Ricky jumped up. “No. No! They’ll kill me. They said they would kill me. And no one will believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Please don’t make me go.”
“Ricky, I’m not going to make you do anything.”
Ricky didn’t believe him. He was a kid, Mr. Young was an adult. His bottom lip quivered, but he would not cry.
“It has to be your choice to leave. You feel safe here, and Javi has protected you.”
“Javi’s my family now.”
Ricky thought he saw tears in Mr. Young’s eyes, but Mr. Young was too big and tough to cry.
“He’s a good man. He’s not going to get in trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about. He did what he thought was right to protect a little boy who was in danger. I’m not going to make you leave here, even though I think it’s the right thing to do. But I need you to look at some pictures and tell us which policeman you saw at your house that day. It’s important. The FBI needs to know, so they can get evidence against him and put him in jail.”
“No one will believe me.”
“I believe you, and Agent Dunning will believe you. Then he will go back and arrest him.”
“I’m not stupid, Mr. Young. I know they can’t just arrest him because of what I say. He’ll say I heard wrong or I made it up and I don’t have any proof of anything. I was hiding in a closet.”
“The FBI is already building a case against the people who killed your family. They are working hard to find the truth and put the killers behind bars. They want you to feel safe again.”
“I am safe. I’m safe here.”
“Okay.”
Ricky frowned. He didn’t know what to do. “All I have to do is talk to him, right?”
“Ricky, if you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to talk. I know what you’re going through. I’ve lost people I care about. You know I was in the Army, right?”
He nodded.
“I lost friends. Good men I loved like brothers. You’ll never be the same. I wasn’t. But we go on because that’s what our fallen brothers and sisters would want us to do. To go on. To get up. To do good. To stand tall. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You have done nothing wrong. You don’t have to tell Agent Dunning anything you don’t want to. But we need you to look at some pictures and tell us who was in your house that day. And it would help if you could tell him what happened.”
“You promise I don’t have to leave if I don’t want to?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Ricky followed Mr. Young back to the house. It wasn’t a large house, but it was nice. Javi’s grandfather had built it out of stone, bricks, and wood. There was one room with the kitchen and living area and two small bedrooms off that. The bathroom had been added on when Javi was a little boy, he said, which was why it was on the opposite side of the house from the bedrooms. Later, Javi had enclosed the porch. His garage was bigger than the house because that’s where he worked and he sometimes had four cars in there.
Mostly, it was quiet. No traffic, no people, no television. Javi had a radio that got two stations. One with news, one with music, all in Spanish.
Javi was sitting at the table with the FBI agent. Ricky looked at him, suspicious. He remained seated, drinking a bottle of water.
Mr. Young said, “Ricky doesn’t want to leave, but he will look at the pictures.”
“I’m Agent Nate Dunning,” the FBI agent said. “You can call me Nate, okay? Thank you for helping us.”
Ricky sat down and nodded. He kept his head up when all he really wanted to do was go to his room.
Nate had pictures of six men. He placed each in front of Ricky in a row. But Ricky knew who was in his house before he finished. He pointed. “Him.”
“You saw him in your house, the night your parents disappeared.”
And even though Ricky didn’t want to talk, he started talking. He couldn’t help himself. “He had keys. My dad’s keys, they had an Astros key ring. He came in and I hid. He wasn’t wearing a uniform or anything, but he said to the taller man with the voice that it was true about what happened to police in prison, just like the movies, and he wasn’t going to go to prison, so they had to find the deed. Then they went to my mom’s office and started going through all her stuff. He found it.”
“The deed.”
“That’s what he called it.”
“What about the tall man’s voice sounded different? You called him the ‘man with the voice,’ that sounds like an odd description.”
“I—I thought he sounded familiar. I didn’t really get a good look at him because I ran to hide, but his voice sounded like I heard him before. My mom would sometimes have her clients over to the house.”
“You think he was a client of your mom.”
“I don’t know. Can I go to my room? Please?”
He looked at Javi. Javi nodded.
Relieved, Ricky ran to his room. He sat on his bed and stared at his row of books. Most of the books he read Javi traded for others, but he let him keep his favorites. They gave him an odd sense of comfort. He had never really liked reading when he was at home. But now the books were his friends.
A knock on his door made him jump. Javi came in.
“Are you in trouble?” Ricky asked. “Mr. Young said you weren’t, but he could be lying.”
“JJ doesn’t lie.” Javi sat down at Ricky’s small desk. “I think you should go with JJ.”
Tears burned in Ricky’s eyes. “I don’t want to.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“He did lie. He said I didn’t have to leave.”
“You don’t have to. I won’t force you to leave. I love you, son.” His voice cracked and he looked like he was going to cry, too. “You have people—family—in the US.”
“You’re my family. I love you. This is my home. I’ll be good. I won’t get in trouble. I’ll help more with the cars and the garden.”
“Oh, son, you are a good boy. You have never been trouble for me. Not one day. You have never once complained and I know living here is much different than there. Simpler. Maybe boring for a young man.”
“I like simple.”
“Me too, Ricky.” Javi looked him in the eye. He always did, as if he were the most important thing in the world, and that meant everything to Ricky. “You are sad. You will never learn to be at peace with what happened to your family if you don’t go back and face your fears. Face the people who did this. JJ will protect you. The FBI agent, Nate Dunning, he will protect you. You can trust him.”
“How do you know? You just met him.”
“Because sometimes you know what is right and who you can trust. It’s a little faith and a lot of experience. JJ would never have brought him here if he didn’t trust him.”
“I want to stay here.”
“If you want to come back, after you give your grandparents a real chance to love you and care for you, you know how to reach me.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You will do the right thing because you are a good soul. Sometimes, we have to do what is right even if it’s not what we want. Even when it’s hard.”