Desert Crossing (14 page)

The woman's mouth clamped down in a line. “I told you, that's all we know. And don't bother Elena anymore about this, do you understand? She's not involved.”

I shot Kit a quick glance. What did that mean? He flattened the menu and then folded it, saying easily, “Listen, that's okay, we won't bother anybody. But isn't that a little strange? You know, that she came in alone. And left by herself. It's not like this place is exactly a…,” he hesitated, “tourist attraction.”

The woman took the menu from him and slotted it into the space next to the napkin holder. “I don't think it's so strange. We see all kinds of people come through here. We don't know anything about them.”

“But if she didn't have a car—” I began.

The woman turned to me, suddenly impatient. “She was a hitchhiker, that's my guess. Truckers pick them up all the time. She got a ride in and a ride out. Did you two order yet?”

“No,” Kit said sheepishly, and took out the menu again. I could see Elena hovering near the door to the kitchen, her brown eyes darting toward us.

As soon as the woman left, I leaned across the table, whispering to Kit. “So she
was
here! I knew we'd find out something.”

“Yeah, exactly what the police found out. Big deal.”

“But she was in this restaurant! She could have been sitting right at this table. Somebody must have seen something. Don't you think? I mean, I wonder which waitress took her order.”

Kit looked at Elena. She was busily wiping the counter, her arm moving in quick circles. “I think it's pretty obvious,” he said.

I shook my head. “Elena? But then why wouldn't she just say so? What's the big secret?”

He was still watching her. “She's probably illegal,” he said.

I stared at him.

He shrugged. “Think about it. Her English isn't good. She's young. And the owner, if that was the owner, doesn't want her talking to anybody about the dead girl. Especially not the police.”

“But then—” I leaned across the table. “Then we have to talk to her! Maybe she knows something and she hasn't told the police.”

Kit shook his head. “Do you think we could order breakfast first?”

“Okay, okay. But I'm not even hungry anymore.”

“Well, I am.”

So I sat back, frustrated, and we ordered breakfast, but I mostly just pushed the eggs around on my plate and watched Elena. She served and cleared our table, shooting little smiles at Kit but not really responding to his comments.

“We have to get her to talk to us somehow,” I said when she finally brought the check.

Kit dug a few bills out of his wallet. “Wait here,” he said.

I watched him catch her arm as she was about to disappear into the kitchen. He leaned against the wall, smiling down at her, and she blushed, resting the tray against the counter so she could free one hand to give him change. But when she fumbled in her skirt pocket, he shook his head, stopping her hand with his.

It made my throat tighten. But at the same time, I could see it was working. She was listening to him, shy but interested, glancing around nervously. Kit dipped his head and kept talking. She bit her lip and looked at her watch, considering something. Then the gray-haired woman came out of the kitchen right behind them and they both jumped. Elena lifted the tray from the counter, gave Kit a quick glance and a nod, and hurried past him.

Kit sauntered back to the table looking pleased with himself.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She'll meet us outside on her break. At ten.”

“She will? That's great! Then we can talk to her.”

“Listen, let me handle it, okay? You're too … intense about it. She's not going to talk to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You'll scare her off. You have to take it easy.”

“But I can do that,” I said.

He smiled at me. “No, you can't.” He took my fingers and lifted them to his face, rubbing them against his cheek.

“You need to shave,” I said.

“Yeah, well, somebody didn't give me time this morning.”

Just then his cell phone rang, a long shrill
burrrrr
that I hadn't heard in days. For a few seconds neither of us even recognized it. Then Kit dropped my hand—dropped it the way you drop spare change on a table—and searched his pockets.

“Hello? Hey, Jamie. What's up?”

I tensed.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We're in Kilmore.”

Kit shifted in his chair and widened his eyes at me.

“You know, it was Luce's idea. Talk to her about it.”

I took the phone and held it close to my ear. “Jamie?”

His voice was rushed. “Luce, what the hell are you doing? Why'd you leave? Mom is going to go crazy when she finds out you're not here. And what about Dad? You guys need to come back. Now.”

