Chapter 47
She swung open the car door and leaped out, running to examine the sedan. In the glow of Tiago’s headlights, she ran her hand over the bumper as Manny approached. “It even has a dent in exactly the right spot.” Now, all she had to do was bust into that house and demand her baby back. With Manny and Tiago to back her up, that’d be easy enough to do.
Tiago got out of his car. “Hold tight,” he whispered, his cell phone at his ear. “I’m talking to Officer Carry. I just gave him the plate number, and he says this is Teresa’s car. The police should be here in a few minutes. He says not to do anything until they get here.”
“But what if André already saw us?” she said, her impatience fighting against the need to whisper. “He could be running away this instant. All he has to do is slip out the sliding glass door in the back and hop the fence to the neighbor’s yard.”
Manny walked to the vinyl fence and peered over the top of it. “I can watch the back if you two watch the front.” Grabbing onto the top edge of the fence, he hoisted himself up, crouched along the top edge and jumped to the other side.
“I’m coming with you,” Celia whispered, eyeing the fence.
Before she could try going over it, though, Manny swung open the gate from the other side and held it open for her to come through. “So far, I don’t see anything, but you’re right about this house looking abandoned. This grass is up to my knees.”
She wanted to burst right into the house and see if Benjamin was in there. She didn’t want to wait for the police, but if they followed all the right procedures, the police could put André away in jail for a good long time.
They crept toward the house, keeping low so they couldn’t be seen through the windows. She pressed her head against the outside wall, listening for a baby’s cries. Nothing.
“I’m going to go check over there,” Manny whispered, pointing past her to the other side of the backyard. “Yell if you see anything and I’ll come running.”
Her heart pounded. Please hurry, policemen. She could hear the sirens in the distance, getting closer. But André would hear them too. As long as he wasn’t drinking, he heard everything.
There were no other lights on inside the house that she could see, and the curtains were all pulled. She crept toward the other side of the house and pressed her ear against the wall there. Still nothing. She closed her eyes, and tried to listen harder. Faintly, she heard someone talking. Maybe it was her imagination, perhaps a TV or radio. Someone was there, though.
“The police are here,” Tiago whispered, coming up around the side of the house.
Just as he said it, a door on the other side of the house burst open and André sprang out of the house, running barefoot through the tall grass. He wasn’t carrying Benjamin, though. It was just him in his T-shirt and jeans.
Manny darted after him, but he was a full body’s length away.
Celia ran too. “What have you done with Benjamin?” she screamed.
Just as she said it, Manny picked up an old flower pot and threw it at André. It hit his head with a crack, and he glanced back for a split second. That slowed him down enough for Manny to gain a half meter on him. But André was going fast. If he’d run that fast on the soccer field, he could have skipped the minor league.
“Stop,” the officer cried, racing after him with a flashlight, but by this time, André had made it to the very back of the yard and leapt onto a dog house. Just as he grabbed hold of the fence, Manny dove at him, his arms outstretched.
It didn’t look like that would stop André, though. Then Celia noticed that Manny was tugging on André’s pant leg, pulling his pants off as André climbed to the top of the fence. Now, in nothing but his boxers, André was about to dive into the neighbor’s yard, when the fence swayed, and the entire panel of fence fell forward into the neighbor’s yard, taking André with it.
André scrambled to get his legs out from under the fence as Manny leaped into the neighbor’s yard and tackled him.
“Be careful,” Celia shouted, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. “He might have a knife.”
André flipped over and threw a punch at Manny, hitting him on the side of the head, but the officer was on his way. He pulled out his gun. “Hands at your side!”
Celia froze. Did the police know which one was André?
Manny, staring at the gun, put his hands up, and André squirmed out from under him, but only long enough for the officer to seize him, rolling him onto his front and cuffing his wrists, so he couldn’t escape.
“Go find Benjamin, Celia,” Manny said, breathless. “He’s probably somewhere in the house.”
She ran to the sliding glass door, still open from André’s escape.
Inside, the place was completely dark, but the sound of a radio was coming from the basement. She was just about to open the basement door, when a group of policemen rushed past her. “Stay where you are,” they ordered, as if she were the criminal. She froze, listening as they thundered down the stairs.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Teresa’s voice sounded loud and clear through the walls. “You have no right.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” one of the police officers answered. “You’re under arrest.”
But Teresa just kept talking. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just taking care of my great-grandson.”
Her baby’s cry, weak and hungry, sounded in the background. It was a sound as sweet as any Celia had ever heard.
She didn’t care what the policeman had told her. She couldn’t just stand there. She had to answer Benjamin’s cry.
She ran down the stairs, finding a room lit from a battery-powered lantern. Officer Carry held Benjamin out to her. She grabbed her baby, collapsing at the officer’s feet as she examined the milky brown color of his skin, the soft curls of his hair, and the chubby folds of his wrists. Only then did she notice Teresa, standing off to the side, as another officer cuffed her hands behind her back.
“André told me Celia and the baby were coming for a visit,” Teresa said, glancing from the officer to Celia. In the yellow glow of the lamp, her freckles stood out, and her voice seemed farther away, like an echo from Celia’s nightmares. “But when I drove up to Massachusetts to get them all, it was just André and the baby. He said Celia refused to come.”
Surely Teresa had to have guessed something was wrong when André wanted to hide out in an abandoned house. “André lied to you,” Celia said. “He came into my house with a knife and took the baby by force.”
She turned and pressed Benjamin to her aching breast, watching him struggle to latch on, as an officer explained Teresa’s rights.
Officer Carry walked into the room. “We’ve got André cuffed and heading for the car,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.” And, for the first time in three days, she knew it would be.