"Wow." Alan Eppes blew a heavy layer of dust off of the statue. The dust shimmered in the air and gradually settled onto the equally dusty chest of drawers in the master bedroom upstairs. Light streamed in through the broken window pane, the curtains that were supposed to hold back the sun now in tatters on the floor. "Your grandfather had some beautiful things. Are you sure you don't want to keep this?" He handled the marble figurine with something approaching reverence, admiring the smooth sheen before reluctantly wrapping it in bubble wrap and placing it into a strong box.

"We'll keep a few things, to remember the old days, but no, they don't really mean all that much to me," was Elena's reply. She looked around the room wistfully, clearly recalling happier times. "My grandfather gave me what I wanted to hang onto when he moved in with me."

Alan shrugged. "Your choice. Like I said, I'll have an appraiser look this stuff over. You're going to make some auctioneers very happy."

"Auctioneers?" Charlie asked. "I thought you were going to go the eBay route." He set down an old astrolabe, the metal still intact though grimy and covered with verdigris.

Alan shook his head. "That's for the little stuff. If I'm right, a lot of these things will fetch thousands, if not tens of thousands. We may not need grants to complete this project, although I'll probably apply for them, anyway. It'll give us some good exposure. Not everything's about money. Good will is important, too. We'll try to get the mayor in for the grand opening, as well as some community leaders." He turned to Elena. "Are we set up with those young hoods of yours? And are you certain that you can keep them under control?"

Elena grinned. "Feed 'em pizza. They'll snarl and wrestle with each other and you, but they'll come along."

Alan grunted. "Just like kids everywhere, I see."

"Hey," Charlie objected. "I hear a comment about my childhood in there."

"You were supposed to. Watch that thing by your foot. It may be valuable."

Charlie obediently picked it up with gloved hands. All of them were wearing gloves, not certain of which broken items would break the skin. "What's this?"

Elena peered at it, a blob of straw and sticks with a scrap of pink cloth. It looked primitive, more like something that a superstitious child would have put together out of mud and twigs. A rough face had been gouged out of bark. "I don't know. It doesn't look like anything that Grandfather had. He went for art pieces, especially some of the art deco style of the twenties, but not too much for native handiwork. That looks hand-made. And recent."

"Shall I keep it? Put it in the box?" Charlie peered doubtfully at the object in question.

Alan frowned. "I'd like to say no but I just don't know enough about primitive art to be sure. Frankly, it looks like a doll that some kid made." He sighed, making a command decision. "Wrap it up, and pack it away. I'll let the appraiser tell us to throw it away. Wrap it up good, Charlie, so that the bugs don't crawl out."

"Right." Charlie stifled a shudder and tacked the plastic sheeting around the item, laying it in the box beside him. He glanced around, and frowned. "You know, the dimensions aren't quite right."

"What's that?"

"The dimensions," Charlie mused, casting an eye over the room. "This room. Doesn't it look a little small in here?"

Elena glanced around, scowling. "It's the same size that it always was."

But Charlie shook his head. "There's something not right." His peering became more methodical, going from left to right, top to bottom, mentally judging the square footage.

Not enough. Charlie crossed to one corner of the room and began to pace off the distance, mentally calculating in his head. The frown became more pronounced.

"Charlie?"

The math professor held up a hand. "A moment." He finished pacing off both dimensions, and stretched up with his hand toward the tall ceiling to estimate the height. Then he settled back down, clearly dissatisfied.

"Charlie?" his father's voice held a hint of impatience.

"I need to go outside," Charlie mused. "Elena, you grew up in this house? You know all the nooks and crannies?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Any places that you haven't been? Some place that Dad and I haven't seen? An in-home office, perhaps? Some place that your grandfather liked to go to get away from the rest of the family?"

"No." Elena shook her head, dark curls flying. "Charlie, I know every inch of this place, and we've looked at it all. What is puzzling you?"

"Hang on." Charlie hustled down the stairs from the bedrooms that they'd been working in, avoiding the step that threatened to collapse altogether, and took himself outside through the front doors. He peered up at the bell tower on the top of the house, tilting his head and making rough estimates in his head. He then began a slow circuit around the house, his father and Dr. del Castillo in his wake and watching him with curiosity.

