“If he’s really in charge of anything at all anymore,” Danny countered. “If he’s running for his life, who’s left to call? Who can he trust? Everyone he knows, everyone related to him, is probably already dead anyway.” Danny stopped, realizing he was talking about the rest of Amé’s family, but then pushed angrily ahead anyway; Chris could feel the heat of it. “He’s buying time with money he doesn’t have. Whoever he is, he came over the river in some shitty clothes he stole off someone’s laundry line, dragging that poor girl with him. Maybe she’s his daughter, or granddaughter, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. He used that girl as a shield, just like he’s now trying to use Amé.”

Chris said, “I could call Garrison right now. He’s always talking about his people listening to stuff down here, like they have satellites spinning above us all the time. Hell, they probably do. Maybe he’s finally heard something about Fox Uno slipping over the border?”

Amé nodded, although Chris wasn’t sure she was agreeing with him. “He’ll ask questions. He’ll want answers.”

“And you’ll tell him the truth. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of. We explain what we have, who we think we have. He’ll be down here before nightfall. Then we turn this man over to him and see how it plays out.”

“¿Y la chica? What happens to her?” Amé asked.

Chris and Danny both stayed silent.

“I don’t know, Amé,” Chris finally admitted. “We’re all just guessing here.”

“We’re guessing about mi familia. What if we were guessing about Ms. Bristow, or your son?”

Chris drew a second empty circle, close but not touching the other, then tossed the pencil down. “Are you seriously asking me to let him stay here in Murfee? To go along with this?”

Amé crossed and uncrossed her arms. “No lo sé. But if it’s only a few days . . . and there’s a chance it can save my mama . . .”

“When’s the last time you spoke to her?”

“Two weeks ago. My mama is in Camargo, my papa is . . . is not. He works outside the city and returns home now and then. Fox Uno says he can do nothing for him anyway. He may already be lost to me.”

Chris picked up the hesitation, but it didn’t matter to him what Amé’s father did over the river. Like so many, he did whatever he had to in order to survive. He hoped the man was doing that now.

“You tried to reach out to her last night, this morning?”

“Sí, nada. And I have no way to talk to my papa.” She looked at her hands, like she was holding her anger, all her desperation, there. “I have no way to know what’s going on over there. But . . . if it’s just a few days . . .”