“Um…” Max seemed a little puzzled. “He’s at work right now,” he answered at last.
“What does he do when he’s at work?”
Wouldn’t we all like to know….
“He wears a suit.”
“A suit, huh? Do you see him very often?”
“When he comes home.”
“Do you like it when he’s home?”
“Yeah. Sometimes he brings me a fish for my big tank.”
The fish Manuel brought home for Max’s aquarium seemed to swim through Emma’s thoughts. Shimmering. Colorful. Resplendent. And occasionally ferocious enough to eat the other fish in the tank….
“Then he takes my mom into the bedroom,” Max added out of nowhere.
Emma imagined Preston’s surprise that this comment would come from a five-year-old. She didn’t like her son volunteering such intimate information any more than she liked the way Max must feel about those occurrences; they’d obviously made an impact. But she felt strangely disconnected from the conversation. She was drifting in and out, baking in the hot sun. Sometimes she was beside the pool. Sometimes she was cooking in the house. Sometimes she was riding in the Hummer with Manuel at the wheel….
“What do you do while they’re in the bedroom?” Preston asked.
“I watch my new fish,” Max said.
Emma’s sluggish mind slowly presented a picture of her son standing in front of his aquarium while his father dragged her into the bedroom and locked the door. It never concerned Manuel, even when he hadn’t seen Max for a couple of weeks, and the boy was starved for his attention. Nor did Manuel care about the fact that Emma felt awkward and self-conscious with their child only a few feet from the door when he insisted on having sex with her. More often than not, Manuel went so far as to fasten her hands to the headboard. He liked bondage, but he rarely tied her feet. He wanted her to struggle. He relished having the power to subdue her while she tried to resist. Of course, if Max was awake in the other room, she had to do it silently, which Manuel enjoyed even more.
The heat became overwhelming. Too hot. Miserable. She wanted to find some relief. But there was no escape. Just as she feared there was no escape from the man she’d already lived with for five years. He’d never give up. He’d find her—
A hand touched her shoulder. She instantly recoiled.
“Emma?”
It was Preston. Breathing hard, she stared at him until the fact that he wasn’t Manuel could sink in.
“You seemed…agitated,” he said.
“The sun, it’s…hot on this side.”
He opened her air vent, which had apparently been closed, all the while watching her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Letting her eyes drift shut again, she nodded while waiting for her galloping pulse to slow. She still longed to slip into a peaceful sleep. But she knew she’d never relax now. Her dreams had made Manuel feel too close. She imagined him speeding down the highway, quickly closing the distance between them.
When Preston spoke a few minutes later, he lowered his voice as though he thought she was asleep, but Emma heard every word.
“Is that where the accidents happen, Max?” he asked. “In the bedroom?”
“What accidents?”
“Were you there when your mother burned her hand?”
“She burned her hand?”
Emma hadn’t mentioned the injury to Max. There seemed little point in making up a story to cover something he hadn’t noticed.
“You didn’t know?” Preston said.
“Maybe I was at the library with Juanita.”
Not the library. The park. Emma remembered well, because she’d been so grateful that her son was gone during her last big argument with Manuel.
“Who’s Juanita?” Preston asked.
“My nanny.”
“You have a nanny?”
“Yeah. She’s from Mexico,” he said proudly.
“Does she speak English?”
“No. She speaks Spanish like me and my dad.” Max had used the same kind of superior tone Manuel often adopted when speaking of his heritage, but if Preston was aware of the change, he didn’t react to it.
“I see. What about your mommy? Does she know Spanish, too?”
Max hesitated. Until the morning they’d left San Diego, and Juanita had shown up late, Emma had been careful around him. She wasn’t sure her son knew the extent to which she could both speak and understand Manuel’s native tongue, but finally Max said, “Sometimes.”
When I need to, Emma thought smugly. Manuel had tried to alienate her from his people, but it was his people who had made her escape possible. His people and the enigmatic man beside her, whose rare but gorgeous smile she already knew she’d never forget.
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM,” Preston said.
Emma’s nerves grew taut as she searched his face. They were only fifteen minutes from Ely and dinner. So close. But her escape had been ill-fated from the start. First Manuel hadn’t flown to Mexico as planned. Then she was pulled over by the CHP. Then she found that cop circling her car this morning and had to beg a ride from a complete stranger.
Instinctively, she craned her neck to look through the back window, expecting to see Manuel bearing down on them. He’d told her she couldn’t escape him. He’d promised that if she ever tried, he’d come after her, no matter how far he had to go, no matter how long it took. And she believed him. But except for the slower-moving RV Preston had passed only a few moments earlier, they were alone on the road.
“What kind of problem?” she asked, trying to stem her sudden deluge of fear.
“The engine’s overheating.”
The engine had been running a little hot while she was driving, too, but she’d thought that was more or less normal. They were traveling through the desert, after all, relying heavily on air-conditioning, which tended to tax the system. She’d assumed the van would be okay, especially since Preston hadn’t seemed concerned when she’d mentioned it earlier.
Evidently, that had changed. “How bad is it?” she asked.
He frowned as he applied the brake. “The gauge is showing red. We have to pull over.”
The tires crunched as they parked on the gravel shoulder.
“We’re getting out?” Max said eagerly.
“For a few minutes,” Emma told him, and glanced at her watch. It was after six. Considering the amount of insulin she’d given him at their last stop, he’d be going low if she didn’t feed him soon. And they’d already eaten most of their snacks. “You don’t happen to be a mechanic, do you?”