Lola brightened at being able to impart some good news. “No, no, that was later. Different babies.”
Not Justin. He was alive. Alive! After all these years, she finally knew for certain. A sob caught in her throat and now she did bury her head against Diaz, almost breaking down at the release of an unspoken, unceasing tension that had held her for ten years. He made a low, wordless sound of comfort, then returned his attention to Lola.
“Who was in charge of stealing the babies? Who owned the plane? Who paid you?”
She blinked at the barrage of questions. “Lorenzo paid me. I was paid from his portion.”
“Who was the boss?”
She shook her head. “That I do not know. He was a rich gringo; he owned the plane. But I never saw him, or heard his name. Lorenzo was very careful; he said his throat would be cut if he told. This gringo, he told Pavón how many babies he needed, and Pavón found them.”
“Stole them,” Milla corrected violently, her voice muffled against Diaz’s shirt.
“What happened to Lorenzo?” Diaz asked.
“His throat was cut, señor. By Pavón. Just as he said it would be. He did not talk to me, but he must have said something to someone else. Lorenzo, he was always stupid. His throat was cut as a warning to others not to talk.”
“Who else knew anything about the rich gringo?”
Lola shook her head. “I knew only Lorenzo, and Pavón. They said it was best. I do know there was another woman helping them, a gringa, but they never said her name. She did something with the paperwork that said where the babies were born.”
“Do you know where she was? What state?”
Lola waved a vague hand. “Across the border. Not Texas.”
“New Mexico?”
“Perhaps. I don’t remember. Sometimes I tried not to listen, señor.”
“Do you know where the rich gringo lived?”
Alarm flashed across her face. “No, no. I know nothing about him.”
“You heard something.”
“Truly, no. Lorenzo thought he lived in Texas, perhaps even El Paso, but he did not know for certain. Pavón knows, but Lorenzo never did.”
“Have you heard where Pavón might be?”
Lola spat again. “I have no interest in that pig.”
“Take an interest,” Diaz advised her. “I will perhaps feel more friendly if you have information about Pavón when I return.”
Lola looked horrified at the idea of Diaz returning. She looked wildly around her cluttered, nasty, dark little room, as if wondering how fast she could pack up her things and disappear.
Diaz gave a slight shrug. “You can run,” he said. “But why bother? If I want to find you, Lola Guerrero, I will. Eventually. And I never forget who helps me, and who does not.”
Lola nodded her head very fast. “I understand, señor. I will be here. And I will listen for news.”
“Do that.” Diaz loosened his arm that was around Milla, turning her toward the door.
Milla dug in her heels, glancing back at the woman who had helped steal her baby. “How could you do it?” she asked, pain lacing every word. “How could you help them steal children from their mothers?”
Lola shrugged. “I am a mother, too, señora. I am poor. I needed the money to feed my own babies.”
She was lying. As old as Lola was now, even ten years ago her youngest child would have been, if not grown, at least an adolescent. Milla stared at her, frozen in place by fury that roared through her with the force of an avalanche. She could have at least understood if there had been babies to feed, but obviously Lola had done it purely for the money. This was no victim, no poor and desperate mother doing whatever she could to feed her children. This woman was as bad as her brother Lorenzo, as Pavón. She had been part and parcel of the scheme, a willing participant in robbing grieving mothers all over Mexico of their babies.
“You lying bitch,” Milla said through clenched teeth, and hurled herself toward the woman.
She must have telegraphed her intentions, because Lola sidestepped and quick as a flash had Milla’s arm twisted up behind her and a knife at her neck. “Stupid,” she hissed in Milla’s ear, and the knife pressed harder. Milla felt the cold sting on her neck.
Then there was a faint snick, the sound of a safety being thumbed off, and Lola froze in place.
“It seems your family has a propensity for the knife,” Diaz said very softly, his voice scarcely more than a rustle. “Mine, however, has a propensity for bullets.”
Off balance in more ways than one, Milla cut her eyes to the left and saw Diaz holding that big pistol flush against Lola’s temple. There was no quiver in his hand, no uncertainty in his eyes; instead they were narrowed in cold rage. “You have to the count of one to drop the knife. On—”
He didn’t wait even that long for her to drop it. His left hand snaked out, caught Lola’s hand, and twisted it down and away from Milla. There was an odd sound like a brittle branch snapping and Lola went rigid, a long, strangled moan reverberating in her throat. The knife clattered to the filthy floor and that lightning-fast hand transferred to Milla, snatching her to his side, holding her there with an iron grip on her arm. All the while the pistol in his right hand remained pointed at Lola’s head.
Lola reeled backward, keening and holding her hand. “You broke it,” she moaned, sinking down on a rickety chair.
“You’re lucky I didn’t take the knife from you and carve out your eyes,” he said, still in that soft, soft tone. “You cut my friend. That makes me unhappy. Are we even, do you think? Or do I owe you more, perhaps another bone—”