“Stand up for us, Danielle,” he says quietly. All the gentleness is gone in his eyes.
I stand as my heart pounds in my throat.
“Did you find her?”
“Dani, this is Officer Lara. You’re under arrest for making a false police report—”
“But I’m not lying. You said you were going to check with her dad and—”
“Turn around, Danielle,” Officer Lara orders. When her hand moves to her pepper spray, I do what she says.
The cold handcuffs weigh my hands down and I have to lean forward so I don’t fall back. Officer Lara keeps me company while Officer Kravetz leaves the room.
“This is ridiculous. I wasn’t lying about Pricila being missing. She’s being sent out of this country against her will.”
“Well, here’s the thing, Dani,” Officer Lara snaps, like we’re circling each other on the playground. “Jim Westfall doesn’t have a daughter and the claims you made about him having a relationship with this woman are pretty underhanded. What are you hoping to gain from all this? A story for the paper?”
Yes. Well, not completely.
“Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”
Officer Lara stares at me.
“Do I have to wear an orange jumpsuit?”
Her lips twitch to keep from laughing.
“If you don’t stop crying, I’m going to leave you here,” Maya said when Pricila started getting scared again. “They’ll put you in jail and you won’t see your mom no more.”
Pricila flinched when the train’s horn shook the ground under her feet. The station was hot and crowded with people who carried boxes tied up with string. Maya told her that she had to hold her coat if she took it off, but she wouldn’t help Pricila with her heavy backpack. Her feet squished in her pink boots from a puddle Maya had dragged her through to get on the bus before it left Nana’s street.
Even though Maya had a baby, she didn’t seem like a mommy. She was mean. Maya pinched her arm through her coat sleeve. It didn’t hurt but Pricila felt the pressure all the same and now she was making little squeaking sounds as she tried to stop crying.
“I want to go home,” Pricila croaked.
“You can’t. Shut up.”
“I don’t like you.”
“I don’t like you either.”
Pricila almost fell when Maya let her go with a shove. Maya hefted up Baby Carmen and craned her neck to look over the heads of people waiting in line to buy bus tickets.
Pricila thought of all the bad words that Mommy and Nana told her never to say. She called Maya all those names in her head.
The line moved forward and then someone opened the door to the patio. Cold wind swept in and Pricila lifted her face to it, smelling the thick fumes from the train. Then a man smiled at her. She leaned to the right to hide behind Maya’s fat butt.
Baby Carmen started whimpering and Maya growled like a dog. She kneeled down and set her backpack on the floor.
“Help me,” she said to Pricila. “Open up the zipper.”
She did and the train’s horn hurt her ears. Maya swatted her hands out of the way.
“Zip it up,” Maya ordered impatiently, and then stuck the bottle in Baby Carmen’s mouth. But the baby twisted her head away as if Maya had stabbed her with the bottle. “Come on,” Maya said. “Just take the fucking thing.”
Why had Nana sent her away with Maya? Why hadn’t she let her stay with Danielle too? She hadn’t caused any trouble.
“Shut up,” Maya snapped at a lady in line who was telling her to calm down. “Wait here,” she then ordered Pricila.
“Where are you going?”
“I said wait here.” People stared at Maya and Pricila heard the lady in line make a comment about her.
Pricila started to follow Maya, afraid to be left alone. She was getting that hurt feeling in her throat again. She wanted her mommy and her nana.
“Are you okay?” The man who had smiled at her now stood next to her. He had big blue eyes and curly black hair. “I’ll stay with you until she comes back.”
They walk me out of the interview room, presumably to the booking area. My eyes fill with tears, and since I can’t bring my hands up to wipe them clear, they spill down my face.
They take me through the station and I burn with humiliation. It’s like I’m a prize fish, by the looks of the passing cops. We ride an elevator and it opens to a floor that smells like new carpet, paper, and ink. The men and a few women wear suits with their badges and guns displayed on their belts.
Officer Lara gives me a look that says, You asked for it. She opens an office door and two men are standing by a window streaked with rain.
One looks at the other and murmurs something. He gestures to the other officers, who back away and I’m left alone with the Mexican Terminator. His dark face betrays nothing as he walks straight at me. He never drops his stare, even when he moves right into my personal space and stands there with his arms crossed over his chest.
“You made some claims against one of my agents,” he says in a hushed voice that’s all street.
I fight the urge to step back. “Her grandmother claimed her daughter was set up by your agent. I’m worried about the little girl.”
“You have evidence that she’s my agent’s daughter?”
“I looked for it.”
“So you could write a news story that would damage his reputation and my department.”
“To help a woman who did nothing wrong but live here illegally and sleep with the wrong guy.”
The corner of his mouth tics like he’s used to hearing this sort of thing. “Would this kid know you if she saw you?”
I remember Pricila’s weight against me as we sat on the couch and ate ice cream. “Yes.”
He studies me and I remember why I haven’t dated a Latino since I was seventeen. They have a way of making you forget the vow you made in the eighth grade that you’d never be the kind of woman who washes her man’s underwear or makes him a plate at parties.
“I’m not going to add to your problems and have you arrested, Danielle. You’re a news assistant who’s two months behind on your car payment. A Mini Cooper. My sister wants one of those.”
“I got laid off,” I answer before I realize he has poked into my life. What else does he know?
He reaches for me and I flinch.
He grins as if he likes blondes in shackles. “I’m just going to take off the cuffs.”
“What about Pricila? And who are you?”
“Agent Mike Acacio, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Orange County bureau.” He takes my arm. His fingers are hot and then, with a twist and snap, my hands are free. “I think I know where Pricila is.”
Soon we’re in Agent Acacio’s car, for which he apologizes. The guys who had it last were doing a stakeout and didn’t toss out their soda cans and fast food bags. It smells like stale fried chicken.
We start driving. The rain has let up but the sky is dark and the trees bend in the wind.
“Where are we going?”
“Train depot. You said the little girl left with a woman and a hundred bucks.”
I nod.
“More than likely they’ve got tickets on the 2:45 bus to Los Angeles and then Mexicali.”
When I look at him like he’s psychic, he shakes his head. “I’ve been doing this for a while.”