“I can’t do that,” she protested.
“You will do that,” he corrected, then added more gently, “It’s the only way to find the answers you’re after. You’ll have to blend in, become one of us.”
“I don’t shoot hoops,” she grumbled.
“Then tutor them in reading, teach the girls to sew. We have a kitchen here. You can teach them to cook. It won’t matter what you do. It’ll matter more that you’re here.”
Dana didn’t like the gender-based suggestions. More importantly, she wanted to move her investigation along far faster than the snail’s pace he was suggesting. And yet, she conceded reluctantly, she could see the sense of what he was saying. She knew just how distrustful these toughened street kids were likely to be. If she came on too forcefully, demanded too much, they would walk away without a backward glance.
But Rick’s way would also risk getting involved, putting her emotions on the line. She didn’t want to know these ex–gang members. She didn’t want to take a chance that she might actually come to feel something for them as Ken had felt.
No, she didn’t like his plan at all, but she would do as he was demanding. She could tell from his unrelenting expression that he wasn’t giving her a choice.
“Let’s go,” she said through gritted teeth.
This time he didn’t try to stop her from getting out of the car. But when they reached the door that she had used the night before, he blocked her way. Once again, she felt the power of his presence, the heat of his body, his taut strength.
“If you find out anything, anything at all, you will tell me about it first,” he said, his gaze locked with hers.
“You told me I wouldn’t find anything here,” she taunted.
“I don’t believe you will, but there’s always an outside chance I’m wrong. I don’t want you tearing off half-cocked and getting yourself killed.”
“Why? You’d be rid of a serious thorn in your side.”
“No,” he corrected. “I’d have one more death on my conscience. Ken’s already keeps me awake at night.”
There was just enough torment in his voice that Dana had no choice but to believe him. She knew all about that kind of guilt and anguish. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep herself since the murder.
Even so, she was far from ready to forgive him, even further from being willing to trust him. He was a means to an end at the moment. He was giving her entry into a world that she might never have been able to penetrate on her own. She would use him, as he had used Ken. If she destroyed him and Yo, Amigo in the process, it still wouldn’t be enough to compensate for the loss of her husband.
6
Apparently it was too early in the day for a big crowd. Inside the Yo, Amigo headquarters, Dana spotted only a handful of boys and even fewer girls. Perhaps it was part of Rick’s tactic to bring her here when there would be only a few people to talk to.
But it was a starting point, she reminded herself sternly, and, right now that was all she needed.
She watched as Rick strolled through the cavernous building with the confidence of a man who was in charge. She overheard him tease and taunt in a surprisingly lighthearted manner, saw the playful exchange of punches and handclasps. There was respect here and trust.
There was none of that in the hard, cold gazes that turned on her. She was eyed with obvious suspicion. Even when Rick explained, first in quiet Spanish, then in English, who she was, there was only the slightest softening of attitudes, the faintest mellowing of distrust.
The boy Rick had called Marco was the first to speak directly to her. With chiseled features and thick black hair, he had classic good looks, plus plenty of attitude. He surveyed her with an insolent, assessing gaze, then muttered something in Spanish that had his friends chuckling, until a stern look from Rick cut them off. He spoke sharply to them in such rapid Spanish that Dana caught only an occasional word, and even then, her long-ago lessons in the language failed her.
Whatever he’d said, though, seemed to alter the charged atmosphere. First one girl and then another smiled and shyly introduced herself. There was Rosa with the huge dark eyes and curly hair and the thickening waistline of pregnancy. Then came Ileana, with the tattoo of a scorpion on her wrist and half her head shaved. Dana forced herself not to react to the eccentricities, but to the hesitant welcome in their eyes.
There were more, but Dana knew she would never keep the names straight and apologized for it. She added in faltering Spanish that she was glad to be there, glad to meet them.
Her attempt to speak their language gained her another grudging point or two. She could see the first vague hint of acceptance in their eyes. She knew, though, that it was only a beginning. There would be many more steps before she could ask the questions that plagued her, that much was clear. One wrong step and the distrust would return, stronger than ever.
She had tiptoed through many an awkward interrogation, smooth-talked her way around deep suspicions in the past, but she was out of practice, and no one she had ever encountered was as deeply distrustful as these kids clearly were. How had she ever imagined that she could blithely waltz in here and demand answers? The past few minutes had shown her the folly of that thinking.
When an awkward silence fell, Rick stepped in. “You guys can spend time with Mrs. Miller later. We have a few things to take care of first in my office.”
Dana knew he was right to hustle her along, to give them time to absorb the idea of her presence, but she hated the prospect of even so minor a delay. Still, she said her goodbyes and dutifully followed him to the open door on which his name had been painted by the same artistic hand that had inscribed it on the wall out back.
When they walked inside, a beautiful, dark-haired teen looked up from the piles of paper in front of her, started to say something, saw Dana and gaped. She had barely recovered when Rick’s introduction had her gaping again.
“You are the padre’s esposa? I mean, his wife?”
There was such awe and reverence in the girl’s voice that Dana could do no more than nod.
“This is Maria Consuela Villanueva,” Rick said. “She keeps things in order around here.”
Dana surveyed the chaos doubtfully.
“I know, señora,” Maria said with a shrug, “it does not look as if I have achieved much, but you should have seen it before I came.”
Dana could not imagine it being worse than it was now. File folders lined the walls in stacks that were waist high. There were no file cabinets to hold them. A rickety table in the corner held a coffeemaker, a mismatched assortment of mugs and some sort of pastries. All of it looked ready to topple to the floor if so much as a breeze stirred.
Then there was the general decor. It seemed to Dana as if someone had gotten a deal on seconds at the paint store. The old metal desk with its fresh coat of bright red paint looked incongruous against the buttercup-yellow walls. The backbreaking metal chair in which Maria sat was a vivid blue. Even the trash can had received a coat of new paint—lime-green.
“Who’s your decorator?” Dana inquired.
“That would be Maria,” Rick said with obvious pride. “She thought it was too dull around here before.”
“It was gray,” Maria said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Everything gray. It was enough to make a person depressed.”
Dana glanced at Rick. “I assume the gray had been your choice.”
“No, it was here when we took over the building from the county. Institutional gray. Very bland and nonthreatening.”
“And your office? Did you allow Maria to change the decor