“Not back then. This was when I was just out of high school and didn’t know jack shit about what I was going to do with my life. And she flat out disappeared—seemed to fall off the face of the earth. Her old man did a good job of hiding her, and I didn’t know how to find her. I think Mr. Costa was relieved when I finally got sent off to basic training.”

“I’m sure he was glad to get the daughter away from a hell-raiser like you.”

“Yeah, but the way he made her disappear . . .” His eyes narrowed on his bottle, but, Montoya guessed, he wasn’t seeing the amber glass but a place beyond, far in the distant past. “Man, it was strange. Real strange.” Another pull on his beer. “You know, I always wondered where she’d ended up, but a nun?” He shook his head, a contemplative smile twisting his lips. “Never figured that.”

The door to the restaurant opened, and a couple of men took a booth nearby. They were loud, talking and laughing about the latest baseball scores.

Out of habit, Montoya gave the newcomers a quick once-over. The usual sordid lunch crowd here—gold-capped teeth, shabby graying beards, and baseball caps.

“You know,” Cruz admitted, casting a glance at the two men, then dismissing them. “I thought she might be dead.”

“Very much alive.”

“That would’ve been nice to know.” He finished his beer. “Real nice.” Scowling, he pushed aside his basket of remaining sandwich and fries.

“And you never tried to look her up?”

“Not after I went into the air force. What would have been the point?”

“Curiosity?”

“By that time, it was water under the bridge. Ancient history. I’d moved on. And the truth of it is that Lucia, she was always a little weird.” Cruz signaled the waitress for another beer. “I mean, she was good-lookin’, hot and all that, but . . . there was something about her that seemed off. It was almost as if she could read my mind. It freaked me out.”

“You mean she had ESP?”

“Whatever you want to call it; she’d get these weird ‘feelings.’ ”

Montoya understood. Bentz’s wife, Olivia, had a touch of it, had helped Bentz solve a case years before.

“And then in the hospital, when I was still allowed to see her and she was lying there, you know, in the coma. Her eyes opened for just a second and she stared at me. Her mouth moved, but she didn’t talk, just tried to form words. I’m not sure, but I think she was saying ‘danger.’ ” Cruz picked at the label of his beer bottle just as the waitress plopped another long-necked Lone Star on the table in front of him.

“Anything else?” she asked without an ounce of enthusiasm.

Montoya shook his head and frowned, and she plodded to the next table.