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chosen him uniquely for this task.
    If he’d learned anything from his father’s fall from grace, it was that everyone had the capacity for good or evil. And sometimes small choices led a man toward one or the other.
    Because of DEA connections through Border Patrol, he had personal experience with the dark underpinnings of the drug smuggling and prostitution rings on both sides of the border. As much as he wanted to deny it, instinct told him that there was a connection between Mercedes and that darkness.
    Her drawing, which he still had in his wallet, made him almost sure of it. He’d studied it carefully when he came home from Isabel’s house. Eli was no child psychologist, but there had to be significance to the sinister red-and-black hues, the bloody slashes across a grotesquely human form in the center of the picture.
    The most curious component of the drawing, in Eli’s mind, was an element like water drops in the foreground. Did it represent tears? Rain? He tried to remember if it had been storming the night Bryan Hatcher died. He didn’t think so.
    Making up his mind to interview Mercedes as soon as possible, he pulled into the small parking lot reserved for Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint. Better connect with his supervisor before heading over to Mexico.
    “Carmichael, you’re not on until seven. Where’s your uniform?” Agent Dean looked up from his usual mountain of paperwork.
    “I’ll be back later in uniform. Just wanted you to know I’m headed over to the orphanage in St. Teresa Colony. A child was killed under suspicious circumstances, and the house mother is a friend, so I’m on my way to check it out.” Eli hesitated over how much to tell his boss. “It may have something to do with the little deaf girl we brought over a couple days ago.”
    Dean’s language disintegrated into curses. “I still don’t think that was a good idea. I know you’re working with Del Rio homicide on the Hatcher case, but if we keep interfering in every Mexican investigation, trouble’s bound to escalate.”
    Eli buttoned up a disrespectful retort. Less than a month ago, Dean had been promoted from a desk job in Dallas. The man had yet to figure out how to connect events in Acuña and Del Rio.
    Eli shrugged. “Benny Malone is American, and I promised I’d help her sort the situation out. I’ll be back in uniform as quick as I can.”
    Dean stared Eli down before reluctantly nodding. “We’re two men short on your shift as it is, Carmichael. Don’t mess around and get yourself written up.”
    Eli’s rare temper flared. Everybody in the agency knew what his father had done, but so far he’d never heard a word of blame attached to either himself or his brother, Owen. Maybe he was reading too much into Dean’s words, but there was something needle-sharp buried in the admonition.
    Not trusting himself to answer, Eli gave a jerky nod, turned on his heel, and left the building.

    When the phone rang, Isabel was in the attic, knee-deep in dust, spiderwebs and memories. Naturally, she had forgotten to bring the handset up.
    She leaned over to poke her head through the opening into the hallway. “Danilo! Will you answer the phone for Mommy?”
    “Sure!” he caroled. Isabel could hear his bare feet pattering across the hardwood floor in the living room, and a distinct skid when he reached the kitchen tile. “Valenzuela residence.” They’d practiced answering the phone off and on for the past month or so. He was actually getting pretty good at it.
    Danilo came back down the hall. “She can’t come to the phone right now. She’s up in the attic, bowling.”
    “Danilo! Bring me that phone right now!”
    Her son blinked up at her with the handset clutched to the side of his face. “But you said to stay off the ladder.”
    “That’s right. I did.” Frustrated, Isabel swiped a dusty hank of hair behind her ear. “Stay right there. I’m coming down.”
    “Never mind,” Danilo said into the phone.