Border Line Read online

  At first I thought she was looking at him. He stood still in the middle of the sidewalk staring at us. He was slight of frame—wiry—and wearing worn jeans and cowboy boots. But then I saw what must have frightened her—not far away from him two men stood side-by-side, eyes staring me down. Large white letters—POLICE and ICE—were emblazoned across their bulletproof vests.

  “Me puedes ayudar?” Will you help me?

  The woman thrust a little girl in a pink dress toward me. Before I could react, the woman turned and ran.

  “Wait!” I yelled and started after her right as a crowd of people poured out of a nearby bar arm-in-arm and singing. I couldn’t get past the rowdy throng on the crowded sidewalk.

  “Stop! Come back!” I yelled, standing on tiptoe to look for the woman’s dark head, but she’d already disappeared into the night.

  I turned back. James met my eyes. His were wide and then he glanced over at the girl. She stood immobile next to my Jeep, her thin body shaking, holding a ripped and dirty plastic bag in front of her. Her eyes trained on something behind me.

  2

  I turned, looking in the direction the girl was facing.

  The ICE agents were now running, coming straight toward us.

  With one last glance toward where the woman had fled, I popped open the back door of the Jeep, lifted the girl, and plunked her into the seat, locking and slamming the door.

  I was just about to open the driver’s door when the two ICE agents arrived at the Jeep. One pounded on the passenger side window where James stared back coolly. The ICE agent was young and attractive but looked mean. He had dark hair, heavy eyebrows, and thick lips. The other man rounded the Jeep just as I slipped inside, slammed the door, and locked it. He glared at me and held up his badge. He was also handsome and baby-faced. He had fair skin, and his reddish hair was cut close to the scalp.

  “Open up.”

  I cracked the window.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  I saw his eyes dart toward the back seat. I was grateful that, even though it was illegal, I’d outfitted the Jeep with the darkest tinted windows you could buy. The man could barely see me. I hoped he couldn’t see the girl cowering in the back seat.

  “Can I see your identification?”

  “Who are you?”

  He held up an identification card. Samuel J. Miller. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

  I was about to reply when James leaned over and slapped his own badge against the window. “San Francisco P.D. Is there a problem here?”

  The agent actually stepped back a few inches.

  James held the badge there for a second—a badge I didn’t realize he still had—and then removed it.

  “We were just about to make contact with a subject we believe is in the country illegally.” He cleared his throat after he spoke. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He was nervous.

  “What does that have to do with us?” I said.

  “We believe the subject’s child is in the back seat of your vehicle. Could you please step out and speak to us?”

  My heart raced up to my throat. Think fast, Santella.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We saw you put a child in the back seat of this vehicle.”

  “Yes?”

  “We believe she is the child of the illegal subject.”

  I laughed.

  “Do you mean my daughter?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Are you referring to our daughter?”

  “If we could just speak to the girl.”

  The other man, standing on the sidewalk near the passenger side window, glowered.

  “Who’s your partner?” I said.

  He heard me and held his badge up to the window—Gabriel Hernandez. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

  “Please remove the child from your vehicle so we can speak to her.”

  I waited to make sure my point got across crystal clearly. I bit the words out slowly: “No fucking way.”

  I raised an eyebrow and waited for them to argue. When they didn’t, I said. “I will not have you traumatize my child because of your stupidity.” I turned to James. “Do they have any legal right to speak to Maggie?”

  I had no idea where that name sprang from but James didn’t react.

  “Nope.” James folded his arms across his chest. I loved how he was right in step with me.

  I heard a small sound from the back seat and hoped the girl wouldn’t sit up and volunteer that Maggie was not, in fact, her name and that I was not her mother.

  But the kid was sharp.

  “Mama? What’s going on?” her little voice piped up from the back seat.

  Oh, my God. She was playing along, and she spoke English. With a thick-as-fuck accent, but still.

  The young man’s forehead crinkled.

  “Excuse me, but we’re already running late,” I said. “Step away from the vehicle. I’d hate to accidentally run over your foot.” I gave a wide, bright smile and started the car. Luckily, the space in front of me was empty, so I had a straight shot to pull back onto the road.

  Before he could respond, I put my foot on the gas and slid into traffic. I eyed my rearview mirror, watching the two men standing in the street, eyes trained on my vehicle. I saw one of them take out a cell phone and make a call. It wasn’t over yet.

  I drove, heart racing and eyes flickering to my rearview mirror for about three blocks and then pulled down a side street where I parked.

  I yanked off my seat belt and turned toward the back seat.

  “Come te llama?” I asked.

  “I speak English. My name is Rosalie.”

  “Rosalie, we are going to find your mother and get you back to her, okay?”

  A look of confusion spread across her face, and I wondered how much English she really understood. But her next words stopped me.

  “She says for me to live with you and James.”

  All the moisture disappeared from my mouth, and it felt like something was stuck in my throat. I tried to speak, but nothing came out at first.