"Charlie—" Elena started to say.

Alan Eppes held up a hand, the motion reminiscent of his son's just moments earlier. "Not yet. I've seen him like this. He'll have an answer shortly. If you interrupt him, he'll only spout gibberish at you."

"It's not gibberish."

"Don't talk back to your father. Just finish the puzzle and tell us what you're finding."

Charlie grunted but whether annoyed at the response or pleased at being left alone, neither could tell. He carefully paced off the length and width of the house, stumbling over the underbrush that had grown up around the place and once waiting for a disgruntled ground squirrel to take its family to a place where they wouldn't be disturbed by the relentless onslaught of mathematics.

Alan and Elena watched him.

"Will he be done soon?"

"Hard to tell." Alan cocked his head. "He's heading around the back. If that's any indication, he's got a lot more to look at before he comes to any sensible conclusion. Shall we go back inside?"

"He might find something—"

"In which case, he'll come tell us about it," Alan interrupted. "I know him. He'll be at this a while. We might as well make ourselves useful inside. There's still a lot of stuff to be gone through and packed away."

Charlie never noticed that he'd lost his audience. Pacing off the distances wasn't the most accurate form of measurement, but it would do for his purposes. He continued to walk, and to look, storing the numbers on the whiteboard in his head. If he couldn't write the numbers down, his mind would do just fine.


Colby enjoyed getting out into the open. It was one of the things that had led him to this job, the chance to do something not behind a desk watching his backside expand. Colby was a man of action.

Like these people he was interviewing. There were three of them, all Border Patrol: tough rangy guys like the men he'd served with in the armed forces. They were dusty, having returned from a border sweep, ready to pack it in for the day. It was a toss up as to whether the dark shadows on the three chins were from five o'clock shadows or dirt.

One of them, Bart Morales, was answering Colby's question. "Rivera? Yeah, we know him. Chased his people just last night. They know the canyons as well as we do."

"Maybe better," Steve Wright chimed in, leaning against the SUV that he had driven up in. Colby had seen the rifle sitting casually on the seat beside the man, and had sniffed the air. The thing had been fired just an hour or so ago. Wright noticed his surreptitious actions. "Saw a band of 'em crossing about six miles from here. Tried to turn them back, but they disappeared into an arroyo and I lost 'em. Fired off a round to make 'em nervous, but we all know how well that works."

Colby nodded. "Lot of land to patrol."

"You said it," the third man, McNamera, said. "They're like ants. You can squash a bunch of them, but there's plenty more running to the picnic basket."

"Tell me about Rivera." Colby pushed to the main thrust of the discussion, tossing a glance at David who was on his cell phone with Don, off to the side and several feet away. The other agent was listening intently, the phone glued to his ear. Once David's eyes widened, as if in astonishment with a lift of the eyebrows. It piqued Colby's curiosity, but he forced himself back to the current line of questioning. David would bring what Don had told him when the time was right.

"What's to tell?" Wright said glumly. "Bastard's got more routes across the border than any of 'em. He's got three pick up points in Mexico, little shanty towns where he gets his people to meet. He loads his people up with coke or whatever crap he's selling this week, grabs a bunch of kids desperate to cross the border, and has his people guide them across. Once they're on this side, he's got a couple of vans waiting to cart 'em off to L.A. We've never been able to figure out how he hides the vans," Wright added glumly. "I mean, it's not like vans are the fastest vehicles out here in the desert."

"You'd think that we'd be able to pick 'em up better," Morales nodded.

"You ever catch any?"

"A few," McNamera allowed. "Chickenfeed, frankly. A small shipment here, a couple of illegals that we ship back as soon as we catch them. I'll be honest with you, Agent Granger: I'm getting discouraged. It's like Rivera knows where we are."

"And is laughing at us," Morales added. "Believe me, you'll be getting all the help we can give you."

"Glad to hear it." David Sinclair came up behind them, inserted himself into the conversation. "Tell me about the busts you've made."

"What, all three of 'em?" McNamera snorted. "Not much to tell. The first bust, we nabbed two guides, loaded with marijuana. Three old women; I think they work as maids in L.A., or did before we got 'em. We confiscated the weed, turned back the old ladies, and held the guides for a couple of days until we decided that they weren't going to give us any intel. We couldn't hold 'em any longer than that. Rivera's lawyers were screaming."

