Sara stands up and heads to Juana’s office. She’s working on her computer, her glass door closed. Sara barges in.
“What is it?” Juana sounds as if talking to anyone is the last thing she wants to do.
“Did you take an envelope from my chair?” Sara blurts. Maybe Juana wanted to protect her, didn’t want her to get killed like those two reporters.
Juana grimaces. “Lower your voice, please. What envelope?”
“Luis put an envelope on my chair yesterday morning. It had something to do with Linda. I just know it did.”
“Slow down, slow down.” She turns to face Sara. “So you got an envelope in the mail. You don’t know it was related to Linda Fuentes.”
“It was a white, square envelope with something heavy inside—like a cell phone, according to Luis. Someone dropped it through the slot downstairs Thursday evening and Luis picked it up on his way home. It had my name on it. Luis put it on my chair when he came in yesterday. And then it disappeared.”
“You searched …”
“Everywhere. Someone took it—there’s no other explanation. That’s why we got the threatening e-mail. Whoever sent the e-mail was worried about us getting the cell phone. It must have information about Linda.”
“Let’s think through this. One step at a time. Sit.” Juana gets up, walks very slowly to the door, and closes it. Sara sits on the edge of the chair, hands clasped. Juana goes back to her chair. “What else have you found out about the threatening e-mail?”
Sara remembers Ernesto’s warning, and for the first time since she started working at El Sol, she lies to Juana. “Only that Ernesto thinks it was sent by someone with a lot of sophisticated technical knowledge.”
“That’s all you know? I want you to tell me everything.”
“Ernesto thinks the e-mail could have been sent by someone in law enforcement.”
Juana stares at her with the same cold stare that makes people spill their secrets to her in interviews. But Sara holds off. She’s afraid to get Juana involved and bring the same danger upon her that Sara’s bringing upon herself.
“I see,” Juana finally says.
“That cell phone had to be related to Linda. It’s the only explanation.”
“Who could have taken it? Yesterday morning, you say?”
“Luis dropped it on my chair at six thirty and the envelope was gone when I got here at seven.”
“I was here at seven yesterday working on the budget. I didn’t see anybody except you, Luis, and Guillermo.” Juana pauses, glances at Sara. “Maybe it was Guillermo. He sits across from you and can see when a package is delivered to you.”
“No, I know Guillermo. He’s trustworthy. Besides, if he was working with bad people, he wouldn’t have had to borrow money from Ernesto for the quinceañera.” Sara thinks for a moment, then decides to take the risk. “Elias was here early as well.”
“Elias?”
“Have you ever known him to get here before ten? And it’s not just that. He said some things at the quinceañera …”
“What kind of things?”
“That I shouldn’t write about the Desaparecidas, that it was too dangerous for me and my family. The e-mail also mentioned my family, and he never read that e-mail. How did he know to use that word? It’s too much of a coincidence. And the way he said what he said at the party—it was creepy.”
Juana huffs out a breath. “Hell, I also told you that what you were doing was dangerous for you and your family. Not that you listen.” She pauses. Then, “There’s one quick way of finding out if he’s a rat.”
“How?”
“I’ll call him in here and talk to him for ten minutes while you search his desk. If he took the envelope, he might still have it. He didn’t go out yesterday. He was with me until late, working on an article, and I know he went straight to the quinceañera with only a quick stop at his gym to change.” She rushes through her words, as if she’s embarrassed to know so much about Elias. “You want to check his desk or not?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure?”
“We might as well find out if he’s bad.”
“Okay. I’ll wait until he’s in your office. We should do it before everyone starts coming in.”
“We’ll do it now. And Sara—” Juana waits until Sara’s eyes are on hers, then says sternly, “You are not to keep anything from me, do you understand? If you find something, you come straight to me. I’m not talking only about the cell phone. I’m talking about anything whatsoever related to the e-mail. You come tell me immediately. And no one must find out about this. Is that understood? Who else knows about the missing cell phone? Ernesto?”
It is the second time in two days that Juana has surprised Sara. Last night, maybe it was the alcohol speaking, but here it is again—something different about Juana, harder somehow. Sara waits a few moments to respond. “No. No one else knows about the cell phone. I told Luis I didn’t get the envelope. But I could tell him I found it under my desk.”
“Yes. Do that.”
Sara goes back to her desk and waits for Elias to walk past on the way to Juana’s office, his black silk jacket still on. Then, after he shuts the door, she walks to his cubicle and pretends to write him a note. Fortunately, Elias’s cubicle is in the farthest corner of the room and none of the reporters who work nearby have come in yet. She bends down and rifles through his gym bag. Nothing.
The desks at El Sol have a middle drawer and four side drawers, the bottom one large enough to hang files. When she pulls open the first drawer, she almost laughs out loud. Elias’s drawers are full of personal grooming items: a nail clipper, tweezers, scissors, combs, brushes, a nose-hair puller, razors, talcum powder, ChapSticks of assorted flavors, hand lotion, teeth whitening strips, mouthwash, a pumice stone, and, surprisingly, one of those little gadgets that curls a person’s eyelashes. She also finds camera parts and batteries and invoices and more information about Elias’s private life than she ever wants to know, but no envelope. Before leaving, she looks in the plastic garbage can beneath his desk, but it too does not contain any traces of a white envelope. Due to budget cuts, the offices are cleaned and garbage receptacles emptied only on Wednesdays and Sundays, so the envelope would be in the garbage can if Elias put it there yesterday.
She goes to the coffee pot for another cup. This is not a morning to be a stickler on caffeine limits. On the way back to her desk, she passes by Juana’s office and shakes her head. Elias is a rat in many ways, but he does not appear to be the rodent who stole her envelope.
There is nothing else she can do about the cell phone at the moment, so she decides to resume her search for anything that could lead her to Erica Rentería’s family. Any hint of Erica’s whereabouts could be helpful in finding Linda.
She studies the picture of Erica that she found in the file room the day before. Erica stands in front of some kind of monument made of white marble, wearing a white blouse, pleated black skirt, white socks, and old-looking but clean shoes. Sara remembers thinking that she was dressed as if she were going to a conservative church. What if she was going to church? What church has that kind of wall? White marble. Sara does an Internet search for Juárez churches and looks at the pictures. There must be a hundred churches, but not many are made of white marble.