"I know."
He lifted his hands to her. She glanced around and violated the rules by putting her hand through the bars. Pablo grasped it, shedding tears. Frank checked again, grateful there were no cops.
"Hey. It's gonna be okay, mon. It's gonna be all right. You get to see your family again. Think how happy they're gonna be."
He yanked his head up. "You t'ink?"
She took the opportunity to extricate herself. "I know. You can call Roberto if you want. Tell him you're alive."
" 'Im be mad. 'Im 'ate me now fuh sure."
"No," Frank assured. "He doesn't hate you. He might be mad, but he doesn't hate you. Your mother either."
"My mot'er," Pablo marveled. "Wha' 'er look like? 'Er still pretty?"
"She's old, mon, but yes, still pretty."
"Old," he repeated, twirling a finger around his head. "In my mind 'er still t'irty-six!"
Frank smiled. "I'll give the guard your brother's number. It'll be a short call though. Tell him you're coming home and to call Detective Silvester. She'll know when you're coming back. All right?"
“I’m goin’ ‘ome?"
"You're goin' home, mon. I don't know what'll happen once you get there, but you're goin' home."
" 'Ome." Irie tasted the word, then seemed to find it bitter. "You sure Berto won't be mad?"
"Not a chance." Lifting a hand to the man who'd killed her father, Frank walked away.
Outside the station, under the balmy Los Angeles dusk, a sickle moon winked over the freeway. Frank stopped to look at it. She thought about Noah, how many times they'd said good night, right here, under this same moon. She thought about her mother and father. About Mary in a midnight phone booth. About Annie's angels and Darcy's tutelary gods.
Ridiculous tears sprang up again. Frank blinked them back. She nodded at the blurry moon.
"Yeah, okay," she whispered. "Maybe so."
Slipping her key into the Honda, she realized she didn't want that drink anymore.
About the Author
Baxter Clare is a wildlife biologist by vocation and a writer by avocation. She never intended to write mysteries but the L.A. Franco character rented a room in her imagination one morning and has been there ever since. This is her fifth L.A. Franco mystery.
In a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall she married her lifetime partner, artist Ann Marie O'Connor. They live in the rugged La Panza mountain range of California's central coast, and Clare ventures regularly from chaparral wilderness to the urban wilds of South Central Los Angeles.