Free In Desperation by Rick Mofina Page A

that?” Then she clarified, “Melody wants me to talk to her, exclusively.”
    After a long pause, Gannon told Henrietta he would have to call her back. Hanging up, he looked across the room at Cora resting on the sofa and approached her with the request. After considering it, she said, “Just two minutes over the phone.”
    At that moment Hackett materialized, eyeing Gannon.
    â€œTwo minutes with whom and for what?”
    â€œA short interview with the WPA,” Gannon said.
    Hackett weighed it. “As long as she only repeats what she said earlier. I’ll be right here, listening.”
    Gannon called Henrietta Chong on his phone, then passed it to Cora. As he watched and listened, ambiguity gnawed at him. He knew he was exploiting his sister. But he rationalized it. After all this time, she’d called him. Some twenty-two years had passed between them. There was so much he didn’t know about her and it had kept him ambivalent toward her, torn over whether he should be consoling her or questioning her account of what was really at work with Tilly’s kidnapping.
    Why had Cora asked him if she was being punished for past sins? What did she mean?
    I knew dealers.
    What had happened in her past? Was this somehow linked?
    At that moment an agent rose from the worktable wherehe had been listening to his cell phone while working on a laptop. His face taut, he tapped Hackett’s shoulder.
    â€œWe just got something.”

12
    Tempe, Arizona
    T hick dried mud covered all but the first two numbers of the license plate on the back of the truck.
    Vanita Solaniz could not read the rest of it but was convinced the pickup that had wheeled into the Burger King parking lot was the one the FBI was looking for: a metallic red, 2009 Ford F-150 with a regular cab.
    As an assistant manager at Clear Canyon Auto Parts, Vanita knew cars, trucks and vans. A few hours ago, she and her customers at the shop halted their business to watch the TV above the counter when the news broke about the little girl who was kidnapped by a drug cartel from her home in Mesa Mirage.
    â€œMy lord, that just breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” she said.
    One old-timer shifted the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, then said, “A damn shame. I got a granddaughter that age.”
    For the rest of the afternoon, with every commercial break, the TV news repeated details on the case and the F-150. Vanita watched when she could, hoping for a good ending to the story. Nothing new had happened when her shift ended and she headed for her apartment near Escalente Park.
    Vanita’s welder boyfriend was out of town. They hadno food in the house, so for supper she’d decided to treat herself to her favorite: onion rings and a shake at Burger King. After getting her order at the drive-through, she parked her car in a shady corner of the lot, dropped the windows and caught a sweet breeze.
    That’s when the Ford pickup rolled into the spot in front of her.
    Hey, it’s a metallic red 150, like the one on the news, Vanita thought, munching on her rings. From the tailgate’s style she knew it was a 2009. The driver got out, a man wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. His passenger was a girl who looked about ten or eleven. She wore a sun hat and sunglasses. The man took her hand and they entered the restaurant.
    An icy feeling shot through Vanita.
    She looked at the Arizona plate, making out the first two numbers.
    Five, then seven.
    Vanita stopped eating.
    She clawed through her bag for the blank order form where she’d jotted the pickup’s plate from the news.
    Oh my God.
    Vanita grabbed her cell phone, called 911 and reported the details to the Tempe police, repeating her location. “It’s them! Send somebody! It’s on East University.”
    The Tempe police dispatcher kept her on the line while she alerted the FBI. A moment later the dispatcher told Vanita, “Police are on the way.