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  And rarely gotten caught. His mom had been busy wooing the next potential husband, and that had left little time to watch over a busy and sometimes rebellious teen.

  “You need to get some sleep,” Carmen said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Raoul mumbled good-night as he walked past Robert. Very quietly, Robert took a deep breath. He waited until he heard Raoul’s bedroom door shut. “He smells like grilled onions,” he said.

  Carmen frowned. “I guess.”

  Robert shrugged. “I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it but the kid didn’t want anything besides chicken noodle soup to eat an hour ago. Now he smells like he swam in a vat of cooked onions, like maybe he got one of those steak sandwiches from the guy on the corner two blocks down.”

  Carmen chewed on her pretty lip. “I’m just grateful that he’s okay,” she said finally. “Thank you,” she added. “For being here. For being a voice of reason. For knowing what to do. I swear my brain just stopped working.”

  “I still want to do dinner with the two of you. Maybe tomorrow.”

  She shook her head sharply. “Tomorrow. No. That’s impossible.”

  Robert had learned years ago that sometimes retreat was an essential component of an effective offense. “No problem. I’ll give you a call,” he said. He gathered up his coat and gloves. “Take care,” he said.

  And he left without touching her.

  * * *

  RAOUL HEARD THE apartment door shut and pulled his sack out from underneath his bed. His hands were still shaking. He’d seen Carmen and that cop sitting at the table and thought for sure that they would want to see what was in the bag.

  He opened the thin plastic and pulled out the heavy black gun. He pointed it at the Spider-Man poster on the wall. Bang. Bang. Take that, superhero.

  Apollo had sent him a text about ten minutes before his sister knocked on the door to tell him that Robert was there. He’d already agreed to go to dinner and he had to do some fast talking to get out of it so that he could meet Apollo. But he’d been really anxious to see what Apollo had of Hector’s.

  He’d sure as heck never expected that it would be a gun. Raoul ran his hand across the barrel and could almost feel his brother in the room with him.

  Carmen didn’t like guns. Didn’t even like it when Raoul played video games where there were guns.

  She never had to know.

  But just having it made him feel better. Made him feel closer to Hector. Made him feel like he wouldn’t always be the kid who got pushed around.

  He put the gun and the box of bullets that Apollo had given him in his backpack, underneath his history book.

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday

  At ten the next morning, Robert was impatiently standing in line at a coffee shop. Sawyer usually took coffee duty, but they’d split up this morning. Sawyer was running down the Gottart Studio and Robert was following up on red handkerchiefs. They had identified three more retailers that carried the product. That was in addition to the four large retailers that they’d already spoken to.

  Unfortunately, these three stores were small shops and they didn’t have information systems that tracked all their sales data and could spit out reports at the push of a button. The big stores had been able to tell them the day and time the product had been sold. Had even been able to tell them if the merchandise had been purchased with a credit card or cash. Unfortunately, all the red handkerchiefs purchased in the last six months had been bought with cash.

  The three places this morning hadn’t even been able to tell him that. And they had no recall of any specific customer who had purchased one or more of the handkerchiefs, which generally came in packages of three.

  It made Robert sick to think of how many packages their guy might have bought.

  He shuffled forward and gave his coffee order to the sixteen-year-old girl at the counter. She’d just given him his change when his cell phone rang. “Hanson,” he answered.

  “Horton Davis here,” the caller said. “I had a chance to check out Raoul Jimenez late yesterday afternoon and figured you might be anxious to hear. He’s a freshman. Plays in the band, just like you said. Quiet kid. Small for his age. No known gang affiliations. That’s about all I can tell you.”

  “That’s enough,” Robert said. “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Wish this school had fifteen hundred just like him.” The man hung up.

  Robert waited about fifteen seconds before dialing Carmen’s cell phone. There was no answer. He scanned the numbers in his phone until he found Options for Caring Mothers. He remembered adding it last summer when Sawyer had been fixated on Mary Thorton and her pretty counselor, Liz Mayfield.

  He figured it was a good idea to call the office. Carmen seemed the conscientious type who might work a few hours on a Saturday morning even if she didn’t have to.

  The phone was answered on the third ring.

  “Carmen Jimenez, please,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, but Carmen isn’t in today. Can I take a message?”

  Not in. Holy hell. She wasn’t doing something stupid like meeting Frank Sage and his daughter again, was she? “Is she out of the office on business?” he asked.

  The receptionist didn’t answer. “May I take a message, sir?” she asked again.

  “Can I talk to Liz Montgomery?” he said.

  “Just a moment, please,” she said.

  Liz picked up within seconds. “This is Liz Montgomery.”

  “Hey, Liz, it’s Robert.” He heard the quick inhale of breath and knew that she’d immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. “Sawyer is fine. This call is not about him,” he said quickly.

  There was a shaky laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “What can I do for you, Robert?”

