Desert Angel Read online

  * * *

  NOT LONG AFTER DAWN, Rita woke and brewed coffee for the deputy. Took a shower and made phone calls. Checked in from time to time to see that Angel was still sleeping. When she finished these chores, she made the deputy a fried-egg sandwich. She herself would eat later with Angel.

  “Would you ask TJ to give us one more day of protection?” she asked the deputy when she collected her plate. The woman nodded and got on her cell phone.

  * * *

  ANGEL ROSE AND CLEANED UP while a lab tech dusted the doors and light switches. When she was ready she joined Rita at the kitchen table and wolfed down her sandwich. She noticed Rita looking her over, appraising. Angel had chosen clothes from Rita’s closet that would be good for travel: two T-shirts under a brown hoodie, cargo pants, battered running shoes. Different from the thin polo shirt and long shorts she’d worn the previous day.

  “Find everything you needed?” Rita asked, voice level.

  Angel blushed, nodded.

  “I called LaDonna, and she’s doing school today,” Rita went on. “Another mom’s coming in and they’ll go to the beach, get wet, pick up things for collages. We’ll stay here. I want you to tell me more about Scotty.”

  “I don’t want to think about him,” Angel said, twisting her hair.

  “You remember what you told me? You’re good at running and hiding? To be good at hiding you have to know who’s looking for you, what they’ll think, what they’ll do.” Rita put their plates in the sink and refilled her coffee. “It’s kind of automatic, most times you don’t even notice you’re doing it.”

  “I guess.” Angel yawned, retied her shoe, giving off signs that she really wasn’t into this. When she’d acted this way with her mom, her mom would get mad and pout and leave her alone. Angel needed space to make her break.

  “So what’s Scotty like?” Rita persisted, sitting again, facing Angel directly.

  Angel sighed. “Well, I told Tío and Abuela, he’s a hunter. And I told what’s-his-name that Scotty traps tortoise and eagles and sells them.”

  “On the black market?”

  “I don’t know where,” Angel said, irritated, letting Rita know these questions were annoying. “To hunt those things you got to be patient, really organized. Which is kind of odd ’cause Scotty’s not patient except in that one area. He’s restless, sometimes kind of hyper. He doesn’t like to wait for things. Eats corn chips instead of making dinner. Same clothes all the time unless he’s going to town and slicks up kind of country-western. He’s real careful with the guns and traps, but the rest of his stuff, like the trailer, too much trouble. I’m the one who couldn’t stand the mess, swept up, sacked up garbage.”

  Angel rested her elbows on the table, not seeming to realize that she was warming to the task. “At Mom’s grave, I hid from him, I knew I didn’t have to go far ’cause he wouldn’t spend much time looking. He thought catching me’d be easy. I guess it was, when he came back to the trailer.” Angel winced at the memory.

  “Now he knows I’m not alone. Knows I might get him locked up. He’ll be way more sneaky. When he found me before at the Gomez place, real quick he knew I was there but he didn’t do jack ’cause the scene was witnesses. He’d have to do everybody. But he didn’t know them … like did they have family that’d come after him? Me and Mom were easy marks. Nobody knew us or knew where we were.” Angel looked at her hands and saw she had torn her napkin into tiny pieces while she was talking.

  “He broke in your house ’cause he thought he’d surprise us, deck you, grab me, get away. It’d happen so fast you couldn’t even I.D. him. Bang, he’d be home free. Now that a police guy has seen him—”

  “Sheriff’s Department,” Rita clarified. “TJ and Goot and the woman deputy staying here.”

  “Okay, a sheriff guy has seen him, so Scotty’s got to be even slyer because his name and license are in the system. Now if anything happens to me or you, he’s the main suspect, and Scotty wouldn’t want that. He likes to be camo. You saw his truck. Under the … what is it?”

  “Radar?” Rita supplied, nodding. Made sense.

  “I don’t think he’ll hurt you or your kids, because it wouldn’t be worth it. It would just up the stakes, get more people involved, and that could mess up his whole business.”

  Rita stood, went to the sink for a glass of water. Offered Angel one.

