In the few minutes I’d been outside with April, Freddy had gone through the house like locusts through Egypt. He’d dumped out the drawers in the bedroom and the medicine cabinet; he’d run upstairs to April’s dormer, overturned her bureau, and pulled the mattress from her bed. And then he’d kicked open the back door and fled. Probably Diego had been waiting in the alley in the pickup.

I went slowly back downstairs to Sandra. “I have April safe outside in my car. If the ambulance doesn’t get here soon, do you want me to drive her to the hospital?”

Her teeth were chattering, but she clenched them together and hissed, “You don’t take my girl away from me, Tori.”

“No, Sandra, I won’t. You can ride along. What made that punk break your house up like that?”

“He s—s-said—he wanted the rec-c-c-cording,” she burst out. “L-l-like I was—was—a radio st-st-station. Give me the rec-c-cording, he k-kept saying.”

“The recording?” I echoed. “What recording?”

She was shaking and miserable; she didn’t want to answer stupid questions from me. I got her to the couch, put on water for tea, and went out to my car. To my relief, when I unlocked the door April was still breathing. I was just explaining the situation to her when the blue-and-whites finally came screaming around the corner.

42

The Hiding Place

Total confusion followed the arrival of the squad cars.

Men ran through the alley and took up positions around the house, all the time squawking importantly through their walkie-talkies. I kept April in my car—it would be a tragic irony if she survived her heart failure and Freddy’s assault only to get shot by one of these Lone Rangers. It took forever to get the men (and the one woman in the group) to understand that there had been a home invasion, that the perp had fled, and that April and her mother needed medical help.

They finally got an ambulance to come. Even though April was breathing on her own, her pallor was bad, and I was relieved to have professionals take over her care. Sandra was still shaking too badly to make it down the walk on her own, but the crew carried her to the ambulance with a kind of impersonal briskness that seemed to brace her and make her function better.

“Can I call someone to go wait with you and bring you home?” I asked Sandra as they helped her into the back of the ambulance.