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responsibility. His voice carried great strength even when speaking softly. Like now. “I see great things in that young man. So did the professor.”
    “He ruined the professor’s life!”
    “He also was the professor’s last great hope.” Harold stopped her response with an upraised hand. “What if God has brought him here for a divine purpose?”
    Simon found himself flooded with bitter regret. The professor had posed the same question the last time they had spoken. What if God intended something great? Would that not make it worth their while to forgive and move on?
    A handbell clanged through the open window. The sound turned Sofia around to where she spotted Simon hovering in the doorway. Her gaze tightened even further. Her full lips clamped down hard on what she was about to say. She gathered up her purse and started for the door. “I’m late for my first appointment. I will stop by this afternoon.”
    Harold moved toward Simon. “Welcome, son. Good to see you up. How’s the head?”
    “Sore, but healing. Thanks again for letting me stay.”
    “Don’t mention it.” Harold swept up Juan in one outstretched arm and then reached forward with his free hand and clapped Simon on the shoulder. “Let’s go grab us a cup of coffee.”
    As they crossed the courtyard, a gaggle of kids tried to crowd in, but Juan halted them with a word. They giggled and stared at Simon but did as Juan ordered.
    The mess hall floor and walls were raw concrete. Harold poured two heavy ceramic mugs of coffee, handed one over, then pointed to a battered refrigerator. “Help yourself to milk and sugar. We keep it in there to try to hold the ants at bay.”
    As they returned to Harold’s office, Pedro joined them and ruffled Juan’s hair and asked about Simon’s wound. Simon’s response was accepted with a casual nod. Clearly gunfire and wounds were not new to this crowd. Which only added another item to the growing list of reasons why Simon wanted to get back across the border.
    Harold slipped around his desk and pointed Simon and Pedro into the room’s two chairs. Harold said, “In addition to his job with the mayor, Pedro helps me keep this place running. Juan is my number-one assistant.”
    The kid stationed by the entrance beamed.
    Pedro asked, “Who was after you yesterday?”
    “No idea,” Simon replied.
    “Are you sure? Ojinaga is normally a safe place.”
    “The town’s isolation has been our friend.” Harold waved at the map on his back wall. “We are surrounded by desert and mountains. The violence has stayed away.”
    Simon had heard the same words from Vasquez. Many times. “Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever visited Mexico. I arrived, I heard about Vasquez, I got cheated by the council, I left. I was headed back to the border. Then some thug pulled a board studded with nails across the highway, wrecked my car, and chased me to the restaurant.”
    “It’s a common form of ambush in other areas of Mexico,” Harold said.
    Pedro asked Simon, “So you have no idea who they were?”
    “All I can tell you is, I saw the guy who chased me when I crossed the border. I think he was waiting for me.” Simon remembered the dangerous clown’s grin, the hand made into the gun, and shivered despite the heat.
    “Which means they could be hunting you.” Pedro frowned. “Sofia was right. We need to return you to America.”
    “There’s still that little problem,” Simon said. “My passport is back in my car.”
    “Which is where, exactly?”
    “In a ditch beside the highway. Close to where I slipped into the industrial zone.” He hesitated, then asked, “You said the professor died almost two weeks ago?”
    Harold nodded. “He was a dear friend to me and the orphanage.”
    “But Vasquez e-mailed me right up to when I left for Ojinaga.”
    “Worse and worse,” Pedro muttered. “What were the messages about?”
    Simon caught sight of Harold’s shrewd gaze and realized the man already knew. “A