Desert Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

her mother, who had been thin and pretty in spite of the broken nose that never healed straight. Her mother, all need and drama.
    Ramón interrupted her thoughts. “You have family?”
    Angel shook her head.
    “Nobody? Nowhere?”
    Angel looked at the floor. She really was an alien.
    “So, what you want to do?”
    “Go. Leave. Somewhere he’ll never find me.”
    Carmen looked at her then. As if she was imagining what it would be like to be chased by someone awful.
    “No police?” he asked.
    “I guess … uh, not yet, maybe.”
    “I been thinking,” Ramón said, rubbing the mark his hat made on the side of his head. “Me and friends. We could make a bunch of calls. Pay phones. We could—”
    “You can’t,” his wife interrupted.
    “No, listen. She tells me where it happen, a bunch of us report it. Sheriff has to check it out.”
    Angel remembered the grave. The trailer. No way Scotty could get rid of all the evidence.
    “It was just a dirt track,” she said. “The first one that goes left, down from Abuela’s.”
    “Past the Gomez house, left toward the hills, toward Joshua Tree?”
    “Yeah, at the edge—”
    The phone rang and Ramón left to answer. When he came back, his face was dark and his hands were fists.
    “All the stock. Your truck guy. Must have just missed him. Shot everything. Cow, pig. Hector says they all bled out in the corral. He’s not sure what to do.”
    Carmen had bowed her head and covered her mouth with her hand as Ramón spoke, but now she turned to him. “Tell him to save meat and bury the rest. Tonight. Before somebody sees, tells la policía. ”
    Ramón nodded. Left to make another phone call.
    When he came back, Carmen had been thinking. “I’m gonna call the padre,” she told him. “Get the phone tree going. Tell everybody watch out.”
    Ramón touched her arm as she stood and watched her as she left the room. He sat heavily, made the couch groan.
    Angel studied him. Forty or fifty. She wasn’t good with older people’s ages. His short sleeves showed thick arms, rough hands. Maybe he was a little fat but mostly he looked solid. Like he could lift a car. His face was lined, weathered, with slabbed cheekbones and strong jaw. If his eyes hadn’t been kind, he’d have looked almost scary.
    “You’re gonna need a good plan,” he said. “Can’t make no mistake with this guy.”
    *   *   *
     
    B OTH SAT WITH THEIR OWN THOUGHTS several minutes before Angel spoke. “You could drop me in Thousand Palms or Cathedral City. I could hitch someplace. Arizona, maybe.”
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know. Anywhere.”
    “This guy, what’s his name, he got friends?”
    “Scotty. I don’t know. I think so. Maybe not friends but people who buy from him, people he sells to. He knows this area pretty well.”
    “So he might have conocidos , partners, watching out. You got to get some distance.”
    “I could work. Get a job.”
    “You got skills? Experience? You got a Social card? How old are you?” Disbelief on his face. “Somebody gonna hire a kid? By herself? How you gonna even get a room?”
    “I could waitress.”
    “You ever done that? Any job?”
    Angel shook her head. Looked at her torn jacket and jeans. “I could do it. I just have to get some clothes.”
    “Hell, girl, clothes are the least of your problems.”
    In the silence that followed that remark, Angel remembered her inventory back at the trailer. Earring, five-dollar bill. Right. No serious money. No clothes. No skills. She didn’t even have shoes anymore. She had nothing worth nothing. Time to give up. But she didn’t think Scotty would kill her fast this time. He’d act out on her. She couldn’t face it. More foster care? She couldn’t face that either. She struggled not to break in front of Ramón.
    After a minute he spoke again. “System could probably help. The cops protect you. Hook you up to services. Find you a place to stay. Go back to school.”
    Angel shook her head. There