Louise studied a napkin she’d folded into a swan. “Every girl on campus was in love with him, but he was so quiet, so … withdrawn.”
“He was really smart, you know?” Chrystal added. “I’d always taken him for a slacker. He wore a lot of layers.”
“Hoodies,” Louise said in agreement. “Always had hoodies on with the hood up. He got in trouble for that constantly. But he kept doing it.”
“Every day in class,” Chrystal said, taking her turn, “he would try to get away with his hood up, and every day in class, the teacher would tell him to put it down.”
Louise leaned into me, a sparkle in her dark brown eyes. “Now, what you have to understand is that even in the short amount of time that he was there, this became a ritual. Not for him, not for the teachers, but for the girls.”
“The girls?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Chrystal said, nodding her head in dreamy remembrance. “There was a moment every day when you could have heard a pin drop. He would raise his hands and push the hood back, and it was like watching heaven reveal itself.”
I could see it in my head. His beautiful face revealed in such a way as to cause hearts to flutter, blood to rush, and young girls to sigh in choreographed unison.
After a bit of reminiscent thought, Louise said, “And he was so smart. He was in the same calculus class as our friend Holly, and he always blew the curve. Aced every test.”
“We had him for English and science. One day, Mr. Stone gave us this assessment,” Chrystal chimed in excitedly, “and Reyes got a hundred, and Mr. Stone accused him of cheating because some of the concepts weren’t even presented until college.”
“Oh, I remember that. Mr. Stone said there’s no way Reyes got a hundred on it. And Reyes was like, ‘Screw you, I didn’t cheat,’ and Mr. Stone was like, ‘Yes, you did,’ and he took Reyes to the principal.”
“Suzy worked as an aide that hour, remember?” Chrystal asked Louise. Louise nodded. “Said they went into the office and Mr. Stone got in trouble because the principal said Reyes gets hundreds on everything, and he had no right to accuse him of cheating.”
“Was he ever given an IQ test?” I asked.
“Yes,” Louise said. “The principal had him tested, and then these men showed up from some educational board wanting to talk to him, but Reyes’s family had moved away.”
Yeah, I was sure they did. Reyes’s father kept them on the move constantly. Dodging the authorities at every turn.
“I still can’t believe he killed his dad,” Chrystal said.
“He didn’t,” I said, wondering if my convictions were more wishful thinking than evidence based.
They looked up at me in surprise. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted them on my side. On Reyes’s side. I told them about the first night I saw him, about his father beating him senseless, and about the sister he’d left inside.
I paused when our food arrived, waiting for the server to leave before I continued. “That’s why we’re here. I need to find his sister.” I also explained what happened in prison and the fact that he was in a coma, but neither of them could remember very much about the girl. “She’s really the only one who can stop the state from terminating care. Do you know anyone who might have hung out with her?”
“Let me make some calls,” Louise said.
“Me, too. Maybe we can come up with something. How much time do you have?”
I looked at my watch. “Thirty-seven hours.”
* * *
On the way home, I called Cookie and told her to find me one Mr. Amador Sanchez. He seemed to be the only person who might know anything substantial about Reyes. It was late, but there were few things Cookie loved more than hunting down a warm-blooded American for me. Give her a name, and she was like a pit bull with a bone.
Right after I hung up, my cell rang. It was Chrystal. She and Louise remembered that her cousin, an eighth grader at the time, used to hang out with a girl who hung out with Reyes’s sister on occasion during lunch. Thin, but more than I had five minutes ago. They’d tried to call the cousin but couldn’t get through, so they left a message with my name and phone number.
After I took down her information and thanked them several thousand times, I ran into a supermarket for the basic essentials of life. Coffee, tortilla chips, and avocados for guacamole. One can never have too much guacamole.
When I stepped out of my Jeep, I heard my name and spun around to see Julio Ontiveros behind me. He was bigger than I remembered from the station.
I closed my door and went around to collect my bags. “You look better without your cuffs,” I said over my shoulder.
He followed me. “You look better without my cuffs, too.”
Uh-oh. Time to fend off amorous advances. I stopped to face him. May as well get this over with.
“Your brother’s medal from Desert Storm is in your aunt’s jewelry box.”
Disappointment flooded him. “Bullshit. I looked there.” He stepped closer, anger and worry that he’d been duped sparkling in his eyes.
“She said you’d say that,” I replied as I opened the back for my bags. “It’s not in that jewelry box. It’s in the one hidden in her basement. Behind the old freezer that doesn’t work.”
He paused and thought a moment. “I didn’t know she had another jewelry box.”
“No one does. She kept it hidden.” I hefted the two bags in one hand and went for the third. “And the diamonds are there, too.”