“Why didn’t you just leave a long time ago?” Andrea said. “Just walk out and keep walking until you ended up somewhere where nobody has heard of Jarek Kral.”

Desandra shrugged her shoulders. “And do what? Be what? I am someone here. This is all I know. Besides, where could I go that he or one of those morons he married me to wouldn’t find me?”

George finished the hair and got off the bed.

“She’s all yours, ladies,” Aunt B said. “We’re off to freshen up.”

Andrea parked herself in the doorway. She carried two SIG-Sauers in hip holsters, a military-issue assault shotgun on her back, and probably a few more guns in places I couldn’t see.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked. Kate Daniels, master of girl talk.

“Like shit. Have you ever been pregnant?”

“No.”

“Let me summarize for you: your feet hurt, your back hurts, your hips hurt. None of your clothes fit, because your maternica is stretched out from the size of an apple to a basketball. The small creatures inside you keep kicking you and turning. You can’t eat things you normally eat—they make you sick. Instead you eat strange things like marinated cucumbers and you can’t stop until they also make you sick. Worst of all, you’re not a person anymore. You’re a container. Everybody is looking at you waiting for you to pop your baby out.”

I bit my tongue before I said something that would make her shut down. “Forget I asked.”

Desandra shrugged.

“How about the guys?” Andrea called out. “Do any of them come to see you?”

“Radomil came twice. Gerardo did too, but he’s . . .” Desandra moved her hands about as if she were dog-paddling.

“Awkward?” I guessed.

“Yeah. Radomil doesn’t care. He just likes babies. But I offered to let Gerardo feel them kick, and he told me he wouldn’t know if it was his or Radomil’s son kicking.” Desandra sighed. “He thinks I’m a whore because I slept with Radomil.”

Andrea made big eyes at me and nodded. Keep going.

Okay, keep going. I could do that. “Why did you sleep with Radomil?”

Andrea put her hand over her face. I scowled at her. You know what, hotshot, you do it and I’ll stand by the door.

Desandra sat up straighter. “I’m not a whore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t say you were. I’m just trying to make sense of things. I think it’s clear that someone is trying to kill you. The more I know, the better I can anticipate new threats.”

Desandra sighed again. “Fine. When I was seventeen, that hajzel, my father, married me off to Radomil. Radomil was in his twenties. I thought my life was over, but then I figured out it couldn’t be worse than what I had at home.”

“How was it?” Andrea asked.