  Angel shook her head. “Did I tell you he sells guns, too? If he hurt you, he’d have to disappear. Move. He probably doesn’t think I’d rat him out, ’cause I’d wind up back in a foster house and he knows I hated that. I’m pretty sure he’ll lay low for a while, let things die down, watch till he can get me alone. Bury me like he did Mom. That’s why I have to get out of here. Get a head start … Hey, I get it.” She smiled at Rita. “Your program. A head start. For regular school?”

  Rita smiled back. “So Scotty buys and sells guns. All illegal.”

  “Says he usually steals them or gets them from a pawnshop guy, like a partner of his.”

  “Okay, he sells … more than just guns?”

  “Other…”

  “Weapons,” Rita filled in.

  “Yeah, uh, some tubes, rocket things, and some packages he says explode big-time.”

  “Steals things, sells weapons, and traps animals. Anything else?”

  “Uh, uses dope. Pot, crystal. X. Stuff like that.”

  “Where does he get it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “None of Scotty’s business is legit?”

  “A couple of times I’ve seen him fix a dead animal, like make it into a statue, and sell it. I don’t know if that’s legal.”

  “Taxidermy. Was he trained to do that? Did he go to school to learn that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any other odd jobs?”

  “He can fix a lot of things, his truck and stuff, but I don’t think he does it for money.”

  “Does he have a regular house or a shop somewhere?” Rita asked, lifting a phone directory off the counter.

  “Trailer’s all I ever saw. He knows this area and has a bunch of guys he sells to.”

  “Never talked about parents or family. Brothers or sisters?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “So you don’t think he’ll try to hurt me or my kids?”

  “No, I told you. Doesn’t need to. He’ll watch till he can grab—” Angel stopped abruptly, derailed. “Uh, I guess he might do you like the Gomez place. Wreck something. Your car, Vincente’s truck. Or…” Angel mashed her hands to her forehead. “Or if I split, he might hurt you to get you to say where I went.”

  “So the best way for me and the kids to be safe is for you to stay here?”

  Angel brought her fists down on the table with a bang that startled both of them. She stood suddenly, knocking her chair over, and ran out the back door with a wail that chain-sawed the quiet morning.

  * * *

  THE THIN MAN DRIVING the dirty gray Suburban had finished a quart of gin the night before, slept through his alarm, and arrived too late to see Angel leave the house alone. He spent a miserable morning parked in the Salt Shores sun and by afternoon was heading back to Cathedral City for medicinal beer.

  * * *

  ANGEL WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO CLEARLY RECALL where she went that day. Her memory would be mixed up and hazy like a home movie the trucker had sometimes shown her and her mother when they lived with him in Redding. The film had been cut and spliced and it jumped from scene to scene, place to place, changing characters and action so randomly it made no sense.

  She knew at some point she had jogged along the uneven shoreline, scattering birds and making gouges in the wet sand. She recalled stumbling over grit and rock, plowing through shallow ravines, until she was near enough some paved road that she became afraid Scotty or a sheriff might see her. At one point she tripped and hit the ground hard enough to knock her wind out; she remembered lying there several minutes, coughing, furious and frustrated.

  B
y nighttime she was sore and thirsty. She must have fallen more than that once, because her wrists ached and her palms were scratched and dotted with dark stickers. Why had she stopped moving? It took a moment to register that she stood facing the highway not far ahead. Vehicles shushing past on the asphalt, the white flash of headlights and the soft red trace of taillights offering a quiet light show in the dark blanket of desert.

  Though she was not carrying it, she had found a map in Rita’s car a couple of days before when she’d walked out of the school in the early afternoon. She knew there was a bigger town about twenty miles to the south. She could have followed the seashore and been almost there by now. Maybe taken a bus to El Centro for three or four dollars. Maybe found a ride farther west, toward Escondido or San Diego. Disappeared. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? That’s what she’d decided on, what she’d been working toward.

  She thought back to her talk with Ramón. How would she get a job? Who would hire her? She’d have to lie about her age. Where could she live? How could she afford anything? But even as she recalled these questions she knew there was something else. Rita. Rita and her kids. Rita, who would be in danger because Scotty would think she knew where Angel went.

