d turn off her feelings. All the way off so she could take care of business. Shoot Scotty or shoot herself. That was going to happen. She’d make it happen. And nobody and nothing would get in her way. After that? Who cared?

The older man with the gray stubble beard had walked away from the house a few minutes earlier after getting a single picture of Angel through a back window. It had to be the girl his friend wanted, and one picture would be enough to confirm it. He’d been smoking so many years he didn’t give a thought to the butts he dropped wherever he went. His Suburban’s floor was full of them.

22

Rita came home and sent Jessie to her room to play. “Listen up,” she said to Angel, who was again looking at classifieds.

“Trailers are more expensive than I even thought,” Angel said, shutting the paper.

“How come you changed clothes?” Rita asked.

Angel couldn’t believe how observant the woman was. Must be the teaching thing. Her own mom had barely noticed her all these years. “Um…” She glanced around but couldn’t come up with an acceptable excuse. “I wrecked your things. I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

Rita just looked at her. “I got plenty of clothes,” she said. “How’d you wreck them?”

“I fell out of Momo’s truck.”

Rita looked away. “Fell…” she said.

Angel didn’t want to explain. It was too dumb, too embarrassing.

“I can’t have you and Momo staying here together,” Rita said. “I don’t have enough room.”

“You don’t have to worry about me and Momo.” Angel didn’t look up. “He thinks I’m a baby. Anyway, I got where I’m staying figured out,” Angel said. “I just need to borrow an extra school key for a few days.”

Rita looked at her closely. Thought a moment. “The attic? You take one of the extra keys?”

Angel nodded.

“You don’t think that puts the children in danger?”

Angel hadn’t thought about that. She could add
selfish
to
baby
. “Scotty won’t mess with the school.” She considered whether that was true. “Um, messing with kids and a school would bring everybody—cops, parents, everybody—down on his head. He’d never want that kind of … what do you call it?”

Rita wasn’t sure. “Exposure?”

Angel nodded, watching Rita think it over.

“Nope,” Rita concluded. “Can’t risk it. Please put the key back tomorrow.”

Angel’s anger flashed, but she kept silent. Maybe a part of her knew Rita was right. No. Rita
was
right. But if not the school, where? Angel pictured the blocks in Rita’s neighborhood. She didn’t want to be just anywhere. She wanted shelter, some kind of lookout so she could see Scotty coming. She remembered thinking about this before, like if she were up on the platform, how she’d have to watch car and foot traffic coming in from the highway, but she couldn’t stay up there in the sun on that edge for long. Too uncomfortable. And probably too visible in the daylight. Scotty or anybody could see her and wonder what she was doing. And Vincente was so mad at her, his truck was no longer an option.

“What about the blue house?” Rita asked, once again thinking along with Angel. “Right at the corner of this block. That old jeep in front of it, up on blocks.”

“I saw it,” Angel said.

“That was the Flores place.” Rita sat across from Angel, slipped off her work shoes, flexed her feet. “They moved a few months ago and they couldn’t sell it, so they just left it like the jeep. Probably still has some furniture. Unless people broke in the back, it’s in decent shape. Best thing? It’s right on the only street in from the highway. Day or night, you could see every car.”

Angel liked the idea immediately. “What if he hiked in?”

“He could always do that. Slink around. We all have to watch out for that. But if he set up and kept an eye on this house,” Rita said, gesturing with her eyes around her living room, “he’d see pretty soon that you weren’t here, and he wouldn’t know where you’d gone.”

“So you and the kids would be in danger.”

“True, but if you’re right, he’s taken his shot here. No gain in messing with me again. He’d have to kill me or kidnap me, and everybody would know within a day. Big-time trouble.”

But Angel didn’t hear the last part. She was looking out the front window, watching Norma walk down the sidewalk. “Just a sec,” she told Rita as she got up and went outside.

“Hi. What you doing?”

Norma smiled. “You know,” she said.