  Finally, I sputtered, “What the—” fuck? I bit the curse off right before it spilled out. “How do you know his name?”

  James was now completely turned around. He seemed calmer than I was. Surprise, surprise. “Do I know your mother?” he asked.

  The girl shook her head, her black braids swinging.

  “Then how does she know me?”

  I was starting to hyperventilate.

  The girl shrugged. “No se. I mean, I don’t know.”

  Her eyes grew wide, and she was full-on crying now. She stayed silent as a stream of tears poured out.

  I needed to get my shit together. We were scaring this kid. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and then tried again.

  “Let’s start from the top,” I said, lowering my voice and making it as soothing as I could. “Okay, Rosalie. Did you say you were told to live with me and him?” I gestured toward James to make sure there was zero chance of confusion.

  She nodded, her chin nearly touching her chest.

  “Maybe I need to back up. What happened when you first came into America?”

  “The men in ICE came and put us in their truck. But then there was a car crash. The coyote hit their car. He helped us escape.”

  “Do you mean the car hit a coyote and crashed?”

  “No, el coyote. He took us from our home. The whole way. And then he crashed a car to help us get away from the border patrol, but then he tried to take me and Miguel fought him. We ran, but he took Miguel.”

  “Who is Miguel?”

  “Mi hermano. My brother.”

  “The coyote tried to take you?”

  “Si. I mean yes.”

  I exhaled heavily. “Okay. What’s the coyote’s name?”

  “They never tell. We pay them. My abuela, grandmother, in Guatemala, paid. To take us to America. Because what happened.”

  She looked down.

  “What hap
pened?”

  She swallowed. “They came to our house and killed everybody—my aunt, mi tia, and killed my papa and my tios, my uncles.”

  I sat back in shock. “Where were you?”

  “Under the bed. They beat up my abuela. She said she played dead.”

  “Where was your mama when all this happened?”

  The girl paused and looked off in the distance for a few seconds.

  “Where was your mother?”

  “I don’t know.”

  For some reason, I got the feeling she was lying. But I wasn’t sure about which part.

  “Oh, Rosalie. I’m so very, very sorry.”

  I’d heard of the atrocities in countries like Guatemala—the rapes and murders of entire families. It was why so many people from Central America were seeking asylum in America.

  “What happened then?”

  “We ran to the road. A woman in black made us get in her car.” She frowned as if trying to remember. “She took us to a store. She made us get in a car with another woman. With blonde hair. She took us here and then we found you.”

  It sounded really convoluted and possibly even fabricated, but the girl’s face was scrunched up in earnest as she told her story so I believed her.

  “How did the blonde woman know where to find us?”

  “The telephone. The woman in black called and told her.”

  I thought about that. The woman in black could only be one person. Eva. My aunt. I shook it off for a second. I’d come back to her.

  “So, the woman in black told you to find me?”

  “Si. She said I would know you for sure because of the scar.”

  My hand self-consciously raised to the long scar that ran from my cheekbone up to my hairline. King’s mark on me.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seven.”

  “Can you tell me what the woman in black looked like?”

  The girl looked off as if remembering. “Bonita. Pretty.” The girl squinted. “Maybe like you? Your mother?”

  “Mi tia.” My aunt.

  The girl nodded.

  “Eva?” James frowned. “You mean the queen—”

  “Okay then.” I cut him off before he said it. The Queen of Spades.

  “Your aunt is a queen?” The girl didn’t miss a beat.

  I laughed. “No. It’s just a nickname.”

  “Oh.” Rosalie’s face fell.

  In Sicily, finding a Jack of Spades on your doorstep was a message from the mafia to mind your own business. If you found the Queen of Spades, you were marked for death.

  Eva had taken on her moniker, The Queen of Spades, when she adopted the mafia tradition of leaving a playing card—the Queen of Spades—to warn her victims she was coming after them. She often killed them without warning and then left the card on the dead body. It was, literally, her calling card.

  In Sicily, where my parents were from, Eva was a legend. She was a female Robin Hood, taking from—okay, let’s face it, murdering—the rich and giving to the poor. When she was young, she took on all the mafia bosses single-handedly. I didn’t know her entire story, but I knew she also kept close tabs on me and what was going on in my life, so I wasn’t completely surprised to hear she was in Southern California, enacting her own brand of justice. But I was surprised she sent this girl to me.

  I was about to question Rosalie even more when I saw a squad car pull onto the far end of the street.

  James saw it too. “Let’s get out of here in case they ask questions about a guy flashing a fake cop badge.”

  I gunned the motor, keeping an eye on the police car in my rearview mirror. “Fake?”

  “It’s not fake, I guess. It’s just expired.”

  “Expired?” I was being a pest, I knew it. “I never knew you had that. And that you carry it around.” I wondered if he’d whipped it out before. “Don’t they take it away to prevent things just like that from happening?”

  “Like what?”

