We made it to one end of the beach, when my phone rang. Picking it up I saw it was an unmarked number. Hopefully it was Lupe.
"It's Noel."
"Dax here. I don't have much time that this line will remain secure, but I have some news I want to share."
I went on alert. “What have you learned?"
"Well, I've managed to embed myself into the cartel on Lupe's security detail. I don't know what she's told you, man, but she's not a bystander. She's a very busy woman taking meetings with shady characters and giving orders that no mother should be giving. She's in deep, Noel. And in a position of power."
"What the fuck?"
"There are rumors that I'm inclined to believe, that she's having an affair with the head of her security, a man they call El Pirata. He wears an eye patch. Clever, eh?” His tone suggested he was rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I haven't actually met him because he's been out in the field working on a supply-chain issue. You know what that means, don't you?"
I nodded. Supply-chain issues in the cartel generally were fixed with murder.
"I don't know if this has made it into the news up there, but there's a string of headless bodies in the desert between here and the U.S. border.”
I didn't know what to make of all this news. Mo's mother wasn't a victim in her family's cartel, but an actual leader? If she was in a position of power, why would she have to hide the pregnancy or the baby?
“Did you get anything on Guillermo?"
"That's been a bit tougher. No one has said anything about her having been pregnant or even having been gone for nine months. Of course, I can't be too direct with my questions, or I might raise their suspicion. I'll keep digging, but so far this is not a good scene for a baby."
As much as I wanted more information, I didn’t want Dax taking his valuable skills away from Saint Security and Archer’s team.
“Why don’t you come back?”
“There’s more to learn.”
I appreciated Dax’s loyalty to me. "One more week and then come home. I don't want you to end up headless in the desert."
"I like my head right where it is.”
The line went dead, and I put my phone back in my pocket.
I started back toward home. "What is going on with your mother?" I looked down at Mo sleeping quietly against my chest. How was it possible that Lupe had a pregnancy that no one knew about? I studied Mo, noting he had similar features of Lupe, caramel skin, dark eyes and hair, but so did many children of Mexican descent.
I remembered how Harper accused me of not being the child's father. I think she even said something to the fact that he didn't look like me.
But he was a baby.
How did any baby look like their parent? I figured with his coloring, he favored Lupe over me, but was it possible he wasn't mine, or even Lupe’s? I put my arm around him, holding him closer not liking that idea.
Thinking about it, it didn't make any sense for Lupe to hand over a child to my care if he wasn't mine. What purpose would it serve to do something like that?
If she just wanted me to protect him, she would've asked. But she specifically told me he was my son, and I had no reason to think he wasn't except for the fact that I used a condom when we’d had sex. I’d never had an issue with a condom, but I knew they weren’t foolproof.
I ran my free hand through my hair as my mind whirled trying to understand what was going on. On her phone calls, Lupe would suggest that Mo could be in danger. Was that true?
Maybe there was no hint of Lupe being pregnant because the people around her were protecting her and the baby. I’d initially thought she was hiding him from her family, but perhaps she was hiding him from another cartel.
Whether what Lupe said was true or not, I had to believe it. It was better that I took precautions to keep Mo safe than to brush aside his mother’s words that might not be true.
When I reached the house, I poured myself another cup of coffee and then walked out onto the terrace sitting under the umbrella while Mo continued to sleep.
“What is your mother up to, Little Man?” I had more questions than answers. But there was one thing that I knew for sure; Mo was my son.
Maybe not biologically, as I'd been told. But in every other way that counted, he was mine.