“Nope,” Angel said, shaking her head. “You going to the store? Getting some exercise?”

“I’m looking for him,” Norma said, in a loud whisper. “Bad bad.”

Uh-oh.
“You can’t do that.”

“Yeah. You said.”

Angel realized Rita was standing behind her, watching from the front door. She wouldn’t like this at all. “Okay,” Angel said, so softly she didn’t think Rita could hear. “But you got to promise me something.”

“Sure,” Norma said, beaming.

“You got to only do it a little while each day. You don’t miss school, you don’t miss dinner or anything at home.”

“Sure,” Norma said.

“And one more thing.”

Norma waited.

“It’s a secret, right? A true secret. You and me, we don’t tell. Nobody, right?”

“How come you don’t want teacher to know?” Norma said, peering at Rita over Angel’s shoulder.

“’Cause it’s a secret. I just told you. Right? Nobody?”

“Deal,” Norma said, bumping her elbow against Angel’s arm. Norma put her finger to her lips. “Nobody.” She glanced over at Rita. “Hi,” she said.

Rita came out to them. “What you two whispering about?” she asked Norma.

“Nothing,” Norma said.

“We were just talking about games,” Angel said. “Norma’s really good at games and she’s helping me.”

Rita raised her eyebrows. She didn’t buy it.

“Go on,” Angel said to Norma. She gave the girl a quick hug and propelled her on her way. “See you at school tomorrow.”

Norma kept walking but turned her head to look at Rita and Angel. “Bad bad,” she said, and pointed to her head.

“What does she mean?” Rita asked.

“Uh, I told her she’s cool, like bad, you know.”

Rita snorted, gave up trying to get the truth. “Let’s finish our conversation.”

They took either end of the couch. “Now you’re trying to try to find Scotty before he finds you,” Rita said, letting Angel off the hook. “Unlikely, but let’s say you and Momo luck out and run him down. Then what?”

Angel couldn’t tell her. She really liked Rita but she couldn’t trust her with this. Rita would try to stop her. “I tell the police, tell TJ or somebody where he is. Maybe by then they’ll have found Mom. And when they arrest Scotty they’ll keep him this time. Put him away. It’ll be over.” Angel raised her shoulders. “After that maybe I can stay somewhere around here.” Angel thought Rita might like that, thought that idea might derail her from asking again about what would happen if she found Scotty.

Rita reached out and took one of Angel’s hands in both of hers. “Look at me. I think I understand how alone you feel with this problem. And I understand how when other people get involved it gets worse for you.”

Rita stopped and chewed her lip.

Angel could see Rita had more to say, but she didn’t want to hear it. Rita was right. Other people made it much worse.

“I respect that,” Rita continued, “but lately you’ve started to lie to me all the time. All the time. I know you think you have to, but I’ve got my marriage and my kids on the line. I can’t have you lying to me. Makes the risk way too high. If you can’t tell me the truth … you have to leave.”

“I WANT TO LEAVE!” Angel was up and yelling. “You think I don’t want to take off? I could, too. And he’d never find me. I could walk to … way away and he’d never find me in a million years. You trapped me!”

Angel was scaring herself. She was out of control like the way she felt sometimes when her mom and Scotty would have those horrible fights. She needed to run. She wanted to run. She always ran. So why was she standing here? It wouldn’t do any good. And it wouldn’t do any good to cry. Nothing would do any good until Scotty got her or she got him. Now how do you tell that to someone you … to someone you … Angel sank back to the couch. Out of words. Out of energy.

Rita, having remained seated through the tirade, took a deep breath and finger-combed the tangles in her hair. “We can’t keep doing this,” she said. She didn’t move closer to Angel, didn’t reach out, but her face and her voice were kind. “We’re at one of the hardest places people ever get to when they care for each other. Either tell me the truth, or you can’t stay here any longer. Either trust me, or you have to leave and pray you can save yourself.”

