to punish a child for what came most naturally. It would have been like punishing Mozart for writing a symphony or Einstein for fiddling with physics.
She quickly surveyed the group rounding the gas station corner. They were looking at her curiously, but not with undue questions; they had apparently only seen her race for her car and were now watching her with anticipation for her next unusual move.
All except Pablo. He had seen Chris, had seen the bobbing objects. She recognized the fact in his wide, fearful eyes, in the hand hidden behind his back, no doubt making the finger-and-thumb sign against evil.
“No dance, Chris,” she murmured, still holding her finger up in the air. “Don’t you dare dance now.”
Suddenly lightning rent the blackening sky, blinding her, turning the universe into a jagged gash of blue and red. A monstrous clap of thunder followed before she could even catch her breath. As if the sky itself were angry, huge drops of water pummeled the ground and the people standing numbly in the already sodden driveway of Loco Suerte’s gas station.
When Melanie’s eyes cleared, she saw that as one, the group had huddled together and were now swiftly clearing the area. Within seconds, for the first time since the metal-crunching crash, the place seemed as deserted as when Melanie had first arrived. Again, except for the gas station attendant.
He remained where he’d been before the lightning and thunder. His eyes were on the inside of her car. On Chris.
“You have to help me,” she said urgently.
He turned his eyes toward her. She couldn’t quite read the expression on his face, but instinctively knew it wasn’t unpleasant or even fearful. If anything, she thought she detected sorrow there. She lowered her guard a notch and found she was right. But she didn’t dare relax her protective walls long enough to probe deeply into the reasons for the sorrow. Teo Sandoval was out there somewhere, and she was all too likely to unconsciously seek and link with his mind. And this would be too dangerous now, he’d read the strange feelings she was already harboring about him.
“Just tell me where I can find him,” she said. When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Teo Sandoval, can help me with my—”
“He’s like Teo was,” Pablo interupted quietly, lifting his chin in the direction of the car, and the child inside. “When he was a boy, Teo was like that. God, how I remember.”
Whatever it was he remembered, it wasn’t pleasant, nor was it a comfortable memory. As if Teo were there now, and angry over being discussed, the sky again exploded in light and sound.
“Then you can see I need his help,” Melanie said. She felt tears welling in her eyes. The sudden thunderstorm was frightening and she’d come too far, been searching too long. She felt she had no reserves left. “Please, tell me how to find him. Please help me.”
The attendant looked over his shoulder at the dark, rain-drenched woods, and then back to her. Even through the rain she could sense his indecision, his worry.
“I won’t tell anyone about him,” she said urgently.
“I wasn’t thinking that, señora,” he said.
“Please…”
“Those people that took Teo all that time ago. They hurt him badly, I think. He never talks about it.”
“They are the same people that want my son,” Melanie said quickly, holding back a sob.
“Are they following you?” he asked quietly.
Melanie suddenly realized where his questions were leading. “No,” she said. It was a half lie. They were following her, but according to her prescient dreams, they hadn’t found her yet.
Pablo looked at her for a long moment, perhaps attempting to weigh her words for their truth.
She added urgently, “They want my son. They want to use him, just like they did Teo.” Even to herself, her voice sounded desperate, confused. She took a deep breath and added fervently, “But Chris is only a baby.”
“He’ll refuse you,” Pablo said flatly.
“But he knows what those scientists will do to Chris,” Melanie blurted out, as if by convincing this man, she could persuade Teo Sandoval.
“Perhaps that’s why he’ll refuse,” the attendant answered obliquely. “The niño will remind him. Of too many things.”
“But he can’t just let them take Chris from me. He, of all people, knows what will happen,” she protested.
Pablo looked back at the car, his dark eyes penetrating the even darker interior. He looked more miserable than ever. Melanie held her breath as he studied Chris.
Finally he sighed heavily, muttered something in Spanish beneath his breath, and said, “Go one mile down the highway—” he jutted his chin in the direction Melanie had originally been heading “—and then turn left onto the dirt road. You won’t be able to go all the way in that car. You will have to walk. You and…your child.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She swiftly strapped Chris into the back seat, and locked and shut the back door. She had turned and already started to get into the car when she remembered that she hadn’t yet paid him for the gasoline. Dragging her purse over, she started to pull out some dollar bills.
The attendant waved her offering away and stepped back beneath the canting portal. “De nada,” he said, then added in English, “For nothing. You touched him. For that, I think I would pay you.”
“Thank you—” Melanie began, but Pablo held up one mud-and grease-stained hand.
“Trust me, señora, you should not thank me.”
Melanie, too dazed by the day’s events, the furious storm overhead, and with the end of her quest in sight, only put the car in gear and steered to the narrow highway.
When she glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw Chris and his dancing toys. And beyond him, standing in the furious rain, the gas station attendant. He was back there, watching her slow progress up the mountain.
Just before she rounded a curve that would cut him from view, she saw him cross himself and look up at the flashes of lightning zigzagging across the night sky.
Was he praying that Teo Sandoval wouldn’t enact retribution on him for telling her how to find him?
Or was he praying for her?
CHAPTER THREE
The sky flared as lightning bull-whipped across the sky and the resultant thunder sounded like the drums of fate, deep and heavy, reverberating with promise…or threat.
The rental Buick slid sideways and despite Melanie’s frantic attempts to correct the spin by turning the wheel in the opposite direction, it continued its revolution. She felt low brush scraping the side of the car, scratching it but also cushioning it, preventing it from going any farther afield. Almost luckily, the car died.
For a dazed moment Melanie found herself still trying to turn the wheel,
