Widow and Leon had driven the better part of four hours and had just about exhausted every piece of small talk on the menu for common American strangers.

  The night had set in, and Widow was actually getting hungry.

  In his mind, he had pulled up all the possibilities of what he had gotten himself into, and they all led back to the same answer—Claire Hood and Jemma Hood and Lucy, who was dying somewhere in a hospital bed. Widow hoped that Claire’s intel on Jemma’s destination proved to be correct. Otherwise, he was wasting his time—and time was running out for any kind of rescue for Jemma. The FBI said that if no rescue was made in the first forty-eight hours of an abduction; it was considered a homicide, and no longer looked at as a rescue. This meant that if forty-eight hours passed, he was most likely looking at a recovery of the body.

  Widow hated to lose. Right then, he felt that way. Part of him wanted to tell Leon. Part of him was screaming at him to tell her now. They still could get an Amber Alert out there. But he remembered Claire Hood’s words. Jemma and her mother were undocumented.

  Where would Lucy go for care? Claire Hood had said.

  Leon said, “Widow, what are you daydreaming about?”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “We’re almost there.”

  “Got it.”

  Widow looked out the window at the city of Uvalde and was impressed to find it a much larger metropolitan area than he had imagined. It wasn’t a major Texas city or anything, not like Dallas or Houston, but its size was respectable. Tall buildings lined the terrain, not skyscrapers or anything, but plenty of tall enough places.

  Widow asked, “How far is Romanth from here?”

  “If I were you, I’d get a hotel room for the night and then rent a vehicle tomorrow. Get a truck. I wasn’t kidding around about the four-wheel drive. You’ll need it to get there.”

  Leon turned the Tahoe toward the off-ramp on the cloverleaf, and they circled down with the flow of traffic and came off of Fifty-Five and merged onto the highway below.

  Jake shuffled around in the back seat, trying to stay comfortable and maintain his balance so he didn’t roll off the seat.

  Leon said, “Take Eighty-Three straight down toward Mexico and merge onto Thirty-Five. When you get to Laredo, head north on Mines Road. Stay on it when it forks west. Somewhere along the way, you’ll pass Two-Fifty-Five. Cross over it and keep going. The way ahead looks like a forgotten dirt track. I can’t remember the name of the road, but it won’t matter because it’s not posted anywhere.”

  She paused a beat and flipped on the left turn signal, moving the Tahoe over to the fast lane and then into the turning lane.

  “You’ll be heading into the Rio Grande Valley. It’s rocky at worst and hilly at best.”

  Widow nodded.

  “Stay on course for about twenty miles, and eventually, you’ll come to Romanth. It’s the only thing on that road. We patrol it occasionally, but I doubt you’ll see anyone else driving it.”

  “How do they buy goods and such?”

  “Oh, they group together and send folks into Laredo every once in a while to get supplies. It’s not that far out. It’s just a pain in the ass to get there. Not a comfortable ride. Does a number on their vehicles too.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  Leon drove him down one busy street, and then they turned past a Sheraton Hotel, which reminded Widow of the senator he’d read about. They pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant that looked expensive, not in the New York fifty-dollar-crab-legs sense of the phrase, but still out of Widow’s budget.

  Leon parked the Tahoe in a space far from the other cars and left the engine running. She said, “Here’s as far as I go.”

  Widow said, “This is the restaurant? You must get paid better than I thought.”

  “Not this place, you numbskull. It’s the diner over there.”

  She pointed to a tiny little store across the street. It had a big white door and a huge window with ugly green drapes.

  Widow said, “Oh. It’s hideous.”

  “Yeah, but it’s great. It’s a family business. Everyone from the cook to the busboy is a part of the same family.”

  Widow nodded.

  “I guess this is goodbye.”

  “I guess so,” Widow said and got out. He opened the door and hopped out, but he stopped before he shut the door and asked, “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re an accomplished woman of Latin descent—”

  “Of Latin descent?” she interrupted.

  Widow nodded.

  “What is this, politically correct nation?”

  Widow shrugged.

  “I’m a Latina. It’s okay to say it.”

  “Right. So my question is, what do you think about the wall?”

  Leon stared at him. Her face registered she was processing the question. She leaned her head against her hands on the steering wheel. Then she said, “Truthfully, as a Border Patrol agent, I’m glad for any help we get from the government, but the wall will cost billions of dollars. That money is better spent on more agents—more equipment. Better programs. Better software and sensors. We could use more drones. I’ve heard the wall could cost over twenty-five billion dollars. That’s a lot of manpower and equipment we could use. The wall won’t do the same job we can do with a better budget.”

  Her response had been pretty much exactly what Widow had thought himself. He nodded again and leaned on one side, his left hand gripped around the top of the Tahoe, and his right gripped around the top of the door.

  “As a Mexican-American woman, I’m appalled at the building of the wall.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes! Absolutely! My job is to stop illegal immigration and to enforce the laws of our country. No question. When I catch illegals, I arrest them for breaking our laws. I round them up, and we ship them out. But as an American, it bothers me to waste my taxes on a big ugly wall. As a Mexican, it offends me that so many of my American brothers and sisters are so afraid of Mexicans that they want to build a wall. Many people here want to blame us and blame everyone but themselves.”