Rita shifted position but held Angel’s eyes. “You’ve been taking care of yourself by yourself, pretty much since you were a little girl. You had to, and you made it work. But right now there’s another step to take. Let me in. Yeah, you could be hurt. You been hurt. Do it because … because I…” Rita looked like she wanted to say more, but she stopped, put her hands in her lap. Waited.

Angel’s hands and knee were burning. She should put some iodine—“I’ve got … I took—” Angel looked away from Rita. She couldn’t do it. The gun was her only chance. The only real solution. “I got to go” was all she could come up with. She was trying to read Rita’s face but she couldn’t. “I’ll stay close. I’ll come to school whenever I can, but I have to hide now, until I can get out of here.”

Angel scanned the living room. Was there anything she really needed to take besides the purse with the gun? “I’ll stay in one of these empty houses, the one with the jeep, like you said. You’re right about the attic. If Scotty gets me, I can’t have kids around. I’m figuring a way … I’ll deal with this.”

Angel stood, wanted to hug Rita but didn’t move forward, afraid she might cry. She hefted the purse and clasped it in front of her. “Thanks. Thanks for everything. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want…” She struggled, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

Rita stayed quiet, looking first at Angel’s eyes and then down to the purse. Rita’s boy came into the living room and asked about dinner. She held up five fingers and he went away. The stillness felt heavy to Angel, but she endured it, reluctant to walk away.

“Is it loaded?” Rita asked.

Though she hoped her face didn’t show it, Angel was stunned. How? How could Rita know? “What? What are you…” but she gave up. After an uncomfortable minute or so, Angel nodded.

“Is the safety on?” Rita asked.

Angel didn’t know. She took the gun out of the purse and looked at it. Wasn’t the safety what kept it from firing if you didn’t want it to? There was the lever that made the cylinder open. She didn’t see a safety catch.

“Do you know enough about the gun to operate it?” Rita asked.

“I fired one like it.”

“Once?”

Angel nodded.

“Keep your finger off the trigger,” Rita said.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the only safety. Don’t touch the trigger until the very end.”

23

The lock was corroded, the mechanism stiff, and Angel was afraid she might break the key Rita had given her. After several tries and some jiggling, it finally turned and the door creaked open. The Flores place was vacant but not empty and not ruined. Rita was right. From the dusty picture window in the front room you could see the whole main road into town all the way up to the StopShop. The two corner windows gave her a ninety-degree view of the intersection with Rita’s street and she could see the highway north of the store from the front bedroom. Scotty would have to leave his truck, sneak around the town’s borders, and come in from the seaside to surprise her.

She checked the back door, the back windows, and made a tour of each room to make sure everything was locked. Okay. He couldn’t sneak up on her unless she was asleep. Since she didn’t think he’d come right away, she had a couple of days to figure out how to handle dozing off. A couple of days to decide whether to really make a run for it.

The boats she’d seen on her walks along the shore were rotted and useless and the sea was way too wide to swim, so she couldn’t go east. Brawley, which was probably where he was staying, was miles south, so she couldn’t see how to make that work. North, even farther away, were a bunch of towns like Thousand Palms and Desert Hot Springs, but Scotty knew that area better than she did. Straight out front, west, she’d have the Anza-Borrego badlands. She couldn’t make it through that to San Diego. And if she hitched? Pretty risky. If Scotty saw her, she’d disappear forever.

So, first thing, she was here. Here. At least for the next couple of days. She could sleep on the couch, which must have been too big for the Flores family to take with them. She could eat lunch at the school, help a little with the kids, and stay out of Rita’s hair.

By sundown Angel was sprawled on the fuzzy sofa, watching the road, and munching on the tortillas and cheese Rita had sent with her. Her plastic liter bottle of water and the phone sat beside her on the floor. As a hideout this was good enough. Like she’d expected, cars were few and far between. She didn’t realize she was so tired.