Free The Slab by Jeffrey J. Mariotte Page B

stringy, tanned arms and the pale circle on his head where his hat kept the sun off during the day revealed that he’d spent the last fifteen years working outdoors instead of in a classroom.
    “They’ll just tell us to wait twenty-four hours,” Diego said. “It’s on every TV show.”
    Diego was the bigger of the boys, practically a giant compared to his parents Lupe and Raul, neither of whom were taller than five-six. Construction work had put muscles on both boys, but on the smaller Jorge they looked somehow unnatural. Diego just looked like an Aztec prince.
    “If that’s what they say, then that’s what they say,” Oscar insisted. “Still, you must try.”
    Lupe wasn’t quite sure how making the call had become her responsibility, but she didn’t question it. Keeping the family whole was a woman’s job, she supposed, and this fell into that category somehow. Since Mecca was an unincorporated community, there was no local police force. Instead, she found the phone number of the nearest Sheriff’s substation and called.
    When she was finally connected to Henry Rios, what he said chilled her to the bone.
    “I’m glad you called, Lupe. We had a report earlier today, about a possible abduction. But it was just from one eyewitness, and not a very reliable one at that. He didn’t know who was taken, or by exactly who, or in what kind of vehicle. It was all really vague.”
    “So you think it’s my Lucia?” she asked, fighting back tears.
    “I don’t know. But it’s a possibility we’ll have to look at. Don’t you worry, Lupe, we’ll get your girl back if she’s really been taken. It’s kidnapping if someone snatched her, and that’s Federal—we’ll bring the FBI in. They don’t screw around with this stuff.”
    “But why—why would they kidnap Lucia? She has no money for a ransom, no—”
    “We’re not in a position to answer that yet,” Rios said. “We don’t even know for sure that’s what happened. But we’ll have every law enforcement officer in Riverside County looking for her, and like I said, the FBI will be involved if it turns out to be a kidnapping. Meantime, you let me know if you hear from anybody, even if they tell you not to call the authorities. Especially if they tell you that. You understand, Lupe? This is your daughter’s life we’re talking about, so we don’t want to take any chances. Let the people who do this for a living take care of it.”
    His words were terrifying, as if he were already certain of what had happened to Lucia. By the time she hung up, tears were flowing and Raul was beside her, wrapping his arms around her.
    She let her husband hold her as she said another silent prayer for her daughter’s safety.
    ***
    Carter Haynes had hired a crew to set up a wooden stage on one of the slabs, with a podium on it and electric lights beaming down on him from tall poles. A microphone installed on the podium broadcast over a p.a. system so he could be heard over the rumble of the generators powering everything. He’d picked the best spot available for his address, but “best” was, he had learned, loosely defined here. It was across a broken, fragmented cement slab from a fire pit around which the locals congregated in the evenings, though, which meant there was a built-in audience, many of whom already had lawn chairs. In addition, a couple of rows of chairs that looked as if they’d been ripped right out of an auditorium sat at one edge of the slab, and they were mostly full. Notices had been posted about this meeting for a couple of weeks on the Slab’s bulletin board, near the old cement guardhouse that stood on the road leading up from Salton Estates.
    Carter stayed off the stage while people gathered, shooting the breeze with Colonel Franklin Wardlaw, USMC, from the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. Butler, the hick Lieutenant, and his doofus Deputy, Billy Cobb, whom Carter had already begun calling, in his own mind, “Corn,” stood off to the side,