  The night before, Rita had packed and run with her. Wouldn’t let her go alone. Put herself on the line for Angel. Water slipped down Angel’s cheeks. How many times had her mom sold her out? Taken a man’s side against her? Every time but once, maybe? The day before her mother died, Angel had told her, “When you get mad and stomp out, Scotty comes to me.” Is that what made the last fight so much worse? Did her mom unload on Scotty and keep at it so hard that he killed her to shut her up? Did her mom die trying to defend her? If Angel hadn’t told, would her mom be alive now?

  How much could a person hate herself? Was there a limit or at some point did a person explode like one of Scotty’s bombs?

  16

  Angel passed a uniformed man seated behind the wheel of the cruiser parked in Rita’s driveway. Goot? He didn’t wave and she pretended to ignore him. The front door was unlocked. Rita sat on the love seat with Jessie and her boy, reading a story. They looked up but Angel didn’t meet their eyes. She walked past them to the bathroom, washed the sand off her face and arms, searched for tweezers. She found them in the medicine cabinet and returned to the living room, to the chair nearest their reading lamp so she could see the thorns better.

  When Rita put the children to bed, Angel was surprised by a gnawing hunger that surfaced without warning. The fridge had milk, eggs, Crisco, plastic containers of leftover rice and beans, a jar of red pepper salsa, and a vegetable bin that held cilantro and celery and old lettuce with brown edges. The cupboards had mostly glasses and dishes with only a small corner of enchilada sauces, boxes of cornmeal and pancake mix, a large paper sack of rice, a jar of peanut butter, and a ziplock bag of the white stuff that Angel had seen Rita use to make mush.

  Angel decided on food her mother used to make, celery and peanut butter. She had just finished the snack when Rita walked in and took a chair at the table. Angel put the ingredients away and sat across from her. Rita handed her a thin napkin and gestured to her nose. Angel wiped off the dab of peanut butter. She crumpled the napkin and searched for words to explain why she ran, why she came back. What was there to say?

  Rita broke the silence. “Your clothes need washing.”

  “I couldn’t leave you,” Angel said. “I couldn’t kill anyone else. I told my mother…” She gritted her teeth to keep a moan from escaping. “I’m the reason that—” She had to stop.

  Rita slid her hand across the table, took hold of Angel’s wrist. “Not now,” she said. “Later we’ll talk about whatever that is. Right now you need to know something. You listening?”

  Angel couldn’t look at her but she nodded.

  “You didn’t kill anybody. This Scotty? What he does, he does from his own ugliness. You’re not like him. You have a decent life to live. I care about you because I’ve gotten to know you. I see how brave you are. You came back because you have a conscience. I’d be proud if Jessie grew up to be like you.”

  Rita came around the table, held her, and smoothed her hair until the girl’s storm passed.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING ANGEL AND RITA GOT ANOTHER RIDE in a cruiser, this time to the school building. Angel could not keep from scanning for any moving vehicle, straining to see inside every open door and empty garage. She made herself walk, not run, from the car to the building.

  While Rita prepared the tables for morning snack, Angel began walking the inside perimeter, opening every closed door, memorizing every escape route. On a high shelf above the coat hooks in the front hall she found a stocking cap and a baggy sweater. If she put them on, it could be like a disguise. Might give her a couple of extra seconds if Scotty rushed in. No. They probably belonged to one of the children.

  In the kitchen, along with an exit to the back outdoor area, there was a padlocked door beside the refrigerator. A pantry? Canned goods? Tools? Interesting. Might have supplies she could use in an emergency. Wouldn’t there be an extra key somewhere close? She felt around the rims of the cabinets, went through drawers beneath the counters. The ones close to the sink held silverware, cooking utensils, candles, and dish towels. The thin one beneath the cutting board was locked. She thought it probably held knives and anything else that would be dangerous for the children to handle. Next to it, beside the stove, the remaining drawer had a tangled mess of tape, twine, ribbons, screws, wires, glue tubes … and a ring that held fifteen or twenty keys.

