Chapter Fifty-Two
Bree
He had to have known. Nathan didn’t have an oblivious bone in his body; there was no way he had stumbled across the border without knowing where he was going.
Though his furious face made me think it could have been a mistake. Even he was starting to realize that his recklessness was ruining our chances of finding out what happened to that little girl.
“Let’s just find somewhere and settle in for the night. We can think it through there,” Nathan said.
I refused to take his hand. “And what motel is going to accept us with no identification? Even the scummiest places ask to see a driver’s license,” I said.
Nathan scowled at me. “And how do you think we’ve been renting rooms since our little ‘accident’ in the mountains? They don’t always need to see valid ID.”
I narrowed my eyes and followed Nathan closely as he ducked into the nearest motel. It was a three-story stucco building in the middle of the street complete with a red tile roof and faux balconies. The attempt at authenticity did not cover up the fact that the motel was run down and obviously vacant.
The night clerk looked up and blinked. I watched as Nathan put both hands on the motel desk and showed the clerk a folded-up bill in the palm of his hand.
“We’ll take one room for the night,” Nathan said. “A private room.”
The night clerk didn’t even nod, just took the bribe and handed Nathan a key. No exchange of names, no signing the desk book, no checking ID. He didn’t even tell us our room number.
“Is that how you’ve been doing it all along?” I asked. It boggled my mind to think that the whole time I had been innocently perusing the brochure racks, Nathan was no more than ten feet away from me bribing motel clerks to leave us off the books.
Nathan waited until we found the motel room door that matched our key. I followed him inside only to be slammed back up against the door. He held me there with one thick forearm and locked the door with his other hand.
“I’ve told you this, Bree. I’m not a good man. I’m not some knight in shining armor on a quest. I’m just trying to clean up whatever mess it was that I made,” Nathan said.
I struggled against his arm but didn’t break away from his gaze. “I never said you were. I just didn’t know you were bribing people this whole time.”
Nathan dropped me and turned to the shabby motel room. He kicked off his shoes and rolled onto the saggy bed.
“I don’t know why I keep forgetting how naive you are,” Nathan said. “It’s just common sense. We don’t have ID so I offer the motel clerks a little extra incentive to keep our stay private. They don’t care when they see the cash.”
“Doesn’t it make us more suspicious? Wouldn’t the clerk wonder why we didn’t show ID? You could have caught someone’s attention back when they were searching for us,” I snapped.
Nathan cocked an eyebrow at me. “Cash bribes work, and that’s a good thing. Cash is all we’ve got.”
I sank onto the foot of the bed then shifted, worried that Nathan would feel my nervous tremors through the cheap mattress. “What are we going to do?” I asked, my back to him.
“Get some take-out and watch TV,” Nathan said. He clicked on the ancient television set.
I sprang to my feet. “That’s it? We have to get back across the border!”
Nathan flipped through a couple more channels before he turned the TV off. “We can go to the American Embassy and see if they believe our story.”
“What? Are you going to bribe someone there to overlook the fact that we don’t have anything? Not even social security numbers. No one they can even call to confirm that we’re the Cramers.” My knees quaked, and I had to sit back down on the foot of the motel bed.
Nathan leaned forward but did not reach out to me. “They’ll probably just give us paperwork. We can take it and figure out what to do from there.”
He leaned over to the bedside table and was happy to discover a small bundle of restaurant menus. I knew then that Nathan had no intention of going to the American Embassy in the morning. Now that he was across the border, he was going to look for Maggie or the New Mexico City Cartel.
There was no guarantee that Nathan would ever return to America, and the thought tore at my heart. I loved Nathan, I had given him so much, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him anymore.
I wanted to go home.
“Want anything special?” Nathan flapped the restaurant menus at me.
“Anything’s fine. My stomach isn’t feeling so good.” I got up and headed to the bathroom. When Nathan tapped on the door a few minutes later, I groaned. “Go without me. I’m going to take a bath and go to bed.”
Nathan peeked around the door to see me huddled on the edge of the bathtub. “I’ll get you some tortilla soup. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Thanks.” I stood up and hugged him, not trusting myself to say anything else.
“Enjoy your bath,” Nathan said. “I’ll be back before the bubbles are gone.”
I watched him leave and tried not to double up as sobs wracked my body.
I had to leave.
I ran the bathwater for at least ten minutes, just in case Nathan was listening outside. Then I stopped the water and slunk back across the motel room to the door. Nathan was gone and there was no one else in the hallway. I was down the stairs and running across the street before the steam had even cleared the motel bathroom.
Once I got a few blocks away from our motel, I stopped on a corner. My best chance was to head back toward the border crossing and then try to retrace our steps from there. Anxiety gripped my chest as I thought about the border guards, but it was late at night and they would be preoccupied with checking the cars that wanted to cross so late at night.
As I neared the border crossing, it was easy to avoid it all together. I just kept the bright lights of the station in my sights as I slipped down the street a block away. When I finally thought I’d gone too far, I turned toward the US border.
My heart beat so hard, I was surprised it didn’t echo off the industrial warehouses. The streets were vacant, but now most of the buildings were too and the quiet scared me.
Then I spotted the open field where Nathan and I had wandered in.
Or I thought it was the field.
There was only one way to find out, so I skittered across the street and left the last streetlight behind me. The ground was rough, and I had to go slow in the dark to avoid catching my ankle in a deep rut. It would have been beautiful, with a thick scattering of stars above my head, but I was too scared to look up.
I peered into the darkness and prayed that I didn’t meet anyone else out in the field. A voice in my head hoped I’d be caught by Nathan, wrapped up in his strong arms, but I was all alone now.
I shivered and moved forward across the dark field. Then I saw a small shape detach itself from a sparse bush and move away from me. It disappeared down the culvert that Nathan and I had used.
I froze and tried to argue with my senses. There was no way that I had seen a little girl running across the field ahead of me. I was tired, overwrought, and my mind had to be playing tricks on me.
“Hello?” I tried to call but my voice came out a raspy whisper.
I edged toward the culvert and peered into the darkness. The little shadow was running away, down the smooth, dry bed. I jumped down and ran after her. No matter who she was, the little girl seemed to know where she was going, and she was heading in the direction I needed to go.
“Wait, please,” I rasped out.
The shadow slowed then crouched down to wait for me. I stopped running and held out both my hands as I approached slowly.
“Who are you?” The little girl’s voice was harsh, a forced attempt at sounding brave.
“I’m lost,” I told her. “Are you lost, too?”
The little girl shook her head. Then she flashed a small light into my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut but didn’t shield my eyes. I wanted her to see that I meant her no harm.
The beam blinded me for a few seconds and then swept down to the bottom of the dry culvert. “Where are you going?” the little girl asked.
I pried an eye open and almost screamed. In the dim light of the flashlight, the little girl looked exactly like Maggie from Nathan’s photograph.
“I’m heading back to the US. Home,” I said when I could breathe again.
The little girl stood up and frowned at me. “You shouldn’t go this way. You’ll get in trouble.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Aren’t you scared of getting in trouble?”
The little girl looked back the way we’d come and shook her head. “I just want to go home.”
My heart stumbled and raced. It was an impossible coincidence, but she looked so much like the little girl in the photograph. Had I managed to find Maggie the same way Nathan, and I had managed to stumble across the border?
She turned off the flashlight, and I resisted the urge to grab her arm. I couldn’t let her run off again, not until I knew.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The little girl folded her arms over her chest but looked ready to bolt. “Maggie,” she said.
My head reeled but I forced my voice to sound calm. “Hello, Maggie. I’m Bree.”