“I’m pretty good with computers,” Cam offered. “Maybe I can help.”
“You’ve helped enough.” Ramón and Javi emerged from the basement. Ramón glared at Cam. “What the hell is he still doing here?”
“That’s no way to talk to Vero’s friend,” Gloria scolded him. “Cam will be joining us for dinner.”
Ramón dipped a spoon into the Crock-Pot and blew off the steam. “Javi and I have plans.”
“Then you’ll just have to cancel them,” Norma said. “Your mother and I have to go out, and I don’t want Vero and Finlay here alone while that lunatic vandal is out there, hurling stones at our house.”
“Why can’t one of you stay with her?” Ramón asked as he tested my cooking.
“Because we’re going to work,” Norma said at the same time Gloria said, “Because we have a date.”
Ramón choked. He dropped his spoon into the sink and pounded his chest. “Who has a date?”
“Your mother,” Norma said, as Gloria said, “Your tía.”
He side-eyed them both. “Which is it?”
“We’ll be out late,” Norma said, “and the rest is none of yourbusiness. I expect you and Javi to stay here and keep an eye on the house while we’re gone.”
Ramón muttered a swear and Gloria swatted the back of his head. “Language,” she reminded him.
Vero’s gaze slid shrewdly to Cam. “Cam’s staying for dinner anyway,” she reminded her cousin. “If you let him stick around for a few hours to work on your camera problem, you and Javi can do whatever dumb thing you were planning to do tonight. It’s not like I can leave the house anyway.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gloria agreed.
Norma nodded decisively. “Then it’s settled. Cam will sleep on the air mattress with Ramón and Javi in the basement. I don’t like the idea of him driving back to Virginia so late at night.” She held up a finger when Ramón started to argue. “It’s the least we can do after he offered to help fix the cameras, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. You can leave after you eat. Dinner is ready. We shouldn’t let it get cold.”
The table was unusually quiet during the meal. Everyone ate quickly, and no one but Cam went back for seconds. I hoped that wasn’t a reflection of my cooking, rather that some of us were preoccupied with our plans for the night. I wasn’t sure what Vero was plotting, but I knew her well enough to recognize trouble brewing when I saw it.
She watched everyone out of the corners of her eyes as she lingered in the kitchen, scrubbing the dishes. Norma and Gloria excused themselves right after the meal, changing into dressy mom-jeans and lightweight cardigans, then reminding us all to lock the door as they hurried out of the house. Javi and Ramón were next to leave. They looked like avenging angels in tight-fitting tees and dark jeans, their battle scars from the bar brawl on full display. Ramón shrugged on his leather jacket. Javi leaned toward Vero for a kiss. When she refused to so much as look at him, he quietly slunk out of the house.
Vero watched them through the window. The second Ramón’s van pulled away from the curb, she grabbed a roll of duct tape from a closet in the hall.
“What are you doing?” I asked, chasing her up the stairs. She darted into the bathroom, opened the cabinet, and took out three small boxes of tampons. Then she carried everything to her room and turned the boxes upside down, showering her comforter with feminine hygiene products. She flung open her closet and snatched a leather belt from her shelf.
The duct tape shrieked as she pulled it from the roll and began affixing the empty tampon boxes to the belt strap. She covered them completely with layers of silver adhesive. When she was finished, they looked exactly like the battery packs Cam had taped to her spoofing belt a few hours ago.
“Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”
“I’m making a belt,” Vero said, “exactly like the one Cam made for me.”
“And you plan to make it work how? With the power of your flow?”
“This is just a dummy,” she said, rolling her eyes at me as she tore off the last strip of tape with her teeth. “It just has tolooklike the one Ramón took from me. I’m going to swap this belt for the real one. When my cousin gets home and asks where we are, Cam will tell him I went to bed early and you went home to check on the kids. Ramón will see the fake belt, right where he left the real one, and he won’t suspect a thing.”
“And where arewegoing to be?”
“Weare going to Theo’s.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?”
I followed her as she carried her phony belt downstairs to her cousin’s bedroom. She checked his dresser drawers first, then under his bed, searching for the belt he’d confiscated earlier.
“It’s probably in his van,” I pointed out. “He wouldn’t just leave it where he thinks you might find it.”
“No,” Vero agreed with a mischievous grin, “he’d leave it in a place he thinks I don’t know about.” She got down on her knees in front of the floor vent and plucked off the cover. She reached a hand deep into the air duct, her grin widening as she retrieved the transmitter belt. Triumphant, she held it in the air and blew off the dust. She fed the fake one into the hole, careful to leave the end where Ramón could see it if he shined a light inside to make sure it was there. “Ramón and Javi used to hide weed in here when we were in high school. I used to spy on the two of them—mostly on Javi,” she admitted as she wrapped Cam’s belt around her waist. “I spotted them stuffing a joint down here once when they thought Aunt Gloria was going to bust them. They still have no idea I—”
