“Yeah.” Eli’s jaw worked as he gently squeezed the girl’s hand. “Hatcher’s been suspected of smuggling activity, and we’ve been watching him. We’re working with DEA, Mexican police and Del Rio Homicide. I’ve been put in charge of protecting her, because we think she may be a witness. If she is, the murderer’s looking for her. My supervisor pulled some strings with our immigration guys, and on the Mexican side, too, so I could bring her across the border.”
Eli paused after having made possibly the longest speech Isabel had ever heard him make. Something in the way he held her eyes, the protective clasp of his big hand around the little girl’s tiny one—
Isabel frowned. “What does all this have to do with me?”
“Sh-she needs a p-place to stay.”
Isabel’s gaze flew to the little girl, who let go of Eli’s hand to crouch down and study the pink silk pansies on Isabel’s sandals with such innocent pleasure that Isabel closed her eyes.
But the image wouldn’t fade. In that moment, her life underwent one of the irreversible changes she’d experienced only three times before. The first had been the Vacation Bible School when she’d given her heart to Jesus. The second, the night Rico asked her to marry him; the third, Danilo’s birth.
She had to force herself not to run from the room. “Eli, why me?”
Chapter Two
Mortified that under pressure he’d relapsed into his childhood speech impediment, Eli tried to come up with an answer to Isabel’s question. One that wouldn’t make him sound crazy.
The Holy Spirit told me it should be you.
And, if he were gut-level honest, one big reason was the excuse to see Isabel every day.
“We can’t spare an agent to stay with her twenty-four/seven,” he finally said. “But there’s a little stipend in the budget, and I thought you could use the money—”
“Eli, I’m trying to sell my house,” Isabel said, as if she were explaining something to her son. “Danilo and I could be leaving Del Rio any day now. Then you’d be right back where you started.”
Eli tried to gauge the depth of her protest. Her expression was troubled, but he could tell she was distracted by the child’s fascination with the flowers on her shoes.
See, that was the thing. A little girl needed a woman to care for her. A woman with an innate sense of beauty. A woman of grace and tact and spiritual wholeness, even when life crushed her.
“Okay, that’s a good point,” he said. “But maybe we’ll nail Bryan’s murderer soon, and we won’t have to deal with that.”
Isabel sighed. “There’s another problem. I speak Spanish, but I don’t know any sign language.”
“She reads lips pretty well.” Eli bent down to rest his hand on the little girl’s head. When she looked up at him, he said carefully, “¿Flores?”
She gave him a wide smile and reverently touched one of the flowers on Isabel’s shoes.
Eli winked at Isabel. “See?”
Isabel’s smooth brow knit. “If she can do that, why can’t she communicate with you? What happened when you asked her name?”
“Try it.” Eli was curious to see if his instincts were correct.
Isabel rested her elbows on her knees, so that her face was close to the child’s. “Isabel,” she said, touching her own chest. She put a teasing finger on the little girl’s nose. “¿Como te llama?”
The child beamed and flattened Isabel’s hand. With her finger she traced a large letter M, then looked up at Isabel to see if she comprehended. When Isabel nodded, the girl finished spelling the name Mercedes.
Eli stared at Isabel dumbfounded. “Well I’ll be…. Her name’s Mercedes.”
“You mean she hadn’t told you that?” Isabel sat up.
“She hasn’t told us anything,” Eli said. “We’ve given her pencil and paper, asked her stuff, but…nothing. It’s weird, because you can tell she comprehends what you’re asking. Then she just gets this blank look and refuses to answer.”
Isabel smiled at Mercedes, who settled cross-legged on the floor and leaned against Isabel’s knee. “What else do you want to know?”
“Where she came from. Who her parents are. How she got that knife.”
“I suppose I could ask.” Isabel traced a gentle finger down the little girl’s crooked part. “Why do you think she told me her name?”
Eli couldn’t help wondering the same thing. His supervisor had brought in a deaf interpreter and a social worker this morning, but Mercedes had given the woman the same blank look she gave everyone else.
There was some connection with Isabel that Eli couldn’t explain. He shrugged. “Maybe you look like her mother. Who knows? Listen, Isabel—” He crouched on one knee. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d take Mercedes home with you tonight. Like I said, there’s even a little stipend money in the budget. You could talk to her some more, try to get her to talk back.”
Isabel bit her lip. Eli could see conflicting emotions chase across her expressive face, and he knew the money had nothing to do with it. In fact, he was probably going to have to make her take compensation. Mercedes had obviously grabbed a piece of Isabel’s tender heart.
“It might be good for Danilo to have to share me a little bit,” she murmured.
“He’s a good kid,” Eli said. “He’ll like having somebody to play with.”
Isabel tipped her head and looked him in the eyes. “You think it’ll just be for a day or two?”
“I’m sure of it,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “So you’ll do it?”
Mercedes suddenly wrapped both arms around Isabel’s legs.
Eli saw Isabel’s eyes fill as she laid a hand on the little girl’s dark, untidy head. “I’ll do it,” she sighed.
“Good.” Eli grinned. “I knew you would. There’s just one thing though.”
“I knew it.” Isabel’s beautifully marked brows drew together. “What’s the hitch?”
“It’s no big deal.” But Eli found himself unable to meet her eyes. “It’s just that we need to hide Mercedes until we find the killer.”
“No big deal,” Isabel muttered as she pulled into her driveway. “Sure, Eli. Hide an active seven-year-old in the same house with a five-year-old motormouth.” The neighbors were going to notice an extra child, and how was she going to handle grocery shopping?
Her elderly Escort shuddered to a stop, and the rear passenger door burst open. Danilo, who hadn’t stopped talking from the moment she’d picked him up in front of the gym, jumped out of the car and ran to open the door for Mercedes.
“Come on, Mercedes, I gotta show you the sandbox!” He grabbed his new friend by the hand and tugged.
Mercedes resisted, giving Isabel an apprehensive glance.
Isabel smiled, making a shooing motion. “Go ahead.”
She needed a little time to freshen the guest room, empty the closet. There was lunch to fix, too. Danilo liked peanut butter and jelly on toast. Every day. What would Mercedes like?
Probably anything, considering the poverty across the border.
As she unlocked the side door, Isabel looked up at the light fixture, which had been left on. Had it only