  If he was going to be difficult I was going to spell it out. Fine.

  “Like people who are not working as cops using a police badge to get their way?”

  “They felt sorry for me. Let me keep it.” His voice had grown quiet.

  I supposed when members of a police force shoot and paralyze a fellow officer based on orders from a corrupt cop, you might find one or two upstanding cops still in the department trying to do the right thing.

  Reaching over, I squeezed his hand, but he gently pulled it away and turned to me with a smile. No pity allowed. Ever.

  “Besides,” he said. “It’s come in handy in my new business.”

  “Impersonating a police officer? Oh no, James.” That’s when I noticed that a black sedan that had been behind me in the Mission district, was still behind me now that I was entering the Castro.

  He smirked. “Wow, haven’t things changed?”

  I glared at him.

  It wasn’t so long ago that I was convinced we would never work out as a couple because he was such a goody-two-shoes cop, and I was a law breaker. Actually, way worse than a law-breaker. Because of me there were a few bodies “swimming with the fishes” as my Mafioso friends would say. But every death at my hands was justified. I’d swear that on my mother’s grave.

  But James was right. Now I was the one worried about the law. I turned left. The black car followed, about four cars behind.

  “Fine,” I said. “Just don’t get caught.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  I made a sudden left turn.

  “Jesus,” James said, gripping the armrest.

  “Hang tight. We might have a tail.”

  The tires squealed as I whipped a hard-right hand turn. I sped down the alley and made another right and then another back onto the first street. I was hoping to end up behind the black car. And I did.

  It was slowing and made the first right I’d taken. I sped up and made the right turn down the alley, but didn’t see the black car. I floored it.

  “What the…?” James said. I came to a screeching halt where the alley met the next road and looked both ways. The black car was gone.

  “Damn.”

  “Gia!”

  “We lost them!” I shook my head.

  “Wasn’t that the point?”

  “No.”

  That’s when I caught sight of the girl’s eyes in my rearview mirror. She was terrified.

  I pulled over to the side of the road and half-turned in my seat.

  “I’m so sorry. Did that scare you? My driving? I know it was a little crazy.”

  “Are they gone?”

  That’s when realization struck me. She wasn’t afraid of how I was driving. She was scared of whomever was after her.

  “We need to get you back to your mother. Did she say where she was going?”

  “Si.”

  I whipped my head around. The one question I hadn’t asked.

  “Where?”

  “Autobús.”

  I yanked the steering wheel, made a U-turn, and headed for the bus station on Folsom Street. I slowed to a stop out front. I couldn’t see a thing inside the terminal. The squat building was set back from the street and had corrugated steel siding. I was about to ask James to hop out and run inside but stopped myself in time. I grabbed his disabled placard from the center console, set it on the dash, flicked on my hazards, and jumped out.

  “Be right back.”

  Inside, the station was nearly deserted. One guy was bundled up snoring in the corner surrounded by three large duffel bags. He was probably homeless and would get kicked out soon. In another corner, a family sat speaking what sounded like Korean, although my knowledge of the language was limited.

  I headed toward the woman behind the counter who gave me a look with large hound dog eyes. Her light brown, curly hair was pulled back so tight I wondered if it gave her a headache.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “May I help you?”

  “Yeah. I
’m looking for a friend. She was supposed to get on the bus tonight or tomorrow for L.A. or San Diego, if you go that far, but she forgot something.”

  “We go that far.”

  “You do? Cool.” I stared at her. She stared back. She wasn’t giving an inch.

  “I was hoping to catch her before she left. What are the times for those buses?”

  “We got a 10 p.m. coming up, and that’s it until tomorrow morning at nine.”

  “Cool. What time did your last bus leave?” I put my palm flat on the counter between us.

  “Seven thirty.”

  There’s no way the woman could’ve caught that one since I saw her around eight.

  “Did a woman with dark hair and a floral shirt buy a ticket for the ten o’clock bus.”

  She stared at me.

  I pushed my palm forward, sliding it on the counter and then lifting a few fingers to show the twenty underneath.

  The woman didn’t turn her head, but her eyes flickered from left to right. I noticed a security camera directly behind her. She picked up a piece of paper and put it over my hand. I removed my hand so the money stayed underneath the paper.

  “I think that ten o’clock bus might be empty.”

  She slid the paper with the money underneath toward her.

  “How can I find out if it leaves here empty? I’d really like to make sure this woman gets what she forgot. She’ll be very sad to go home without it.”

  The woman yawned. “Ticket office closes at ten. Nobody can get a ticket after that.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I glanced at my phone. It was nine.

  “One more question. Is this the only place to wait for the bus?” I glanced around the room.

  “’Less you want to wait outside, then yes.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Before I walked outside, I poked my head in both the men’s and women’s bathrooms. They were empty.

  I went back out to the Jeep and stopped at the passenger side. James rolled down the window and winked. “Hey, cutie.”

  I peeked in the back. Rosalie was staring right at me.