"How about the other two?" David pushed. Colby gave him a sharp look; what had Don told him just now? A few small busts shouldn't warrant that much attention.

Wright shrugged. "Pretty much the same. We got squat. Couple kilos of coke, couple of old men looking to work in the orange groves around L.A. And the two guides, like before, weren't talking. I think one of them was the same guy each time."

"But that was it? A kilo or two, a couple of old people? Doesn't sound like anything worth Rivera's while," David mused.

McNamera scuffed at the ground. "What can I say? That's what we came up with. You think you can pull in more, be my guest. Rivera's sharp. He's been pushing people and drugs through this part of the border for years. And laughing at us."

"You ever get to see those caravans from a distance? Binoculars, I mean? How many people does he usually push through?"

Morales frowned. "Usually a lot more. When I look at the Mexican side, when I spot them, he's usually got a group of thirty of more in those shanty towns."

David nodded, as though something had been confirmed. "Able to tell anything about them?"

"Like what?"

"Men, women, old, young. Whatever." David's words were carefully casual, but Colby could see the studied lines.

Wright thought for a moment. "Nope. Too far away."

But Morales disagreed. "I wouldn't want to swear to it, but I'd say that most of them were female. And young. They were moving too quick to be old." He laughed shortly. "I guess Rivera takes more care with his bigger groups. Wouldn't want to lose all that money."

David gave a tight little smile. "No, guess he wouldn't." He moved on. "Hey, show me on the map the routes that his people like to take. If it comes to an all out war, I'd like to know how many men it's going to take to cover all the bolt holes." He pulled out the large area map from his vehicle. "And if you can figure out how to fold this damn thing back up, you're a better man than me."


"I can confirm the white slavery angle," Megan said, grabbing the most comfortable chair in the office before any of the others could confiscate it. "Only it's not just young girls. Rivera will sell both women and men to a cadre of high bidders. A few end up on the streets but most of them go to private homes both in and out of the country."

"Good businessman," David grouched. "Diversification in the underworld. He's not only into drugs, but he does border crossings and white slavery. Takes their money, brings 'em across, then kidnaps them. Anything else?"

"Actually, yes," Megan told him. "Those women who aren't pretty enough or young enough to sell, he keeps in a few small houses and runs a brisk house-cleaning service. I understand that the women he 'employs' are really very good."

Don took note. "All of 'em registered with Immigration? Paying their taxes? Maybe we can get him on tax evasion. Look what it did for Capone."

Megan grimaced. "I thought of that, too, and ran a check. No, Mr. Rivera is an honest, tax-paying citizen. Pays every penny on his stated income, laundered through his domestic cleaning service. Got his citizenship papers about ten years ago. Took the oath and everything." The sarcasm flowed heavily.

"God bless America," Don grunted. "What do we got, team?"

Megan looked David. David looked at Colby. Colby looked at Megan.

Don grimaced. "Just what I thought. Nothing. All right, guys, we gotta take this guy down. Any suggestions?"

Megan looked at David. David looked at Colby. Colby looked at Megan.

"I'll take that as a bright and shining 'no'." Don tossed the thick file onto his desk. "Okay, let's recap, just so I can pretend we're making progress. On the Mexican side of the border, Rivera recruits people who want to cross into this country. They're young and attractive, or Rivera thinks he can pretty 'em up enough to be worth something. He loads them up with drugs in their packs, smuggles them and the drugs across the border and drives 'em into L.A. in vans. He hides them somewhere in L.A. while he downloads the drugs, then sells those poor unsuspecting slobs into slavery. He keeps Border Patrol happy by tossing them a bone every now again, a small shipment of worthless drugs and people to make it seem like they're doing their job. I got it about right?"

Three frowns told him yes.

Don sighed. "Okay, let's start making things happen, people. Let's rattle a few cages. Hit the streets; squeeze your sources. Take plenty of back up and don't get yourselves into situations. I want information, not dead bodies; ours or theirs. Rivera has a reputation for hitting hard, and I don't want to turn this into a murder investigation if I don't have to. Go." He grimaced. "And don't wait for me. I've got baseball practice with Area Director Coach D'Angelo."