  She checked to make sure neither Rita nor LaDonna was watching. No key seemed to fit the knife drawer, but one of the rounded brass-colored keys fit the padlock. She glanced around again. Still okay, so she popped the lock and opened the door just a crack, knowing she’d explore more thoroughly later. Surprise. Stairs. Going up. There were two copies of this key. Angel slid one off the ring and put it in her pocket.

  In the bathroom, trying to get her breathing right, she reminded herself that Scotty wouldn’t come inside here. Way too many eyes. Though she believed this was true, it was still hard to calm down. For the first time she looked forward to the children’s arrival, knowing that they would distract her.

  Angel may have already been a little distracted, because she’d missed the rolling Suburban that kept her in sight from Rita’s to the school.

  * * *

  AT THE SHARING CIRCLE, Angel sat beside Jessie. Norma sat directly across, wedged between Rita and LaDonna. A girl Angel hadn’t met started off, holding the cork from a wine bottle. “I found this yesterday and it floats when you put it in water.” Many of the children hadn’t seen a cork before and were eager to touch it.

  After LaDonna it was Norma’s turn and she showed a folded magazine picture of a large white adobe house on cliffs overlooking a red rock canyon. “This is where my real father lives,” she said, “and he wants me to come stay with him and ride horses every day.” The rest of the children listened patiently but didn’t look at Norma or appear to believe her story.

  At Angel’s turn she showed the single earring she carried. “My mom gave this to me. I don’t know what it’s made of.” She pulled her earlobe and put the hooked end through the pierced hole, then took it out and passed it around. Most of the girls examined it carefully as if they were imagining jewelry they could wear when they grew up. The boys simply passed it along, except for one who made everyone laugh when he tried to stick it in his nose. During the circle time Norma held on to LaDonna’s arm and did not look at Angel.

  The next activity was movement, jumping rope. The room had enough space for two ropes whirling at the same time, two lines of children taking turns to see how long they could jump without missing. Rita and Angel kept one rope going. Norma stayed in LaDonna’s group. Down in Mississippi where the green grass grows … Angel wondered if she jumped rope to these rhymes when she was younger. She didn’t think so.

  At free time Angel went
to a table with the checkerboard. Norma went to the block area and built towers that she quickly knocked over. The other children played in clusters of two or three and ignored them both. At lunch Angel and Norma sat at separate tables.

  During nap time Angel asked Rita, “What’s the matter with Norma?”

  “Her home’s pretty unstable. She’s lived with aunts and friends of the family when her dad’s acting too crazy or her mom’s at the shelter. It’s very hard on her when someone she likes pulls a no-show, and we were both gone yesterday. LaDonna said Norma fought with the other children morning and afternoon. So today, even though we’re here, she doesn’t trust us. We might vanish again and, one more time, she’d have to feel sad and abandoned. Probably thinks, better for her to drop us. Less hurt.”

  Disappointed. Angel could understand that. How many times did Angel hope her mother would get an apartment, just the two of them? How many birthdays did she watch her mom drool over some guy and completely ignore her own daughter? How many times did her mom forget even a simple present? And Christmas? The guy would get a glitzy watch, something nice, and Angel would get a pack of barrettes and some fancy hairspray that her mom would start using in a couple of days.

  After nap Angel managed to stand or sit near Norma a few times but neither spoke. Norma glanced at Angel only when she was busy with something else and could not catch her eye.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING TJ INTERRUPTED THEIR DINNER.

  “I can’t keep this twenty-four-hour thing going; we don’t have the people or the budget.” He took his hat off as if in apology.

  “I appreciate what you’ve already done, and Vincente’ll be back sometime tonight or tomorrow,” Rita said. “What’s the best way to get hold of you if we need help quick?”

  “You got my personal cell number and I programmed it in one of our confiscated phones I’m giving the girl.” He nodded toward Angel. “Got an hour’s worth of minutes if she needs help.” He handed a small black cell phone and a plug-in charger to Angel. “Keep the batteries full up. Press this to call. I’m speed dial 1, Goot’s 2.”