The one for unit three has no car, and we are left to wonder if anyone is home.
"Maybe she doesn't drive," says Susan.
"Maybe we've got the wrong place," I tell her.
"No." Susan is certain of this. She is reading the instructions on the can of ether, trying to make sure we don't overdo it.
"Do you know how to use that stuff?"
"Put it on the cloth and hold it over her mouth and nose," she says.
Susan has purloined a small washcloth from the hotel for this purpose.
"All we want to do is put her out for a few seconds," she says, "get her on the floor until we can tape her mouth, tie her hands and feet."
"You better make sure you don't breathe while you're holding it on her face," I tell her.
"I know."
"And if she's smoking, forget it. That stuff will go up like a zeppelin."
Like two moron outlaws, we're sitting in a rented car reading the instructions off the back of a can on how to kidnap somebody.
I've seen others with similar streaks of brilliance, all long-time and repeat customers of various correctional institutions. "One question."
"What?" Susan says it with some irritation.
"What if it makes her sick? What if she throws up?" This is something Susan hasn't thought about: Jessica drowning in her own vomit with tape over her mouth. She puts the can back in the large beach bag on the floor next to her purse, hiding it under the washcloth next to the rope and duct tape.
"Okay. We don't use the ether. We'll just have to talk our way through,"
she says.
Despite her steely resolve, Susan is beginning to lose her nerve.
"If she puts up a fight, we'll just have to tape her mouth before she makes too much noise."
"I'll hold her. You can tape her sharp, pointy little teeth," I say.
Susan gives me a noxious smile. "We can't afford to leave her free to call the cops. We'd never get to the airport."
"I know." We have checked the flight schedules out of Los Cabos. There is nothing to San Diego, but there is a night flight to L.A. It departs a little after nine, which doesn't give us much time.
We have studied the pictures of Jessica and Amanda from the file, the ones Jonah showed me from his wallet that first time he came to my office.
If somehow we've got the wrong place, if it's not Jessica and Amanda, the plan is we are out of here in a heartbeat, offer some story about viewing the unit, and leave, but only after we've seen the child.
The condo units each have a single entrance, no back doors.
The units are small, a lot of rooms in a compact space. On the back side, as you climb the steep incline of the hill, the property turns to rock: sandstone and desert brush.
An old concrete water tank is embedded into the hillside about halfway up the back road. Somebody has spray-painted graffiti in black letters across the front of it. We park just off the road in the shadows of this tank. I pull the lever on the side of my seat and cline while we wait.
It is almost seven twenty-nine when a light comes on in a window of one of the units.
"Is that it?"
"Yes." I sit upright in the driver's seat.
"At least we know there's somebody home," she says.
"Maybe. It could be a light on a timer." I'm looking at my watch.
The illumination suddenly changes, subtle flashes on the window shade.
Somebody's watching a television inside.
We leave the car where it is. Grinding gravel under the tires as we slowed down to park in the space behind the unit would only draw attention.
Susan grabs the beach bag and her purse, slings them both over her right shoulder. She is wearing shorts and sensible shoes: Nikes designed for running.
We start up the road. It's about a hundred yards from the water tank to the condos. We watch in silence the flashes of light dance on the window shade as we draw closer. When we reach the small leveled parking area behind unit three, we can hear the sound of the TV inside, the purple dramatic music of some Mexican soap, followed by the quick clip of Spanish as they try to sell something in a commercial. If it's her, Jessica has clearly picked up some Spanish in her stay. I try to get a glimpse through the window. Nothing. The shade is drawn tight.
We work our way around the building, toward the entrance at the front.
From here we can see the pool below, and lights on in some of the other units, as well as the knee-high shafts of illumination from garden lamps along the path leading down.
"Let me knock on the door." Susan whispers in my ear as we head down the narrowing path. I let her take the lead.
The door is painted Chinese red, and Susan taps on it with her knuckles.
I can tell that it's too light. Whoever's inside didn't hear.
Susan tries again, this time louder.
