Chapter Twenty-One
The going was slow on the backroads between plots of tilled land and fallow ground. Many times, the map shown on the cell phone did not match what was on the ground, and most of the time, none of the dirt roads showed up.
Axe had no choice but to forge onward, always bearing south. He used the ball compass on the pickup’s dashboard to approximate the direction.
Beside him, Leanna kept watch, even though she could see nothing without the night-vision goggles he wore.
“You might as well get some rest,” he said, downshifting as the truck crept up a slope where the road wasn’t cut to go around it.
“I can’t. My brain is too wired, and I keep turning things around and around. Why would the Tres Amigos show me fake pictures of Carmelita, yet Gabriel say she was still around a few days ago? The FacePlant posts had started right before Ana called me. They made sense timeline-wise.”
“Someone’s lying,” Axe said. “Maybe all of them.”
“We’re back to square one.”
“Rest. It’ll come to you after you get some sleep.”
“I can’t.” Leanna yawned. “My little girl is out there somewhere. I can feel it. I know it.”
Axe’s stomach curdled and squeezed in on itself. He’d watched the yearly videos, always sent at Christmastime, until he’d memorized every feature of his precious daughter’s face. She was a few months older than Leanna’s daughter, but she didn’t wear makeup and was sweet and shy. She seemed happy, although she had that wary look and appeared to be memorizing her lines. Then again, speaking into a camera to a man she’d never met or known would have felt funny to anyone.
“Mine is somewhere,” Axe said. “Only Joshua Cano knows where, and I bet he moves her around.”
“What happened to her mother, if you don’t mind telling me?” Leanna’s face barely reflected the moonlight creeping through the window.
“She gave the baby to me to raise,” Axe said. “My mother was helping me, but I did the diapers and night feedings. She was a good baby. She’d cry just to let you know she needed you, and when you fed her and cuddled her, changed her diaper, she’d just look at you, eye to eye, always tracking you.”
“I’m sorry.” Leanna took Axe’s hand in both of hers and rubbed it, comforting him. “I hate thinking about Joshua and how they took her.”
“They killed my dog, the one before Gio, and hit me with a stun gun. I guess they didn’t want to start a shooting war, knowing they’d already killed Uncle Dom.” Numbness crept over Axe, as if he weren’t the one telling the story. “They used a woman to take her from the cradle. She tried to shush her, but my Soledad screamed. I can still hear her shrieks, like she couldn’t believe I didn’t come rescue her.”
“When Joshua wants something, he gets it,” Leanna said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Still hurts. I dream about her, and it’s always her crying that wakes me up. I tried to box everything up. Pretend I don’t care about having my own family. Do the playboy thing. Act tougher than all the guys at the club.” Axe’s voice dried up into a rough sigh and a half sob.
Leanna seemed to get it, because she held his hand and didn’t ask more questions.
He drove onward until dawn peeked from the eastern foothills, painting the clear sky a rosy blush.
Checking their location on the map app, he said, “We’re right outside of Monterrey. I think we should stop here and switch cars. We’d be sitting ducks if we go back to Ana and Eduardo’s neighborhood without knowing anything.”
“True,” Leanna said, yawning. She’d nodded off but kept jerking herself awake every mile or so. “Especially if Scabby goes back to Monterrey with my phone in his van.”
“That means we can track it,” Axe said, wondering if it would lead to Carmelita.
Leanna elbowed him. “You had a tracker on my phone. Didn’t you say El Bardo had your phone? He must have used it to find me.”
Axe raised both hands off the steering wheel. “Guilty. Yes, but now, we can track Scabby and the crew. If they really have Carmelita, we can get a bead on their location.”
“As long as my battery lasts,” Leanna said. “I last recharged it right before the shooting.”
“Good, then you can download the phone tracking app and enter your account. Let’s see where your phone is going.”
She pulled out the burner he gave her, swiped and tapped, then said, “It’s offline. Scabby must have turned it off. Last known location is back in Monterrey, near Ana and Eduardo’s house. They must have taken the highway and beat us back. Let’s go get it.”
“Not yet,” Axe said. “We need to ditch this pickup and wait to hear from our fathers. You texted him the new number?”
“Not yet, but I’ll call my mother,” Leanna said. “What about Carmelita? Where do we think she is?”