  Widow said, “You feel that strongly about it?”

  “Yes. It’s outrageous that this is even a real issue.”

  Jake lifted his head and reared back on his hind legs like he was getting ready to launch at Widow.

  Leon sat up straight and reached back and patted him on the butt. She gave a command in German. Widow had no idea what the words meant, but he could guess they were a command telling Jake to calm down and be at ease.

  “Sorry to ask. I was just curious.”

  “Are you for it?”

  “No way. I never even thought about something like that before.”

  Leon looked at him with a face that seemed to ask, “How dumb are you?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “You didn’t know about the wall?”

  “No.”

  “What have you been living under, a rock or something?”

  “No rock. Just don’t watch much TV.”

  “Maybe not a rock, but you may have your head in the sand,” Leon said, and smiled.

  Widow shrugged.

  “You know it’s an election year, right?”

  He shrugged again.

  “How the hell do you not know about the election?”

  “I knew about it. I don’t live under a rock. I just don’t pay attention to stuff like that.”

  Leon returned to her upright position in the driver's seat. Widow could see the muscles in her arms twitching, and her breasts shudder just slightly underneath her body armor.

  Leon said, “You’re a strange man.”

  He said, “I know.”

  “I was thinking about giving you my number too.”

  “I’d like that. I’d call you for sure.”

  “I just don’t know how it’d work. You don’t live anywhere. Do you even have a phone?”

  “I’d get one to call you.”

  Leon thought for a moment, and Jake stirred, but didn’t make any noise. He just watched her demeanor, like every decision he ever made required her say-so.

  Leon said, “Good night, Widow. I hope you find the person you’re looking for.”

  He nodded and said, “You be safe out there.” And he stood back and shut the door, not slamming it but pushing it closed like he was thirteen years old again and trying to sneak out of his mother’s house.

  Widow stepped away from the Tahoe and over to the curb to the expensive restaurant and watched as Agent Leon and Jake pulled away and drove down the street. He watched until the Tahoe was lost to sight. And then he headed to the diner.

  A white Dodge Charger pulled into the parking lot of the expensive restaurant, and the two passengers watched as Widow walked to the small diner across the street.

  9

  Widow sat at a table that was free, nearest the back wall. Behind him was a group of Texas teenagers—one girl and three boys. They sat and drank coffee and tea and laughed and horsed around. He tuned them out and gave his attention to his coffee and meal.

  He ordered eggs and chicken, which seemed barbaric if one gave it too much thought, like eating a mother and her children. But he liked chicken and needed the protein because he really was starving. He ate everything naked, no ketchup or additives, and slid the plate to the side and gazed around the diner.

  He saw a priest sitting in one corner. The guy wore a brown coat over his priest’s attire. He had a white collar and black shirt and everything. The weather was hot outside, but he still wore that coat. In his defense, it was cold inside the diner. The family who owned it had the air conditioner running on full blast. Even Widow had to roll his sleeves down because it was like the Arctic in there.

  Near the front door was an attractive woman who sat alone. She had been there as long as Widow had, came in right after he did. She had spent most of the time sifting through a day-old newspaper and the second half of the last hour playing on her phone.

  Widow looked over to his right and saw an off-duty waitress. She was young and Mexican, just like the rest of the family. She had her waitress uniform on, but it was underneath a coat that was far too big for her, and she had a pack of cigarettes laid out in front of her, but she wasn’t smoking. The place was nonsmoking, which was probably a city ordinance. Plenty of cities in America had done that. They had made it illegal to smoke in restaurants. Widow figured if it was showing up in Texas, then it had gotten everywhere.

  He didn’t think one way or the other about it. He didn’t agree with the government butting in about a person’s right to smoke, but he didn’t mind not having that smoky smell when he was eating food. Some social issues left him at an impasse as to what side he was on.

  The thing that interested him about the off-duty waitress was that she was playing around on a tablet. He figured she must have Wi-Fi on it, and she must have the code.

  He called over to his waitress, who looked like she was the other one’s older sister. She came over and took his empty plate.

  He said, “Is that your sister?”

  “Cousin,” the waitress said.

  “Can you ask her a question for me?”

  The waitress paused and gave him an accusatory look. She said, “She’s underage, sir.”

  “What? No, no, I’m not like that.”

  The waitress said, “Oh. Sorry.”

  “I want you to ask her if I can borrow her tablet.”

  The waitress looked back at her cousin and then at Widow. She said, “What for?”

  “Tell her I just want to look something up. Tell her I’ll only be a moment.”

  “What’s in it for her?”

  Negotiation. A good sign. Strangers are funny with handing out their property to someone they don’t know. Especially if that property is an expensive device, and they keep their own private information on it. It also doesn’t help if the stranger looks like Widow.

  He said, “Tell her I’ll tip her for it. I’ll tip you both. I only want five minutes.”