Suddenly the television goes mute. There are footsteps on the other side of the door. I expect it to open a crack, cautious eyes peering out from behind a security chain. Instead the door opens wide, and before we can say a word, the woman standing there turns her back and walks away. I don't even get a good look at her.
"You're early," she says. "I didn't expect you till eight." She says it as she walks with her back to us through the shadows of the dark living room, toward a door on the other side, a well-lit room.
She leaves us standing on the porch with the door wide open.
"I'm packed. Just one bag. That what you said, right?" She shouts from the other room.
"Right." I look at Susan. She's as puzzled as I am. Still, we step inside and close the door behind us.
We follow the path the woman took through the living room.
I'm in Susan's ear: "Don't say anything."
"I just have to write a check. Take me a minute," says the woman.
We come through the doorway into the kitchen. She is leaning over the countertop, pen in hand, filling out a check. The small television, maybe thirteen inches, one like Susan used to own, is turned off. It's pushed under the overhead cabinets on a corner of the countertop for viewing from the kitchen table.
"Where did you park? I didn't hear your car."
"Just down the hill," I tell her.
"Take me a minute," she says. "You people '-eally complicate things. Now I gotta pay the movers." She looks up from the counter.
The overhead fluorescents light up the features of her face. For the first time, I get a clear view.
"Are you sure we can't take my stuff with us? I just have the TV a laptop, and some clothes." Her hair is dark, longer, not the pixie blond from Jonahs photograph, and the clothes are different, more refined, a black pants outfit and high heels, but the face is similar, something about the eyes. She has Jessica's fine features, thin nose, and high cheekbones.
And the height looks about right. It could be her, but I'm not sure.
"Sorry. There's no room in the car," I tell her. It seems to be what she's expecting, so I give it to her.
"Yeah. I know. Same old shit," she says. "Assholes are probably gonna steal all my stuff." It's not clear whether she's talking about us, or the movers.
"You're gonna have to stop on the way out of town, though, so I can mail it." I don't say anything, so she looks at me again. I nod.
"Where's the child?" As soon as the words are out of my mouth Susan does a double-take, like she wasn't expecting me to be this direct.
It doesn't faze the gal with the checkbook. She keeps on writing.
"Sweetheart, come on out here. We're getting ready to go." As I turn I see a little boy in the doorway, slender shoulders, dark brown hair, a few freckles around the nose. He's wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, high-top sport shoes like every kid I know, laced up only halfway with the baggy bottom of his pant legs caught on them.
The tension goes out of my body like an inverted hot-air balloon.
I look over at Susan, wondering what the hell's going on, about to tell her it's time to leave.
When I do, Susan's not there. She's down on one knee.
"Honey. How are you?" At first the child doesn't say anything. Then in a restrained, tiny voice: "I'm okay." I look at the child again. When I do, I realize it's not a boy at all, but a little girl dressed up to look like a boy. The long hair is gone, and it's a different color, but the face, as I concentrate, is Amanda Hale's.
In that moment so much happens. Susan puts her arms around the child, lips to Amanda's ear, and in a whisper that is barely audible to me three feet away, "Your grandma and grandpa sent us." Amanda's eyes light up.
"Who are you? You get the hell out of here." Jessica throws the checkbook at me. I catch it an inch from my face, ballplayer shagging a hot line drive.
She heads for Susan and the child, fingernails flaring, but I catch her from behind before she can get there, swing her around and pin her against the counter. She is wiry and strong for her size, flailing, trying to reach back over her head to scratch me, feet off the ground, kicking, calling me names, epithets I would not repeat.
Susan still has her purse and the beach bag over her shoulder.
She reaches in the bag and comes out with the tape.
"Leave my mom alone." Amanda's now hitting me in the behind, little overhand punches hardly perceptible, child's imitation of an eggbeater.
Still, I feel like a thug.
Susan comes around the other side of the counter, the roll of tape in one hand. "Hold her still."
"No. Don't." I stop her. Instead I snap Jessica around, do it quickly so that she can't get a free hand.
