She is standing there, paralyzed by the thought, when her cell phone rings. Ernesto.
“We found the place,” he says in his usual no-nonsense voice.
“You have?”
“You don’t sound very excited.”
“Something bad happened. I’ll tell you in a minute. But first let me write down the address.” She gets a pen from her backpack and then takes out the notepad she always uses for interviews. Her legs feel as if they are about to fold, so she leans against the display window for support. “Tell me.”
“125 Calle Palacio de Mila. It’s on the corner of Avenida Las Torres. Take Highway 45 past the airport and turn on Boulevard Camandari. That will take you to Las Torres. We only got a satellite view of the place, but it looks like a large lot with a three-story building protected by high walls. The third floor is something like an enclosed patio that probably serves as a lookout. It reminds me of the compound where they captured Bin Laden.”
“How did you find it?” Sara suddenly feels exhausted.
“La Vaquita picks up and delivers linen there every Thursday. It’s almost directly in the path of the east-west runway of the airport. All their other pickups and deliveries are closer to town. The place is listed as a residence belonging to ‘Jacinto Vargas,’ who doesn’t exist as far as we can tell. It’s the right place. No doubt.”
Sara writes down the directions, her hand trembling. Linda is in this place. She’s there now. Sara puts the notepad and pen in her backpack and notices that the battery icon on her cell phone is red. “Ernesto, my phone may go dead at any moment, so let me talk.”
“Talk.”
“I went back to the office to look for you, and when you weren’t there, I went to Juana’s office, and she wasn’t in. I guess it was a good thing because I really needed to talk to someone and I was ready to tell her everything we’ve discovered. Then I decided to go home. Lupita told me where Juana keeps the taxi vouchers.” Sara swallows. “In the drawer with the vouchers, I found the white envelope with the cell phone.”
“Juana? No way!”
“It was inside another, bigger envelope with an H on it, in Juana’s handwriting. Hinojosa probably already got a new phone. She must be holding it until it’s safe to give it to him personally.”
“Damn. I didn’t see that coming.” They are both silent for a moment. “Why? Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s being threatened as well. Or maybe she’s doing it for the money. She told me at the quinceañera she would do whatever it took to save her job. Maybe she aligned herself with Hinojosa to keep El Sol from going under.”
“That sort of makes sense. One day we were all getting laid off and the next we were back in business. But who knows? I’ve stopped trying to figure out why people do things. I’ll stick to computers. So, what do we do now?”
“I found someone I can trust, someone from the FBI in El Paso. I want to talk to my brother and mother, because what I do will affect them, but if they agree, I’m going to give him the address you gave me.”
“Mmm.” She can almost hear Ernesto thinking. “Juana’s going to be in that budget meeting for another two hours at least. I know because they called me in there a little while ago to drill me about why we needed four extra computers, and Felipe was ordering tacos from across the street. But when Juana comes out, if she sees that the phone is missing, she’ll know immediately that either you or I took it, and she’ll tell Hinojosa. We need to get ready.”
“You?”
“Think about it. You told Juana I was helping with the threatening e-mail.”
“Ernesto, you told me you have places to hide.”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about me. Call your FBI friend soon. We only have a couple of hours before all hell breaks loose. Have you looked at the cell phone?”
“No. It’s still in the envelope.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in the street, a couple of blocks from where Mami works. I better go. I want to have enough battery to call my brother. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll be quick. Open the envelope and take the phone out carefully by the edges. Don’t touch the screen or the back of the phone.”
Sara follows his instructions. “I got it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an Android. It has a stylus.”
“Okay, it’s got fingerprint ID recognition. That’s good news.”
“That’s good news why?”
“María, one of our Jaqueros, was able to open one just like that by lifting a fingerprint of the owner from the screen and scanning it. We’ll be able to break in.”
“Ernesto …” Sara doesn’t want him to be in any more danger.
“Look, I know what you’re going to say, but we’re deep in this mess already. Might as well take it as far as we can. Even if your FBI friend rescues the girls, the bald colonel bastard and his associates are still out there. Let’s get as many of the sons of bitches as we can. We can do that with the information on that phone. Are you going home?”
“In a little while, after I pick up Mami.”
“I’ll drop by your house and pick up the phone. Just make sure you don’t touch the back or the screen. And don’t think about it too much. The only way to fight these people is by not thinking about the danger. I’ll get the phone from you and take it from there. You need to disappear too. I’m leaving now.”
Sara leans her forehead against the glass of the display window. “This is all happening so fast. I need to think.”
“What did you think about when you saw the envelope in Juana’s drawer?”
“I just grabbed it.”
“Because doing what is right is in your bones. Just follow where your bones take you. Give me your address. I don’t even know where you live.”
Sara pauses. She never gives her address to anyone. Can she trust Ernesto? She trusted Juana and that trust was misplaced. Juana. Juana knows where she lives. Her image of being safe at home with Mami and Emiliano suddenly shatters.
“Sara, we’re on the same side,” Ernesto says.
What does trust feel like? Sara has no idea anymore. All she can feel is hope. She hopes that Ernesto is as good and brave as he seems, and she must listen to that hope, because without it, her world would be total darkness. She gives Ernesto her address. “You better come early,” she says. “I think we’ll need to find a place to spend the night.”
“Be there as soon as I can. I’m going to go home and get a buddy to give me a ride to—”
The screen on her phone turns black. The battery is dead. Sara slides down and sits on the sidewalk beneath the display window. She thinks of the one-legged beggar she saw a few minutes before. Maybe she’ll soon be homeless too.
She looks at the white envelope that held the phone. Folded inside is the note that Erica had written her family. The words are blurry and brown—written with eyeliner, she guesses—and it says almost exactly what Mr. Mirabiles recited over the phone. Then Sara reads the note that Mr. Rentería wrote to her.