  “You’ll tip us both?”

  “You got it.”

  “How much?”

  Widow thought for a moment, and then he said, “Five bucks. Each.”

  “Five? Each?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll ask her,” she said, and she left with the empty dishes.

  She went into the kitchen to drop the plates off at the dishwasher’s station, and Widow wondered if that was run by another member of the family. He wondered how they determined who got picked for that job. Maybe there was a younger brother who had to do it as a rite of passage, or maybe there was an uncle no one liked. Or maybe they simply hired out for that job.

  The waitress walked back into the dining room and passed by the teenagers, who were trying to flag her down. It looked as if they were finished and needed to pay their respective checks. The waitress weaved in and out of the tables and over to her cousin. She leaned down and whispered to her, and they looked over at Widow. He waved back at them.

  A moment later, both waitresses walked over to him, and the cousin plopped herself down across from him in the seat.

  “You want to use my tablet?”

  “I do. It’s important.”

  “For ten bucks? Five each?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. But I stay here with you.”

  “No problem. I only need a few minutes with it.”

  She nodded and handed it over to him, and the on-duty waitress returned to her job.

  “You got the internet, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Widow handed it back to her and said, “Why don’t you do it? You know how to use that thing better than I do.”

  He was lying; in the Navy he had had extensive training and had to use electronic devices like a tablet. But he figured that to her, he was just an old guy, and he’d been out of the military life for some years now.

  She took the tablet back and asked, “What are we looking up?”

  “I need to find someone.”

  She said, “Oh, like a criminal? Or a missing person?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you a cop?”

  He thought back to Leon’s impression of him. He said, “Ex-cop. I’m a bounty hunter. Just trying to return a bail jumper back to court.”

  She nodded and accepted that claim. She said, “Okay. We can just google the name and see what pops up.”

  “Sounds good. Google James Hood.”

  She looked down at the touch screen and slid her finger across it, and then she typed on a keyboard on the screen.

  Widow waited and sipped the last drop of his coffee.

  She said, “If he’s from Texas, then here he is.”

  She turned the device around and showed it to Widow. He leaned forward and saw the face of James Hood staring back at him.

  They were looking at Hood’s Facebook profile, which was old. It had no activity for over two years.

  “What do you want to look at?”

  “Check out his photos. I need to see if he has a little girl.”

  “Is he a bad guy or something? He looks like a nice guy to me.”

  “I don’t know if he’s bad. We recover a lot of people who are good.”

  She ignored him, turned the tablet back to herself, and jumped ahead, and sifted through his profile photos. She said, “Well, he doesn’t have a lot of photos. Only three. And he’s married, I think.”

  She flipped the tablet again like it was on a swivel, and she showed him full-screen photos. The first was Hood alone; the third was the same photo the grandmother had. It was Lucy and Jemma together. The way it should be.

  Widow had to get her back.

  He said, “That’s the right guy. Thank you.”

  “That’s it? You don’t need to see anymore?”

  “No. I just wanted to see his face.”

  “You don’t have a photo of him?”

  Widow shrugged and said, “I forgot it.”

  “Do you want me to send it to you? I can send it to your phone?”

  “No thanks. I don’t have a phone.”

  She said, “Oh, I guess that’s why you needed to see my tablet.” But she said it with a kind of snarky tone, like she really thought that Widow was ancient.

  He had his sleeves pulled all the way down, but on his left hand, past the wrist but not quite to the knuckles, his sleeve tattoos were exposed.

  She studied them, as she had never seen them before on a man. And her snarkiness disappeared. She said, “Cool tattoos.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you have more?”

  He nodded.

  She remained quiet for a long moment, and then she asked, “Can I see them?”

  Widow reached into his front pocket, felt past his passport, and jerked some folded cash money out of his pocket. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill and handed it to her. He said, “Split that with your cousin.”

  She took it and said, “Thanks.”

  He calculated in his head and from memory the total amount he owed for the chicken breast, the scrambled eggs, and the two cups of coffee he drank, and he guessed what the state tax was. He rounded up to ten percent, which seemed high to him, but it might’ve been true. After all, Texas was one of the richer states. He put the money down on the table and added a tip to it.

  He said, “Thank you for your help. Tell your family this is a great diner.”

  He got up from the table and walked out.

  The young waitress remained seated and shrugged. She guessed he didn’t want to talk about his tattoos.

  Widow walked to the Sheraton Hotel to book a room for the night. Judging by Hood’s photos and many other assumptions about fathers that are more reliable truths than assumptions, he figured Jemma was in no immediate danger. He suspected the chances were high that this was a situation of a father who’d gotten out of prison and stolen his own daughter so they could start a new life together some place else.

  Widow wasn’t certain, and he knew that, but he also had no evidence that Hood intended to cause harm to his daughter. From the look of things, the guy had done his time and gotten out of prison. His wife was dying. Maybe he was concerned about his daughter’s well-being, and maybe he knew his mother would never allow him to see her. Widow couldn’t be sure about any of it.