Free Fear Collector by Gregg Olsen Page A

the authorities. Tavio knew that sometimes silence was an awkward protector.
    His right to be there, to be a responsible young man in world of possibilities—all of it would come into question. Back then, there was no doubt that he’d have been deported to Mexico. That couldn’t happen now, but even so there was always the risk. They’d question him. Why were you there? They’d want to see his ID. They’d ask his wife all sorts of questions he didn’t want asked. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want Mimi to know that his papers were forgeries.
    Instead, Tavio drove home as carefully as he could. He didn’t want to be stopped. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He rolled his window down low and hoped that the stink that had coated the inside of his nostrils hadn’t found refuge on his clothes.
    Tavio hadn’t seen the girl’s face, but he had an idea who she might be.
    The night before, he’d seen her mother on the news. She was a nice-looking older white woman with the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. She looked like she was middle class or better, the kind of person who would hire him to work in her yard. She looked kind. But more than anything, the mother of the girl he’d seen on TV was very frightened.
    “If anyone knows where she is,” she had said, tears rolling down her smooth cheeks, “please help the police. Please help bring our daughter home.”
    Tavio remembered thinking as he watched that the mother did not seem very hopeful that her daughter would be coming home anytime soon. Or at all.
    As he pulled into the driveway in front of the trailer he and his wife rented in Spanaway, Mimi emerged from the open door. As always, she was a vision. Her black hair tied back, her brown eyes accented by a pale cocoa eye shadow, and her full lips, red. The instant he saw her, he knew that she was, as he always called her, his “angel.”
    “Dinner’s ready,” Mimi said, calling from the front steps as her husband emerged from his truck.
    “Hungry,” he said, unconvincingly.
    Mimi picked up on that. “You all right?” she asked
    Tavio shrugged a little and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hard day,” he said.
    “I’ll make it better,” she said, putting her arms around him and planting a kiss on his lips.
    “I probably smell like manure,” he said, though he hadn’t touched the stuff all day. It was that other smell and though he doubted that it clung to him, he felt he needed to lie. Make an excuse. It felt funny that he didn’t want to be close to his wife. Tavio didn’t like holding back, but he knew that Mimi would tell him to go to the police. He knew she’d be right, too. He didn’t want to tell the police because they’d question him, but something more was weighing on him, heavier than an anvil laid across his throat.
    It was Michael, his brother.
    “Michael home?” Tavio asked as they walked up the narrow concrete pathway to the front door.
    “Nah. He’s out again. Seems like he’s always out now.”
    “I thought he was sick.”
    “Must be better now. He left just before you got here.”
    “I haven’t talked to him for three days.”
    They went inside; the wonderful smells of his wife’s cooking—a roast chicken and vegetables—would have brought a river of salivation from his mouth down his throat on any other day. Tavio had no appetite. None at all.
    “I’m going to shower before we eat,” he said. “Need to get the stink off me.”
    Mimi patted her abdomen.
    “Baby kicking today?” he asked.
    She smiled and nodded. “Your son is a future soccer player.”
    “Baseball,” Tavio said.
    He turned and went toward the bathroom, his heart pounding and the look on his face far from the joy of the moment. He pulled the cigarette package from his jeans pocket and proceeded to tear it up into little pieces. He lifted the lid to the toilet and the confetti of paper and cellophane fluttered into the bowl.
    He flushed and the bits of paper swirled downward. Tavio was