"C'mon, Charlie," his father urged. "It's getting dark. Let's go. You can do this another day."

"It's not adding up," Charlie insisted. He stared at the hacienda, eyebrows beetling, trying to pierce its secrets through vision alone. "Look, I know this isn't the most accurate of measurement processes, but the outside dimensions of this building aren't consistent with the inside. I just need a little more time, and I can figure out what's going on."

"Charlie, I've got the blueprints," Alan Eppes argued. "You can get your accurate measurements there. I don't see what you're concerned over. And it's getting dark," he added, looking at his watch. "Charlie, it's time to go home."

"You can come back another time," Elena del Castillo told him. "Believe me, any help you'd like to give would be very much appreciated. I can already see the glory that this place is going to become," she mused. "But your father is right. I may have some influence in this neighborhood, but even I wouldn't be out walking this street after dark. Not now. Another year or so, once we've gotten this community center up and running, then I will. But not now."

"But—"

"Charlie," his father said warningly.

It didn't seem to matter how many years it had been: Alan Eppes always had the last word. Charlie had lived on his own for many years, had been a legal adult for over a decade, and when it came right down to it, it didn't make a difference. Maybe it was the tone of voice, maybe the posture, maybe some indefinable something, but when Alan Eppes spoke, his sons listened. Both of them. Even Don, who had been on his own for far longer than Charlie and had had a more independent—maybe self-dependent was the term he was looking for—life.

And it didn't help that Mr. Eppes was right. It was getting dark, and with no electricity to power any lights the dubious accuracy of Charlie's measurements, inside and out, would plummet.

And he could come back another day. There was still plenty of work left to be done and more. The three of them had packed up literally dozens of treasures that Elena's grandfather had collected over time. Some of them were safely tucked into the trunk of the car for transport to the appraiser that Alan knew. That would form the balance of the funds needed to transform the hacienda into the community center. Already the neighborhood was talking about it. A few people had dropped by, had chatted with Elena in Spanish, some with Charlie and Alan in broken and heavily accented English. Some had stood off to the side, eying them with suspicion.

Patience was a virtue. That had been one of his mother's favorite sayings, whenever Charlie was frustrated with the slow pace of this person or that. Usually it had been a math teacher in school who simply couldn't keep up with Charlie, sometimes even one of those math tutors. More often it had been with himself; his intellectual self racing ahead of his maturity, wanting the privileges of advanced age that he felt he should have had. If he could act like a kid in high school, why couldn't he have those advantages?

Make haste slowly usually followed. Another cliché that his mother liked to use. And she would demonstrate with a deft run of notes on the piano. A properly executed trill sounded faster than a badly timed and furiously played phrase. Listen to me, Charlie. See how quick it sounds when played slowly but evenly? Proper tempo in all things, my son. Listen carefully.

Well, I'm listening now, Mom. And missing you. Charlie allowed himself to be led out to the car, helping to pile in the last crates that they had packed and stuffing himself into the back seat next to them. The crates smelled of wood, dusty with a hint of dirt picked up at the hacienda. He sighed, glancing yet again at the bell tower stretching into the darkening sky. "Tomorrow?"

"Sorry," his father said. "Tomorrow I've got an appointment with Caroline Becker, the appraiser. She's doing this as a favor to me, cutting her usual fee in half. I have to move fast, before she changes her mind."

"And I've got class all day," Dr. del Castillo said with a rueful smile. "Freshman Soc in the morning, and a graduate seminar in the afternoon. We can get out here the day after. That's a Saturday, and neither of us have any classes. We can get a lot done, and the neighborhood will pitch in."

"Even Don talked about helping out, although he warned me that he's got a case that's taking up a lot of time," Alan said, putting the car through a turn. "If we're lucky, Elena, you might even get to meet my other son sometime this month."

"He's the FBI agent," Elena mused. "He's the one that you work with, Charlie?"

"That's right. Let's just say that he's become a believer in the power of numbers."

Elena frowned. "I thought the FBI had their own ballistics experts. What do you do for them?"

Alan groaned. "You had to get him started, didn't you?"