“No,” I said carefully.

“What do you mean, no? You took the frigging car! What's going on?”

I swallowed. “We're trying to find out what happened to the girl. And Jamie, guess what? We're at that place where we stopped on the way down, remember? Where you and Kit spoke Spanish to the waitress? And it turns out the girl was here, too! On Saturday.”

Jamie's voice was impatient. “Then you should call the police and tell them. But you need to come back. What the hell is Kit doing driving you all over the state? How'd you ever get him to do that?” I could hear the bewilderment in his voice. I thought of last night on the floor of the study.

“We'll come back soon,” I promised. “Don't tell Mom. It'll only be a couple of days. You can cover.”

“Cover? Are you kidding? What am I supposed to say?”

I felt a sharp prick of anger. “Say whatever you were going to say to her. Tell her the real reason we're staying.”

“Luce.” He sounded surprised. Hurt.

“Listen, just let us see what we can find out, okay?”

“Put Kit back on.”

“We have to go,” I said. “Bye.” I clicked off the phone and handed it to Kit. “We should keep it off. Because we're in a restaurant.”

He nodded, his mouth twitching. “Yeah, the restaurant. He's pretty pissed.”

“Well, so what? I'm mad at him, too.”

“At least we've got cell reception again,” Kit said. “It's like we're back in civilization.”

We both stared out the window, at the sandy parking lot, the sad little clump of buildings, and the thin road forging across the dry land.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Wait till ten,” Kit said.

25

At ten o'clock, we saw Elena get her purse from behind the counter and fumble for a pack of cigarettes. She slung the bag over her shoulder, glanced once in our direction, then walked out the rear door of the diner.

After a minute, Kit and I followed her. She walked around to the side of the building, a long blank wall with a rusty air conditioning unit jutting out from the center. Elena set her purse on top of it and boosted herself up. She watched us come toward her.

“Smoke?” she asked Kit, shaking a cigarette out of the pack. He took one, then her lighter, expertly flicking it so the blue flame flared between them. They lowered their heads together. I stood to the side, waiting.

Elena pulled a pretty flowered comb out of her hair and shook her hair free over her shoulders. She smiled at Kit. “So …
qué pasa?
What do you want to know?” she said in her soft voice.

Kit leaned against the air conditioner. “Whatever you can remember about the girl,” he said, smiling back at her. “You said she was here on Saturday. Was she with anyone?”

Elena shook her head. “No.
Sola.
I talk to her a little.”

“You did?” I stepped closer, I couldn't help it. “What did she say?”

Kit frowned at me, but Elena turned. “She want a ride.”

“Where to?”

Elena tapped the cigarette on the metal edge of the unit, sending a shower of ashes into the dust. “Albuquerque.”

Kit blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Did she get one?”

Elena looked from Kit to me and nodded slowly. “
Sí.
”

Kit leaned closer, almost touching her. “Whatever you can remember,” he said. “It would help, you know? We won't tell anyone.”

“The man with the blue truck,” she said. “He take her.”

“What man?” I asked. “Was it someone you know?”

Again, she nodded, almost imperceptibly. I could see the muscles in her cheek tighten. She turned the wooden comb over in her hands and looked at it.

“Elena,” Kit said. “Who is he? What's his name?”

“
No Sé
,” she said. “I don't know his name.”

I bounced impatiently on my toes. “But he's come here before? Does he live around here?”

She glanced at her watch and slid off the air conditioner, dropping her cigarette in the dirt. She crushed it under her shoe and turned to Kit. “He come here all the time. Every day. He has a blue truck,” she said again.

“Thanks,” Kit said. He touched her shoulder. “Thanks for telling us.”

She looked at him uncertainly, then walked back toward the door of the diner.

“Well, that was weird,” I said to Kit.

He shrugged. “I don't know. She doesn't speak much English. Maybe it just seemed weird because of that.”

“But it sounded like she knew the guy.”

