“No. It was spooky. We all just stood there looking at you and Cathy Vega. I didn’t know then they thought we killed her.”

I massaged my neck with care. It hurt like a mother. “If you had to pick one of them, who would you say did it?”

“Emma.” Lupe glanced over at me. “She’s hard as stone. A veterana. “

“It’s Guerrero.” I told her about the man in the black slacks and white shirt who had been on the roof across from Casa Guatemala. Hesitating, I wondered whether to tell her he had had a gun trained on her, ready to blow her away as she walked down the street to meet me. It had to be Tony Guerrero. This explained his tardy arrival at Casa Guatemala for the video presentation. He guessed I would come to the meeting, perhaps even guessed I would bring Lupe with me. I couldn’t get over it. The whole time we were there, they had known we knew each other. “He had a gun.” I decided to omit the rest.

“¡Hijole!”

“Come on, Lupe, don’t you see? That’s why we have to go to Mexico. If I can figure out what she was doing there or who she met, I’ll know who killed her.”

“And we’ll know who’s after us. Dammit.” She pounded the steering wheel. “It’s just like the gangs. Those crazy cholos don’t care who gets in the way. Step on their turf, and you’re dead.”

“Exactly. The place in Mexicali was called...” I couldn’t pronounce the name, but I could see it. Red lettering on a black background. “N-i-d-o,” I spelled.

Lupe laughed. “Sounds cozy. El Nido. The Nest. More class than those dumps I work on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“We going south or not?”

Lupe chewed her lip. “I was going to go get my little boy today.”

“You can’t take him with us. It might be...” I didn’t want to scare her off. Besides, if it was so dangerous, why did I want to rush down there? For the same reason I ran after the man with the gun. For the same reason I’d been trying to find Monica Fullbright after I knew she had set me up.

Because I refuse to be afraid of shadows and things that go bump in the night. My dad’s older brother was killed in a head-on collision when my dad was young, and since then my old man’s always been sort of afraid of driving. His brother was drunk and plowed straight into a semi. I’d rather hit the semi than be scared every day.

“I just want to see him for a minute. He doesn’t know where I am. He’s only a baby.”