Now she's facing me. Spits at me. Dry mouth. She tries to knee me in the groin, but misses. I grab her by the arms just above the elbow and block her knees with my thigh.
"Let me tape her hands behind her," says Susan.
"No." Taping or tying Jessica, leaving her here is no longer an option.
I look her in the eye. "Listen to me. I only have time to say this once.
The people who are coming here are coming to kill you. Do you understand what I'm saying? They're going to kill you and whoever else happens to be around at the time." I glance down at Amanda, who has slid around me, and is now clinging to her mother's side.
"Who are you?"
"Never mind that."
"You work for my father, don't you?" She's figured out that much.
"The only thing you need to know is that I don't work for Esteban Ontaveroz."
"Esteban?"
"There's no time to talk," I tell her.
"Why should I believe you? All you wanna do is take my child."
"If that's all we wanted, you'd be on the floor gagged and bound," says Susan.
"Why would Esteban want me? I didn't tell them anything." She's talking about the authorities.
"It's what he thinks you might tell them that has him worried."
"Stick around a few more minutes and we can all discuss it with him,"
says Susan.
She has a point.
"How did he find me?"
"There's no time to talk about that now."
"It couldn't be him," she says. "It was Suade's people who called me."
"Suade is dead!" I feel a shiver go through her body. The expression on her face is like she has been sucker-punched, a dazed look.
"She was murdered nearly three months ago," says Susan. "It's been in all the papers up north. Don't you read?"
"I don't get the papers down here." She's no longer struggling. I loosen my grip on her arms. Step away, just a few inches. Amanda takes the opportunity, snuggles in closer to her mother.
"What about the TV?" I nod toward the set on the counter.
"The dish outside is broken. Spanish station's all I get."
"The man who called you, did you recognize his voice?" says Susan.
Jessica shakes her head, looking around at the walls of the kitchen as if for answers.
"When did he call?" I ask.
"Late this morning," she says.
"When?"
"I don't know. Maybe eleven. Just before noon." It's clear they couldn't have called from here in town. They would have been here by now.
"We don't have time to talk about it." I grab Jessica by the arm, pushing her toward the door.
"Who killed Suade?" She stops, turns and looks at me, wanting to discuss this.
I don't tell her that her father is charged with the crime.
"Esteban?" she says.
"That would be my guess," I tell her. "Looking for you."
"Oh, shit." She looks at Amanda. "We gotta go. Gotta get outta here."
She's finally getting it. Reality is setting in.
Absently, I pick up the checkbook that's fallen on the floor. I try to hand it to Jessica, but she's already out the door, pushing Amanda ahead of her.
"The car's down the back road," I tell her.
Jessica grabs a purse hanging over the back of a chair in the living room. Susan's carrying the beach bag and her purse. Suddenly she realizes she's left the tape on the counter. She turns for it.
"Leave it." I push her out of the kitchen ahead of me, as I take one last glimpse at my watch in the light. If Jessica was expecting them in half an hour, they're running late.
We race through the living room, out the front door, not bothering to close it behind us, and head up the path toward the parking area behind the condos. Susan's in the lead. Somehow she's gotten ahold of Amanda.
The child is running full out, her little legs struggling to keep up. I position Jessica ahead of me, where I can watch her. She's having trouble in heels.
We've covered about twenty-five yards, a quarter of the distance down the dirt road to the concrete cistern and the Jeep, when a set of headlights suddenly veers onto the road below us. The dust kicked up by our feet hangs in the light like lasered smoke. Before we can move, the four of us are framed in the dual beams of light.
Whoever is driving hesitates. The car comes to a grinding halt.
It just sits there, its engine idling, headlights staring at us. For a sees and I think maybe they're just nosing onto the road, making a Uturn.
Then suddenly the car lurches forward, wheels kicking up dust, throwing gravel.
Instinctively, we know. Susan is first; she turns and starts to run up the road pulling the child behind her. She stops, tries to pick up Amanda, but the child is too heavy. I grab Susan by the arm, push her in the direction of the condos, and scoop up the girl in my arms.