He nodded. “Or at least recognized him.”

We started walking back to the car. Kit took out his phone and clicked it back on. “Let's see what Jamie had to say, huh?” he said. He listened to the messages, grinning, and I could hear the faint sound of Jamie's voice, sharp and insistent.

“Come on,” I said, tugging his sleeve. “We don't have time for that. We have to think what to do.”

“What do you mean? We're done. We'll call the police and tell them it was a guy in a blue truck. Let them figure out who it was.”

Kit opened the car door for me and I slid inside, yelping at the hot vinyl of the seat.

“We can't do that,” I said. “They'll ask how we know, and you said yourself that Elena won't talk to them. Not if she's here illegally.”

Kit looked down at me. “Luce, come on. There's nothing we can do. How are we going to find some guy with a blue truck? There must be a million guys with blue trucks. And here's the other thing: What do we do when we find him? I don't get this. I don't get what you want.”

“I want to know what happened to the girl,” I said softly.

“We know what happened to her. She died.”

“But—” How could I explain it? “Kit, listen. There's more. I know it. If this guy lives around here, if he comes to this place every day, well, we can—”

Kit banged the top of the car. “We can what? I mean, jeez, Luce, what are you thinking we can do? Find this guy and rough him up? Get some information out of him? He's just some guy. He didn't do anything.”

I looked at him. “He left her there.”

“But you heard what the police said. She was already dead. You're acting like it's murder.”

I sucked in my breath, pressing my sketch pad against my chest. “No,” I said. “Not murder. But it's something. He left her there.”

“She was already dead,” Kit said again.

I stared at him, and despite the heat, I felt a cold prickle under my skin.

Just then the phone rang. “Oh, here we go. Jamie's on the warpath,” Kit said, bringing it quickly to his ear. “Hey, man.” I saw his face change, and he turned away, shielding the phone with one hand. “Oh,
hey.
Hey, Lara.”

Lara Fitzpatrick. I stared at him. What was Lara Fitzpatrick doing calling his cell phone?

Lara was the social secretary for the Westview Student Council. Pretty, smart, nice. Nice even to freshmen. Ginny and I had interviewed her for the school newspaper last month about plans for the Sadie Hawkins dance, and afterward she said, “You should come, you should come! Ask a sophomore or junior. Those freshmen guys aren't good enough for you.”

I watched him walk away from the car. Why was she calling? And why was his voice like that? Eager, completely different. His back was to me. “I thought you were in Chicago. Oh. Really? Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry about that. We didn't have cell service, so I haven't checked my messages. How are you?” He kept walking, almost out of earshot. He cupped the phone against his cheek. “I've been thinking about you.”

I watched his back moving away from me. He ran his fingers through his hair while he talked.

“I know, me too. Me too.”

His voice was softer, I couldn't hear what he was saying. I got out of the car.

“Yeah, we were supposed to be. But we kind of had an accident. No, I'm fine, nothing like that. It was an animal or something. But we thought—well, it's kind of a long story.” He walked across the parking lot, telling her what happened. I followed him.

“So, anyway, that's why we're still here. Actually, we're in a place called Kilmore now. I got stuck driving Luce up here, you know, Jamie's sister. Yeah.” He laughed. “Yeah, she is.”

I was what? My stomach clenched. I stood silently behind him, staring at the tilt of his head, the relaxed curve of his shoulders.

His voice had a tenderness to it, something I hadn't heard before. “Well, it's no fun without you. I miss you.”

So this was it. Kit and Lara Fitzpatrick. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have thought he liked me?

He cradled the phone with both hands. “I
really
miss you. I think about you all the time.”

I thought of him kissing me, the first time on the porch, the time on the road. And then the other times, at Beth's, in the car this morning. I couldn't stand there and listen anymore. I walked directly in front of him and snatched the phone away from his face. He jerked back, eyes wide, and I saw everything chasing across them, a flash of surprise, then protest, then a kind of regret. “Luce,” he said.