“Oh, they’ll definitely get ugly.” Javi’s eyes gleamed with menace.
“This willnotget ugly,” I said sternly. “The last thing we need is to do anything that might reflect badly on Vero. Picking a fight with a witness will only hurt her case.” Javi looked like he wouldn’t be above breaking a few kneecaps to jog Theo’s memory. For that matter, neither did Norma and Gloria. Someone had to be the voice of reason. “When we figure out where Theo lives,Iwill go and talk with him. I’m sure he can be persuaded to do the right thing… without bloodshed,” I added pointedly. “If Javi and Ramón want to come along, they can wait in the car.”
“And if Theo refuses to testify?” Javi asked.
“Then—and only then—will we consider less diplomatictactics.” Javi and Ramón weren’t the only ones who were willing to do whatever it took to get Vero back home where she belonged.
We all ducked at the crash of shattering glass. Something heavy hit the floor with athump.
Ramón and Javi bolted to their feet. They tore through the living room, unlocked the back door, and sprinted out of the house. The rest of us rose from the table, rattled. Shards of broken glass glistened in the carpet under a jagged hole in the living room window. A rock lay in the middle of the floor.
A bright white shoestring had been tied around it, holding a piece of paper in place.
“What does it say?” Gloria asked as Norma bent to pick it up.
Norma freed the slip of paper and squinted at it, holding it a full arm’s length in front of her. “Let me borrow your readers,” she said to Gloria. Gloria pulled a pair of neon-pink frames from her pocket and passed them to Norma. Gloria and I read the note over her shoulder.
You’re all thieves!
It was written in the same handwriting as the folded message in the envelope on Vero’s desk.
We started, hands to our hearts, as Javi and Ramón burst back into the house.
“We couldn’t find them,” Javi said, bent over his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.
“Did you get a look at their car?” I asked.
“Didn’t see one,” he answered. “They must have parked somewhere else and come on foot.”
“The camera didn’t catch anything either.” Ramón tossed the rumpled pillowcase at Vero. She looked guilty as she caught it against her chest.
“Maybe one of the neighbors saw something,” Gloria suggested.
“I already asked,” said Ramón. “Lenore doesn’t remember seeing any cars.”
“Lenore doesn’t remember her own name most days,” Vero pointed out.
“I asked Wendell, too. He was outside on his porch, smoking his cigar. But the only person he saw was Sophia on her way out for a jog.”
Javi’s attention snapped to Ramón. “Sophia’s back?”
Vero shot him a look of disgust. “Don’t look so excited to hear it.”
“I’m not! I just didn’t expect her to be home. That’s all.”
“Who’s So—”
Vero shushed me with a finger. “Don’t say her name. I hear it only takes three times to summon a demon.”
Gloria scolded her. “Don’t be ugly, Veronica. Sophia went to grade school with Javi and Ramón. She moved back in with her parents a few months ago. They live at the end of the block.”
“She’s no one we should be concerned with,” Vero said, glaring at Javi. “She’s got nothing to do with any of this. She didn’t even go to college.”
“I heard she found a job at Hooters,” Gloria said. “Sophia always did have a beautiful figure. Probably from all the working out.”
Vero scowled at her aunt. “All this talk about her is working out my last nerve.”
“We should at least talk to her,” I suggested. “Maybe she saw something.”
