I never went to sleep. I turned the car on once or twice to pump some heat into the cabin and to activate the wipers to clear the collection of dew from the front windshield. The city was remarkably still in those few hours before sunrise. A beautiful sun eventually inched its way in between the houses and lit up the side of my face. The wonderfully sad pink of an early Sunday morning befell the neighborhood.

I watched the abuelita waddle out in a floral print dress and fake pearls and purse heavy with the words of God. Her son, reluctantly “dressed up” in black slacks and a white t-shirt, trailed behind her at a distance that conveyed a preference for doing something else with his free morning. I checked my watch — quarter to nine. Fifteen minutes until the service began. I placed a quick call, gave it a few minutes in case they returned home for some forgotten donation envelope, then got out of my car and pushed my stiff legs to the front door of the house.

My knock rattled the metal door like tin plates used to scare crows out of a cornfield. I didn’t think Nelson would run but the delay in answering the door led me to doubt that assumption. Just as I was about to loop around the back, the door opened and the kid stood there looking disheveled and sleepy-eyed. He still had his pajamas on. I gently brushed past him before he mustered up any form of defiance. There was an unmistakable smell lingering in the air, something sour. I helped myself to the couch with the overworked springs. Nelson remained by the door, his hand still on the knob.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he started three seconds too late because I was already seated and had no intention of leaving. “You can’t come in here. You’ll wake everyone up.”

“They already left for church,” I told him.

“Oh,” he said, looking around like someone trying to get their bearings.

“Why don’t you sit down,” I instructed. “I have a couple of questions for you.”

“I already talked to the police.”

He came and sat opposite me anyway.

“I know. I want you to talk to me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I asked you to.” I spied one of the shopping bags in the corner. “What’s all that?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, looking annoyed.

“Mind if I take a look?” I had no intention of getting up, but Nelson did and made a move to intercept me. It was the fastest I had ever seen him move. “Must be something important.”

“What do you want?” he asked. He was getting his legs under him and stood over me in as threatening a pose as he could probably ever muster.

“Can you tell her to come out, please?”

“What?”

“Come on, kid, stop screwing around and tell her to come out here so we can all talk.”

“She’s not even here,” he tried. “I don’t know where she is.”

“It’s okay,” said a soft voice.

Jeanette stood at the edge of the hallway. She wore a nightgown that looked borrowed from an old woman and probably was. Her hair was loosely pulled together in a band and rested limply on her shoulder. Her eyes were heavy from interrupted sleep and spoke of a mother’s weariness. Even her voice, made deeper from having just awoken, added a few years to her.

“You’re the man working for my grandfather?”

She was the only one who questioned my temporary job whose gaze didn’t include a judgment with it.

“Right now, I work for a faceless corporation. But yes, your grandfather hired me to find you.”

“You found me,” she smiled. “Now what?”

“Let’s talk about it.”

Jeanette joined Nelson on the couch. He took her hand in his to offer up support but it was clear in the gesture and in the way she sat there that she was the one providing the support to him.

“So, tell me the plan.”

Neither wanted to start but it was clear by their shared look that they had thought something out in fairly deep detail. It took some coaxing by me to get it out of them. Jeanette eventually took the helm and explained their next move and that’s when youth finally revealed itself in all its glorious stupidity.

They had some vague plan involving a cousin in Mexico and fifty grand they thought they were going to get to live off but didn’t. They made it sound a hundred times that because, as they reminded me numerous times, “everything is super cheap in Mexico.” Nelson had relatives to help with the baby and they could work and live some simple life and get away from the “meanness of people” in our city. Apparently, only happy, caring people lived south of the border. I let them blabber on because there was something charming about their irrational hope and the total conviction in which they expressed it. They were just a couple of knuckleheads too delusional to see the inanity of a “plan” that didn’t deserve that name.

I led them to believe I would help them so that I could dissuade them from trying it in the first place. And the one thing I knew I needed to do to accomplish that was to not let them out of my sight. I threw out the hundred grand that Valenti promised me and that if I could collect it then they could have it to help set up a life in the pueblo. That idea excited them far more than I thought it would. They latched onto the offer like it was the single solution to all of their troubles. They went so far as to strategize how they could help me get it. Jeanette could meet her grandfather to prove that I fulfilled my duty and then she could escape at a later date. We all agreed this was the best approach, and although I thought it was the dumbest idea ever uttered, I couldn’t help but share in their excitement.

Jeanette got up from the couch and headed back down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Then I heard what her mother’s ears heard before me, the soft gurgling and then the full cries of a hungry baby. Nelson and I continued the planning discussion and worked out the remaining details before we could fully lock it into place. There was a knock on the door, and I found myself answering it without even thinking it through. Even when confronted with a face so out of place from our current location, I still didn’t think twice about it.

I shuffled Sami into the room and only when he shoved me forward with one hand and brought up his second hand that held a rusty hammer did I realize my mistake. He shut the door and locked it. His wild eyes danced about the room. He didn’t see what he expected to see and continued searching until he did.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Who?” I tried.

“She’s here,” Sami droned. “I know she’s here. She told me.”

“I don’t know who told you what but whoever you’re looking for isn’t here.” It was like talking to a concrete wall. I heard my words bouncing back to me but they had no effect on the man they were directed at. He just kept asking the same thing over and over again. He rocked on his heels like the ground swelled under him in intermittent waves. There was a serenity and distance in his eyes that was more unnerving than when I first stood under his penetrating gaze. He was talking to us but you got the sense he didn’t even realize there were humans in the room with him.

“I don’t know who you are looking for but I can help you find her. It shouldn’t be too hard,” I continued in the hopes of directing his attention away from the back room. “Do you want to talk about it here or should we go outside where we can have more privacy? It might be better if we went outside. I don’t really know these people all too well so I don’t want to impose on them any longer that I have already. We should probably go outside and talk because I have some other things that we need to discuss, too. Some things I need your help on.”

I shot Nelson a reassuring nod and slowly moved towards the front door, towards Sami and the hammer he held by his side. He opened up his stance, just a little, but the meaning of the gesture was there — he considered letting me pass. I walked into the opening and crossed within striking distance of the hammer. I felt somewhat confident he was going to let me pass but I couldn’t really be sure. And the thought that I now had my back to him made me even more on edge, as a blow from that hammer to the back of my head could come without warning at any moment. I reached out to the lock and in doing so, I glanced back at Sami. He hadn’t moved. I turned the lock very carefully to avoid any sharp sounds that might disturb whatever balance he currently had. The lock moved easily under my thumb. I reached for the door handle and did the same thing. The door slowly swung open and I pivoted to face him.