Cry No More Read online

  To find Diaz, said an old man warning her away from her quest, was to find death. Best to stay far away from him. Diaz knew about, or was behind, the disappearance of many. She heard that the one-eyed man’s name was Diaz. No, that was wrong; the one-eyed man worked for Diaz. Or Diaz had killed the one-eyed man for mistakenly snatching an American baby and causing such a furor.

  Milla had heard all of that, and more. People seemed afraid to talk about him, but she asked questions and waited, and eventually some sort of muttered reply would come. Even after all this time, she still had no clear idea of who or what he was, only that he was somehow involved in Justin’s disappearance.

  “Someone’s setting Diaz up for a fall,” Brian said suddenly.

  “I know.” There was no other reason for that phone call, and that worried her. She didn’t want to get involved in a plot of betrayal and revenge. First and foremost, she wanted to find Justin. That was what Finders concentrated on, finding the lost ones, the stolen ones; if justice was served, fine, but that was police business. She never hindered an investigation, in fact often helped, but her objective was simply to return children to their families.

  “If things turn ugly, we’ll just stay low and out of sight,” she said.

  “What if it turns out he’s the one you’ve been looking for all these years?”

  Milla closed her eyes, unable to answer. It was one thing to say they’d stay out of whatever trouble was brewing, but what if Diaz was indeed the one-eyed man who had stolen Justin? She didn’t know if she could control her rage, which still seethed and bubbled inside her like a hidden volcano. She couldn’t just kill him; she needed to talk to the man, even if he was the one, to find out what he’d done with her baby. But oh, how she wanted to kill him. She wanted to tear him apart as surely as he’d torn her apart.

  Because she had no answer, she concentrated on the here and now. She could do that; she’d gotten by for ten years by focusing just on what she could do right now. She and Brian were tired, hungry, and they faced a long night. Nothing she could do about the last point, but she dug into their stash of PayDay candy bars and opened one for each of them. The peanuts in the candy bar would give them energy. Now that he knew the candy was going to be his supper, instead of the steak he’d been fantasizing aloud about all the way home, Brian grabbed the PayDay and downed it in three bites. Milla handed him another one, which lasted slightly longer.

  She always carried fruit on the jobs, too, but because they thought they were headed home, she’d allowed the supply to get low. They were down to one banana. She peeled it and broke it in half. Brian was already reaching for it before she got the thing peeled.

  “Anything else?” he asked after he’d allowed her to eat her half.

  “Let’s see. Two more PayDays. A roll of Life Savers. And two bottles of water. That’s it.”

  He grunted. They’d need the PayDays to keep them going on the trip home. “Guess that’s supper, then.” He was clearly unhappy. Brian was a big boy who required constant refueling.

  She wasn’t thrilled with the idea, herself. She opened the bottles of water, but they drank only a few sips each. The last thing either one wanted now was an overloaded bladder.

  They had been to Guadalupe before, but she went through the box of maps until she found one that included the town, and studied the layout of the place. “I wonder how many churches are in Guadalupe. I can’t remember.”

  “I hope to God only one, since that guy didn’t give us a name. Give me that roll of Life Savers.”

  She handed over the Life Savers and Brian tore into the roll. He didn’t let the candy melt in his mouth; he put in three or four at the time, and crunched.

  Milla got out her cell phone and called their contact in Juarez, Benito—no last name had ever been given. Benito was a whiz at providing them with wheels whenever they needed them, and not the rental agency variety of wheels, either. Benito specialized in beat-up, rickety pickup trucks that no one paid attention to, and which weren’t likely to be vandalized if left on the street unattended. That was because there was nothing left to vandalize in Benito’s vehicles. They were bare-bones, really not worth stealing. But they ran, and the one he delivered to them on his side of the border would be full of gas. The paperwork was always in order, too, in case they were stopped by the police.

  Arranging for weapons was trickier. The Finders didn’t often have a need for weapons, and doing this always made her uneasy. Mexico had strict weapons laws; not that there weren’t plenty of weapons to be had; it was just that if they were caught with guns, they’d be in very deep doo-doo. She didn’t like breaking the law, but when you were dealing with human snakes, you had to be prepared. She reached their contact for illegal weapons and placed her order: nothing fancy, just basic self-protection. She never knew exactly what would be provided, but she expected cheap .22 revolvers, which they would dispose of before they returned to the States.

  As she had expected, it was seven-thirty and getting dark by the time they parked the SUV, walked across the bridge, and cleared their paperwork. Benito was waiting patiently for them with a truly remarkable excuse for a truck, an ancient Ford that was more rust than painted metal. There was no tailgate, the passenger door was wired shut—presumably to keep it on the truck—and the windshield was held in place with duct tape. Literally. Despite their hurry, both Milla and Brian had to stop and blink at the derelict.

  “You’ve outdone yourself this time, Benito,” Brian said in awe.

  Benito grinned broadly, showing the gap where he was missing a tooth. He was short and wiry, age anywhere between forty and seventy, and he had the most consistently cheerful expression Milla had ever seen. “I try,” he said, with a New York accent. Benito had been born in Mexico, but his parents had crossed the border with him when he was small, and he had very few early memories of the land of his birth. Later he returned to his roots and settled down very happily, but he couldn’t shake his accent. “The horn doesn’t work, and if the headlights don’t come on when you pull out the knob, push it back in real hard and then kind of ease it out again. You gotta get the knot in just the right position.”

  “Does it have a motor, or do we have to push it with our feet?” Milla asked, peering inside. She was only half joking, because part of the floor had rusted out and she could see the ground.

  “Now, the motor’s a work of art. It purrs like a kitten, and there’s more power than you’d expect. Might come in handy.” He never asked questions about where they were going or what they were doing, but he knew what the Finders did.

  Milla opened the driver’s door and climbed in, gingerly scooting across the seat and avoiding the hole in the floor. Brian handed her the case containing the two nightscopes, the one blanket, dark green, they’d had in the SUV, and the two bottles of water; she securely stowed everything while he slid behind the wheel.

  The truck was so old there weren’t any seat belts; if the traffic police stopped them, they would almost certainly have to pay a fine. As Benito had promised, however, the engine turned over at the first turn of the key. Brian maneuvered through Juarez’s busy streets, then stopped in front of a farmacia, a drugstore. Milla waited in the truck while he went inside, where he met their contact, a woman they knew only as Chela. She was very distinguished-looking, neatly dressed, and looked to be in her late forties. She gave Brian a Sanborn’s shopping bag; he passed her some money so slickly that no one knew the transaction had taken place; then he was back in the truck and they were on their way to Guadalupe.

  Darkness had fallen by then, and he fiddled with the knob for the headlights until they came on. Driving in Mexico at night wasn’t recommended, for anyone. Not only was that when most highway robberies occurred, but the heat retained in the pavement drew livestock to the highways. Hitting a horse or a cow was never good, for either animal or vehicle. There were also potholes and other hazards, which were more difficult to see at night. To make driving even more adventurous, Mexicans somet