Taken

12

The bathroom felt cold when Pike told me what he had found.

“Big group. Can’t tell how many, but more than ten. Two or three smaller vehicles came hard for the quad. Looks like three, but I can’t confirm.”

“The quad was there first? The others came after?”

“The quad wasn’t running. He was probably stopped when they hit.”

“They followed him?”

“Or knew he would come and waited nearby. He parked, people got out, the bad guys hit.”

“So everyone ran, but got rounded up and put back aboard?”

“Way it looks. At least one man went down. From the amount of blood, KIA.”

“Jesus.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything else on the kids?”

“No, but I can stay longer.”

I was thinking about it when a man in his thirties with neatly trimmed blond hair opened the door and told me Mr. Locano was ready. He had a faint Russian accent and wore a UCLA class ring. One of Locano’s associates. I told Pike I would call back, and followed the man to Mr. Locano’s office. As before, he was behind his desk when I arrived and came around to speak with me, but this time we did not sit.

He said, “There is a man.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Rudy Sanchez. Rudolfo. Mr. Sanchez is well established, and is known to deal with groups.”

“Thanks, Mr. Locano. This won’t get back to you.”

“Wait. You’ll want his address.”

He gave me a white index card on which he had written Sanchez amp; Sons Towing, along with a Coachella address. Both the address and the business surprised me.

“He lives in Coachella?”

“They tell me he’s an American, and the business is real.”

I put the card away. Maybe a man in the towing business would be confident driving a large truck over rough ground, but maybe the overlap of business and large trucks was only a coincidence. Maybe Krista’s Sanchez and Rudy Sanchez weren’t the same coyote, and maybe Mary Sue was wrong about Q COY SANCHEZ, and the Sanchez in the note wasn’t a coyote, but a shy flirt who was after Krista’s boyfriend. Rudy Sanchez might never have heard of Krista Morales, and she might never have heard of or contacted him.

I said, “I spoke with my associate while I was waiting. There appears to be evidence of some kind of abduction at the crash site.”

“Evidence the girl was taken?”

“Nothing specific to Krista Morales, no, sir, but what he’s found isn’t good.”

“Then let’s hope for the best.”

He pursed his lips as if wrestling with how much he wanted to say, then finally told me.

“Have you seen news accounts of the mass graves found south of the border?”

I nodded. Mass graves containing scores of murder victims were sometimes found, and were so horrific they made national news in the