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coming home with me. If there was any funny business involved, I don’t want her alone here tonight.”
    â€œShe’s not alone, Manny. I’m here.”
    â€œYou, the woman who breaks in and terrifies some guy sleeping? Poor judgment, Rita.” He shook his head as if disappointed in me and started for the kitchen.
    â€œI didn’t break in,” I protested. “The door was open.” I stepped in front of him, hands on my hips. “That’s something you should be investigating. Along with a fight the brothers had with their neighbor tonight.”
    Manny smiled. “We already know about that. Gabriel mentioned the disagreement. Now let me talk to my daughter.”
    I held my ground. “You can talk, but you can’t take her tonight. That is not part of our custody agreement.”
    â€œOur agreement is that the terms can change in exceptional cases and Celia can decide where she wants to go at any time. She discovers a dead guy? That’s exceptional, Rita. She needs to be home.” He pushed by me.
    â€œThis is her home,” I sputtered, but he was already in the kitchen, talking to Celia.
    â€œHoney,” I said, joining them at the table. “There’s no need to worry about staying here. We’re perfectly safe, but if you’re concerned, we can go over to Flori’s.”
    My daughter twisted her black-­straw hair. “Yeah, whatever,” she said, putting up a stoic face in front of her dad. “Sure, maybe I’ll go home for the night. Sorry, Mom.”
    She’d said sorry, but her words stung. Home. Did she not think of this as her home too? She was a kid, I reminded myself. A kid from a broken home.
    I opened my mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Celia was hurting. She didn’t need to see me and Manny squabbling on top of her pain. I hugged my daughter, telling her that I’d call the school in the morning if she wanted the day off. She shrugged, declined, and left.
    Manny dropped a parting shot. “Stay out of this case,” he growled. “I’m done with your snooping.”
    I’d snoop if I wanted to, I thought, but held in my retort. Hadn’t I told myself I was through? Through with sniping at Manny and through with sleuthing. What was there to discover anyway? That I’d missed signs of a friend’s agony? Or maybe there was more. I pushed this thought aside as I watched the police cruiser pull away, followed by the bouncing Jeep driven by cool Ariel. Was she going home with Manny too? I felt very alone. Then another thought struck me. Celia had driven back with Ariel. I had no idea where my car was.

 
    Chapter 5
    T he driver at Pacho’s Pickup, open twenty-­four hours, sounded sleepier than I did. “You’re calling for when, ma’am? Six-­thirty tonight?”
    No, I explained to the groggy voice on the other end of the line. I hoped for a ride twenty-­five minutes from now, which would still make me late for breakfast prep at Tres Amigas. A taxi was an extravagance, but I didn’t want to plod across town in the dark. Meanwhile, my bicycle had a broken gear shifter, my aged Subaru hadn’t magically appeared, and it was too early to roust a neighbor.
    As I waited, I tried to focus on lesser worries, like where Celia had left my car and what she’d been doing. I hadn’t questioned her about the hint of alcohol on her breath, not with the bigger trauma to worry about. It was good that she got a ride, I told myself. That was responsible, if you could call any part of underage drinking responsible. And where did cool Ariel come into the picture? Was my teen daughter out drinking with my ex-­husband’s young girlfriend?
    To funnel anxious energy, I made notes. I stuck a yellow sticky tab on the back of my hand, a reminder to pick up milk, nonrotted fruit, and food in general, so that Celia and I wouldn’t live on café leftovers. Other