My stomach churned with images as Leighton gasped, jumping and hitting the steering wheel with both hands. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“Little star!” she screamed, her voice echoing inside the car.
Still lost in my own mind, I shook my head. “It’s just a nickname, it’s nothing—”
“No,” she interrupted, grabbing my arm in a fierce hold. “The rhyme, twinkle, twinkle, little star. Oh my God, Sarah said that. I thought she was just hysterical, but Stella and I sing that rhyme all the time.”
“I don’t get it. What does it mean?”
“Right before she passed out, Sarah said, ‘the circle of life.’”
“Like the song?”
“Exactly.” Letting go of my shirt, she flung her car door open. “I know where she is.”
A plain white sign was taped to the back door of Caliente, matching the one taped to the front. Leighton and I saw it as we circled the parking lot in my Tahoe, choosing to park in back for obvious reasons. It was scribbled in a female’s handwriting.
CLOSED INDEFINITELY DUE TO DEATH OF OWNER
Good news traveled fast.
By simple deduction, I figured they’d been posted by either Emilio’s wife or Amanda, and my money was on the wife. She wasn’t a stupid woman, and she sure as hell wasn’t blind to his years of infidelity.
Still, it was only eleven o’clock at night. The authorities must have worked fast on this one. Then again, Mayor Donovan was involved, so everything had probably been expedited at warp speed.
After ordering a few trusted soldiers to drive out to the train tracks and get rid of Atwood’s car, I tucked my phone in my back pocket and pulled my switchblade out of the other. As I went to work on the lock, Leighton paced behind me.
I cursed as the tip of my knife missed the angle I needed to pop the spring. Leighton’s pacing was getting out of control, so I got her talking to keep her focused.
“Tell me again why you think Stella is in here.”
“Sarah said, ‘the circle of life,’” she said, rubbing her chilled skin. “I thought she was hallucinating, but when you called Stella little star, I put it together with the rhyme, and it all made sense. Emilio said Sarah followed him and tried to stop him from taking her. I didn’t think about it at the time, but if she followed him, she knew where he took her.”
I stopped twisting the knife and glanced over my shoulder. “You figured all that out from a song title?”
She sighed. “Don’t you remember the night I got shitfaced?”
“Yeah, you kept calling Sarah, Simba and quoting The Lion King. I was told you even sang a really bad karaoke version of...”
“‘The Circle of Life,’” she said, her hands slamming onto her hips in satisfaction. “Stella is in there. You just have to get me in, and I’ll find her.”
“Well, you won’t have to wait long.” Holding the doorknob, I gave a sharp flick of my wrist and it clicked. “We’re in.”
Leighton tore past me in a blur of drenched denim and a lingering smell of charcoal, and I followed behind her. Even though her theory sounded plausible, I had my doubts. Emilio was an asshole, but he hadn’t lasted as long as he did in the cartel by being transparent. Hiding Stella inside Caliente would be too simple. If a man wanted something bad enough to kill for it, he wouldn’t turn around and just...
Hide it in plain sight.
Just like Hector did.
Leighton almost ripped the stock room door off its hinges. “Stella? Stella, it’s Mommy. Are you here?”
After tearing the entire bar apart, we came up with nothing.
Leighton collapsed against the wall with her head in her hands. “I don’t get it. I know she’s in here.”
Or out.
“Maybe not.” Grabbing her hand, I dragged her outside where Emilio kept a locked storage shed tucked away near the back of the property.
Leighton pressed her face against the rusted metal door. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star...”
Neither of us breathed as a voice so faint I thought I imagined it floated by.
“How I wondow what you awe.”
Leighton’s knees buckled. “That’s her!” Tears rolled down her face, and she barreled into me. “Stella? Up above the world so high.”
The faint voice answered. “Wike a diamond in da sky.”
“Stand back,” I instructed, pulling my gun out.
She grabbed my arm. “No! You’ll hurt her.”
“I’m not going to shoot inside, Leighton. Just the lock. I’m done with this.”
“No guns.” Pulling my knife out of my back pocket, Leighton snapped it open and within a couple turns of her wrist, popped the lock. I didn’t have time to be impressed. Once she pushed the door open and flipped on the light, my world came crashing down around me.
A little girl in jeans and a pink shirt sat huddled near the back, her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her body looked just like Leighton’s did when I found her in the woods, but her face was like looking in a mirror.
Recognition registered in her beautiful brown eyes, and she scrambled to her feet. “Mommy!”
Leighton fell to her knees, scooping the little girl into her arms. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what Leighton would say. It hardly seemed like the time or place for a family reunion. As much as I wanted to claim my child, I didn’t want Stella’s first memory of meeting her father to be in a dirty shed after being kidnapped.
But as usual, Leighton knew exactly what to say. Inching toward me, she placed a hand on my arm and smiled. “Stella, this is my friend, Mateo. Can you say hello?”
There were two moments in my life I knew I’d never forget: the first time I saw a girl in a yellow dress, and the first time I heard the voice of an angel.
“Hi.” She grinned, dimples sinking into both her cheeks.
I choked out the words lodged in my throat. “Hello, Stella. I’ve waited a long time to meet you.”
Ending the call, I glanced at Leighton. “Val’s contact at the morgue said he can only slow down the autopsy report by two days.”
“So, I’m officially dead for forty-eight more hours, huh?”
The smirk on Leighton’s face made me question our plan. After all she’d been through, maybe I needed to handle this myself.
“No,” she said firmly as if reading my mind. “I’m doing this. She’s not getting away with it.”
We didn’t speak again, riding the rest of the way in silence with Stella sleeping soundly in the back. Although I had no idea how she managed it, considering her uncle’s four-letter tirade when Leighton called him and explained everything that had happened.
By the time we got to Brody’s apartment, my whole body felt like a downed power line. Stella whined about spending the night away from her mother, but Leighton managed to soothe her with promises of candy and dolls and other shit I had no idea about. Eventually, she gave in, giving her uncle a hug and kiss before skipping off to his bedroom to watch television. Obviously, the two of them had a solid relationship.