“You wouldn’t want to know,” the skinny, goateed guy said. “Tell you what. You give us money, and we’ll find her.”
“I only need one of you to guide me. My husband’s coming too,” Leanna said, realizing she needed insurance, and Axe would be it. “Help me catch up with the caravan.”
“There are several of them at any given time,” Pimply Toad said. “We’ll need lots of money to find the right one.”
These guys were wasting her time, but as long as they fed her bits of information, she’d chat with them.
“What about Ana and Eduardo?” she asked.
“They’re hiding from the gangs,” Scabby Goatee said. “They don’t want to be found.”
“They couldn’t have just disappeared,” Leanna said.
“They did,” Blue Skull said, cracking his knuckles. “But we’ll ask around for you. Give us five hundred.”
“I’ll want to speak to them before paying,” Leanna said. “I’m more interested in finding Carmelita and her friends. There must be a trail we can follow.”
“We know where to go,” Pimply Toad said, shifting his bulk on the padded bench. “Give us a thousand and we’ll put you in touch.”
“A hundred down, and the rest when we find Carmelita,” Leanna said. “I will accompany you along with my husband.”
Scabby Goatee, who seemed to be the leader, put out his hand palm up. “One Benjamin, then meet us at the Cantina Pollero Loco tonight.”
“Alone,” Blue Skull said. “No husband.”
“My husband comes, or no deal,” Leanna said. “We’ll need to wire the rest of the money, and he has the password.”
“He can’t come along,” Scabby Goatee said. “We don’t know you. Don’t know him. It’s you, alone, or nothing.”
“If you really want to find your daughter, you’d do as we say.” Pimply Toad’s lips thinned into a gelatinous smile. “You may call your husband for the password.”
“How do I know your information is useful?” Leanna asked. “Why should I pay when you haven’t proven you know anything?”
“Proof.” Blue Skull took out his phone and swiped it to the photo gallery. “This is Carmelita. She was spotted at the bus station with these two guys.”
Leanna gaped at the picture. The girl was wearing a black cowboy hat, so she couldn’t get a good look at her face. She was petite and top-heavy, with a long and glossy mane of dark-brown hair. “Do you have another picture? Closer in?”
“Hand over the Benjamin,” Scabby Goatee said.
Leanna dug into her purse for a hundred dollars and set it on the table. “Now, show me all the pictures you have of her.”
“Be at the cantina. Eleven o’clock,” Blue Skull said. “Give me your phone number, and I’ll text you another angle.”
Leanna gave her number. Her heart shot from the ground like a hot air balloon over a blast furnace when another picture appeared on her phone.
She was staring into the face of her daughter, who had on way too much makeup, including false eyelashes and dark purple-red lips. The eyes were brown, like hers, large and round. Silver-white makeup and pencil thin eyebrows made her look older than thirteen.
Carmelita wore a piercing on her left nostril, and she was already well-developed, wearing a skimpy top and jeans that hung too low. She held a knife in one hand, and she was drinking out of a beer bottle.
Leanna enlarged the picture for a close-up and gasped. Carmelita’s fingernails were polished blood-red, and she had a gang tattoo of a scorpion inked on the back of her hand between her index finger and thumb.
Had she truly run away? Or was she part of the problem?
“We have to find her and bring her home safely,” Leanna said. “I’ll be there tonight.”
The men laughed as Scabby Goatee pocketed the money.