  “I tried Carmen and she’s not in. Do you know where she is?”

  Liz sighed. “Robert, you are my husband’s best friend and I think the world of you. I know you were at Carmen’s last night and I’m really grateful that she wasn’t alone, waiting for Raoul to come home. But Carmen is like a sister to me. I just have to ask. What’s going on here?”

  He adored Liz but he’d been a cop way too long to put all his cards on the table. “Carmen asked me to check with the officer at Mahoney High School to see if he knew anything about Raoul. I heard from him this morning and wanted to pass on the message. She didn’t answer her cell phone.”

  “You just want to pass on a message? That’s it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Liz sighed, loudly. “I swear, what is it about cops? Haven’t you heard that transparency is the new thing? And don’t you ‘Yes, ma’am’ me. That’s what Sawyer does just before he convinces me to get up, put my feet on the cold floor and fetch him coffee in the mornings. But if you must know, I did expect Carmen for a couple hours this morning but she called in sick. I’m sure she’s at home sleeping and didn’t hear her phone.”

  “Thanks, Liz. Appreciate it.”

  He tried Carmen’s cell one more time, and again there was no answer. He grabbed his coffee from the counter where it had been sitting for a couple minutes and was out of the building in less than thirty seconds.

  Ten minutes later, Robert knocked on Carmen’s door and stepped back so that he could be seen through the peephole. He heard a noise on the other side. He waited but no one opened the door.

  He knocked again. “Hey, Carmen, it’s Robert. I called your work and they said you were at home.”

  No answer, but he heard a quiet sniff and he got nervous. “Carmen. Either open the door or I’m going to break it down. Your choice.”

  No answer.

  “Okay. Stand back because I’m going to shoot your door lock off.”

  Because he was watching the peephole, he s
aw the quick flash of dark, proof that she’d looked out. She must believe him. Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose, where a full-blown, knock-you-on-your-butt headache was started to brew.

  She opened the door a crack. “I’m busy,” she said.

  He could see the middle six inches of her face and body. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he said in a very conversational tone. “I can only see a little bit of you but your nose is red and your voice sounds like you’ve either been on an all-night smoking binge or you’ve been crying. I’m guessing crying. Did something else happen with Raoul?”

  He heard her sigh. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I talked to the cop at Mahoney High School,” he said.

  There was no response. “What did he say?” she asked finally.

  “Open the door and I’ll tell you.” He’d learned to play dirty in preschool.

  Slowly, the door opened. She had on old jeans, a sweatshirt and absolutely no makeup. Her eyes and nose were both red and she had a box of tissues in one hand.

  “What did he say?” she asked again.

  “Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Are either you or Raoul hurt, sick or in danger?”

  She shook her head. He smiled at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her toward the couch. “Good. Then whatever else is wrong, we’ll fix it.”

  She tried to pull out of his embrace. He let her go but when he sat down, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him. When she immediately scooted several inches farther away, he smiled at her again. Smart woman. Having their thighs touch was probably not a good idea. Especially if they intended to have any conversation.

  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  Okay. That stung. He had this overwhelming urge to comfort her, to make it all better. “I’m a really good listener,” he said. “They teach you how in cop school.”

  That got him his first smile. As absurd as it sounded, he thought the room lit up a bit. That even the plants in the window glowed a little greener.

  “I can’t,” she said. “My issue. My problem. What did your contact say? Did he find out anything about Raoul?”

  Robert looked down the hallway. “Is he sleeping still?”

  Carmen shook her head. “Music lessons and then his friend Jacob is having a birthday party. He won’t be home until late afternoon.”

  “Okay. Well, the cop at the school figured out who he was and basically doesn’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. He’s not a troublemaker and he’s not running with any gang. I’m guessing his problem is that he’s fifteen. Nothing worse than that.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, not sounding convinced. “But thank you for checking. I really do appreciate it.”

  “Okay. Show me,” he said.

  Her eyes widened.

  He stood up. “I need somebody to share my popcorn with at the movies. You’ve got your choice between a Gerard Butler action movie, a Keanu Reeves action movie, or a Matt Damon—”

  “Let me guess,” she interrupted. “Action movie.”

  “How did you know?”

  She laughed. “Just lucky.”

  He felt the first easing of the pressure on his heart. He didn’t want this woman to cry. Ever again.

  “But I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”

  “Philosophically opposed to cinematic entertainment?”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s a ridiculous question. But my reasons don’t really matter. You can’t go anyway. I’ve read the paper. Every cop is working overtime on this case.”

  “True. I’m working all day tomorrow. But I do get a couple hours of R & R today. You like ice cream, right?”

  She frowned at him, not following his abrupt change of topic. “Of course, but what does that have to do with it?”

  “Near the movie theater is the best ice cream shop in all of Chicago.”

  “It’s freezing outside.”

  Robert smiled. “The lines will be shorter.”

