And now, as Serena pointed out, I had to make that clear to her.
“All right,” I said, “let’s go talk to Nidia.”
“Right now?”
“It’s not going to get any easier. I might as well get this over with.” I got to my feet. “Come on.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Please, even if it’s just for moral support, do this with me.”
One of Serena’s girls, Cheyenne, was in Julianne’s bedroom with Nidia. Serena said to her, “Insula and I need to talk to Nidia for a while.” She always referred to me by my street name in front of her sucias. She added, “In private.”
Cheyenne switched off the CD player and got up. Serena and I stepped into the room to let her pass.
Nidia looked from Serena to me and said, “Todo esta bien?” Is everything okay?
Serena sat on the bed. “Por ahora,” she said. For now. “It’s really Hailey who needs to talk to you.”
Nidia looked to me. Stalling, I moved over to the low pine dresser and lifted my hips to sit on its upper edge, putting my legs out and my feet on the edge of the bed.
“We really haven’t talked about what’s going to happen in the future,” I began.
“The future?” she said.
The easiest way to do this, I decided, was to make her do the reasoning. “What exactly do you see happening after you have the baby?”
Her green eyes were uncertain. “I don’t understand.”
“With Skouras, I mean.”
She didn’t exactly wince, but I saw his name prick her, like a dart. She said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I was playing amateur therapist, making her do the emotional and logical heavy lifting. “I’m not trying to be unkind here, but you have to think about it. Your baby is due in about a month. Then what? Skouras’s not going to stop looking for the two of you.”
She said, haltingly, “I-I have to hide, with the baby.”
“Where?” I said. “They know about your mother’s village. That’s off the table.”
She looked down at the deep-green bedspread. I waited.
“Hailey,” Serena interrupted. This isn’t working, her gaze said.
“Okay, look,” I said. “Nidia, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I just don’t think your baby is going to be safe from Mr. Skouras unless you’re in separate places, and even you don’t know where the baby is.”
“Como?” she said, her eyes wide and shocked.
Quickly, I explained to her the reasoning that I’d shared with Serena. Nidia listened, but I could see she wasn’t accepting it.
I finished by saying, “We’ll find your baby a good foster home. The best, I swear. And it’s not forever. Mr. Skouras’s an old guy. He’s already had one heart attack. He doesn’t have close family that’ll pursue this after he’s dead. After that, the two of you can be together, I swear.”
But Nidia said, “No.” She laid a hand on her stomach. “This baby is my responsibility. No one else’s.”
“I understand,” I said, “but making sure your baby is safe is the biggest part of that responsibility. I know it seems backward, but living separate from your child is the best thing you can do for it, until Skouras is dead.”
Falling silent, I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t, looking down, not meeting my eyes.
I was about to speak again, to push harder before she could think of another argument for keeping her baby. But Serena beat me to it. She leaned forward and said simply, “Hailey got shot.”
Nidia’s green eyes flickered, closed and then open, with an expression that looked like guilt.
Serena went on: “She took two bullets and nearly died down there in Mexico. It wasn’t your fault, but it was because of you and this baby. And after she got better, Hailey didn’t run the other way like most smart people would. She went and fucking found you and got you someplace safe.”
“I know that,” Nidia said softly, her green eyes nervous.
“Yeah, you know that, but what are you doing about it? Nidia, grow up, be a woman. Do what’s gotta be done.”
These were hard words, but I didn’t jump in with anything to soften them, because Nidia’s face was clouded, uncertain, and I thought she might finally be relenting.
Finally she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I understand.”
“And you’ll let Hailey find your baby a safe place to live?”
Nidia nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish there was another way.”
Outside the bedroom, I went immediately to the refrigerator and stood looking at the drinks inside, the RockStar and Red Bull, orange juice and milk, and wished that I hadn’t laid down the law about no drinking or drugs on the mountain. I closed the door without taking anything out.
“Thanks for doing the heavy lifting in there,” I said.
“You weren’t gonna,” Serena said. “You’re too soft, prima.”
Alcohol would have helped me sleep less fitfully that night, so it was probably a good thing there hadn’t been any in the trailer. My light and restless sleep ended a little after midnight, when I raised my head with a sense of the noise that had awakened me: the soft click of the front door being pulled to.
I reached for my SIG, but already I could tell that there was no one in the darkened living room who shouldn’t be: me on the couch, and Serena in a sleeping bag on the floor. Payaso and Iceman had taken the extra bedroom. I wasn’t sure where Cheyenne was: maybe in the master bedroom with Nidia, maybe with Payaso and Iceman. Sleeping arrangments between Trece and the sucias were fluid-except for Serena, of course, who never sexed the guys.
If no one had come in, someone had gone out. I sat up and pulled apart the blinds to look out the window. Outside the trailer was a moving shadow, a slight female form carrying a shapeless bag. Nidia. I should have known she’d given in too easily to Serena’s browbeating.
I sat up and put my head in my hands for a moment. I was very tired, like lead was braided through the fibers of my muscles. But I got up, very quietly so as not to wake Serena, pulled on my sweatshirt, jeans, and boots, and slipped out the door.
Now I knew where Cheyenne was: with the guys. She couldn’t possibly have slept through Nidia’s getting up, packing her things, and leaving the bedroom. Unless, of course, Cheyenne had known that Nidia planned to run away and had become a silent accomplice.
The time it had taken me to get dressed had slowed me down. Nidia was halfway down to the main road when I caught up with her. In the moonlight that filtered through the treetops, I could see that the bag she was carrying was a pillowcase into which she’d stuffed her few possessions.
She heard my boots crunching in the snow and gravel when I was about ten feet behind her, and she turned, raising a gloved hand to her eyes when I switched on my flashlight.
“Go away,” she said, eyes narrowing in a mix of resentment and defensiveness at being caught. “Go back. Leave me alone.” She turned and started walking faster.
I broke into a jog, closed the small distance, and grabbed her arm to stop her.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said. “You’re running away from the only safe place you have, by yourself, with no money? Nidia, where do you think you’re going to go?”
“I’ll find someplace,” she said, pulling her arm from mine.
“How?” I demanded. “The only reason we’ve been able to get you this far is because we had a plan and resources. This is crazy. Come back up and we’ll at least talk about this where it’s warmer.”
That last part was only half a negotiation attempt. I really was cold. She had the long parka and gloves that I’d bought her. I was in a sweatshirt and bare-handed.
“No,” Nidia said. “Not until you promise to help me protect my baby, not give it away.”