  Carmen took a deep breath and looked around her apartment. Finally, her gaze settled on him. “I need some time to shower.”

  “No problem. I’ll just sit here and wait. I’ve got my phone, which means I’ve got my emails, and I’ll work on those while you’re getting ready.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  She was giving him way too much credit. He felt as if he were on a train and it had run off the tracks. He was hurtling through time and space. All he knew was that he wanted an afternoon with Carmen, with no worries about work or Raoul or anything else to cloud the horizon. He held up his phone. “If I don’t have the answer, I’ll just search for one on Google.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be ready in forty-five minutes. And I need to be home by six.”

  * * *

  CARMEN COULDN’T REMEMBER ever having more fun at the movies. Of course, she hadn’t been to the movies with a man in a very long time. The last time someone had paid for her ticket, it had been four dollars. She’d been almost embarrassed when Robert plunked down a twenty for the two of them and hadn’t gotten any change back.

  They walked up to the snack counter. She pulled money out of her pocket and after a quick glare, he let her pay for the treats. They each got a soda and a large popcorn to share. Robert picked out a bag of M&M’S candy. He raised one eyebrow at her and when she nodded, he dumped the whole package into the popcorn.

  “Now we have to get married,” he said.

  She shook her head at him. “I never marry on the first date.”

  “Okay. We can probably go out a couple more times before we tie the knot.”

  He looked so serious. She could feel her heart rate accelerate. She thought she might pass out until he winked at her.

  She started to feel a little dizzy again, however, halfway through the movie, when Robert reached over and gently held her hand, his thumb caressing the soft inner flesh of her palm. She knew it meant nothing to him. But when she closed her eyes, she could shut away the world, shut away her memories, shut away the knowledge that thirteen years ago to the day, something had happened that had changed her whole life. His warm hand, his soft touch, it all gave her a little bit of peace.

  They left the theater shortly after four, her hand still in his, and walked along the frozen lakefront. The weather was the warmest it had been in days, maybe weeks, and the wind was almost nonexistent. The sun wasn’t as warm as it had been at noon but still it had to be at least thirty degrees.

  “It feels almost tropical,” she said. “That is, if one wears a hat, scarf and mittens in the tropics.”

  He looked around. “Seems like a spring soap kind of day.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Very mangoish.”

  “Mangoish?” he repeated. “Is that a word?”

  “It is in the spring soap world.” But he was right. It was as if someone had opened the cage and let all the mice out to play. Old people in pairs, young women in knee-high boots and moms pushing baby strollers that probably had a baby in them but all you could see was blankets.

  She turned away from the strollers, not willing to let them intrude on her happiness.

  “Ready for the ice cream?” Robert asked.

  “I guess. I’m going to need to get home soon. I like to be there when Raoul comes home.”

  “He’s having cake. That’s means you’ve got time for a double chocolate chip in a waffle cone.”

  “Okay. But one scoop.”

  He took her to an old-fashioned ice cream shop with white tables and red chairs. It was at least half-full, proving that it was never too cold for ice
cream. Of course, the owners had the place toasty warm, making it easy to forget that winter raged outside.

  She ordered a single scoop of butter pecan in a cup, and he got the waffle cone with two scoops of chocolate chip. He found them a booth in the corner, and they took their coats off. A young girl wearing a short red skirt, a white ruffled blouse and a red hat brought the ice cream to the table.

  Halfway through her ice cream, Carmen sighed. “This is so good. Raoul is going to be mad when I tell him that I had homemade ice cream. He loves desserts.”

  “Based on the meal I had at your place, I think the kid is eating pretty good most nights. I dreamed about those brownies and I woke up craving caramel and chocolate.”

  She waved a hand. “They’re easy,” she said, dismissing the compliment. But it left her feeling warm inside.

  “Where did you learn to cook?”

  “From my grandmother. She lived with my family. There was always a pot simmering on the stove and something baking in the oven. I’m sure she’d think I was a terribly lazy cook.” Carmen mockingly glanced over both shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said, her voice soft, “but I buy my refried beans in a can. No soaking and boiling for me.”

  He smiled. “No problem. I buy mine already spread on a burrito shell and topped with melted cheese. And they get passed through the drive-through window.”

  She shook her head in mock disgust. “They should not call that Mexican food.”

  “Maybe not, but the city has some great Mexican places. I’ll take you to my favorite spot for enchiladas.”

  She swallowed hard, feeling as if she had a pecan stuck in her throat. He’d said it so casually, as if it was a foregone conclusion that they’d be seeing more of each other.

  As if they were going to start dating.

  Which was preposterous. Yeah, maybe she had told Liz that she’d consider the online thing. Raoul was getting older. Maybe she could start dating. But she needed to start with someone who was equally green at the game—maybe some nerdy guy who lived at home with his mother and collected comic books.

  Like one of the guys from The Big Bang Theory.