It was a toss up which made more noise: the car engine, or Charlie.


"Senora!" David called. "Senora Colon! Momentito, por favor!"

It only spurred the woman to greater speed. She gathered her dark skirt up, trying to dash to the bus stop. She cast a terrified look behind her at the FBI agents.

Points for effort, but deduct them again for foolishness. Getting to the bus stop would do her no good; the bus was still five minutes away. There weren't even any other potential passengers to glare at the agents chasing down the poor woman. She huddled under the tree that provided meager shade in the L.A. sunshine, babbling in Spanish.

David couldn't keep up. "Senora, por favor! We aren't here to arrest you. We only want to ask you some questions. Por favor, hable Engles."

"My green card." Senora Colon fumbled in her handbag. "I have it. I'm legal. You can't arrest me."

"We don't want to arrest you," Megan assured her, trying to project calm. "We just want to talk."

"You talk to Mr. Rivera. He'll tell you what you want to know."

Don't I wish. "How long have you worked for Mr. Rivera?" Megan asked, grateful that David had positioned himself on the woman's other side. There was no place to run.

"Many years. Many, many years. My green card." Senora Colon pushed the small square at David.

David barely glanced at it, before pushing it back at her. "As I said, senora, we aren't here to arrest you. We just want to ask you some questions."

"I can't answer them."

Megan ignored the woman's distress. "Tell me about Mr. Rivera."

The babbling started again. "He is a great man. He has helped many, many people! He gives us jobs, he gives us food." Her English broke down, and the words flowed profusely in Spanish.

David shook his head. "Lente, senora, lente! No puedo comprenderse."

Slowly they pieced out what they were after: Senora Colon lived in a small converted barn on the Rivera estate outside of L.A. along with several other women her own age. They were all 'employed' by Rivera as domestics, driven in to the pricier neighborhoods on a daily basis to 'earn' the meager salary that Rivera paid them. Rivera then charged the women 'room and board' from those salaries, making them live four to a room and giving them, if David understood her correctly, only minimal food to live on. The remainder of her earnings, Senora Colon explained proudly, was being sent back to her family in Central America to pay their way here. Soon her children would join her, as soon as she earned enough to pay the fare.

How long had she been working to do this?

A long time.

How long?

Another flurry of Spanish, but it didn't contain either meses—months—or anos—years. It didn't even contain semanas: weeks. It did contain the oft-repeated promises that Mr. Rivera had made to her and to the other women that their children would soon arrive. And, to Megan's discerning ear, it also contained the fear that she was being lied to. It wasn't the Spanish that Megan was listening to, it was the body language that Megan was watching. Let David decipher what Senora Colon was saying in voluble Spanish. Megan was after the truth.

And the truth was that the woman was scared. Scared that Rivera was lying to her and to the others. Scared that she would never see her children again. Scared that she would be deported, that her family would never be allowed to live in this country where they could make better lives for themselves.

And scared that Megan and David were going to interfere. In Senora Colon's mind, she had one hope for happiness: that Mr. Rivera would make good on his promises to reunite her with her family in this country, and they would all live happily ever after when—not if, but when—she won the lottery. It was only a matter of patience.

Megan drew David aside. "Do we run her green card?" she asked under her breath. There was another question underneath her concern: do we run her green card, find out that it's forged, and start the deportation process?

David considered. It was the proper thing to do. It would be legal. But would it be the right thing? He lit gratefully on another excuse: "if we do that, Rivera will know that we're investigating him. It'll light up like a red flag."

By the look on Megan's face, she agreed with him. "Running the green card can wait," she said serenely.

"Certainly until after we find out the whole story."

"Absolutely. Who knows? We may find that Mrs. Colon wants to return to her country."

"We may even find that her green card is legit."

Neither one of them added the one thing they were both thinking: when pigs fly.


"Naughty, naughty." Colby confiscated the knife that the young man against the wall had been about to brandish—and use. He took a deep breath, replenishing oxygen after a short but fast chase. Sweat poured off of him, but the adrenaline wasn't finished. He made certain that his source was securely pinned against the dirty brick wall. No need to invite the kid to pull another knife, and Colby was more than sure that the kid had an ample supply on his person. "Carrying a concealed weapon? Judge won't like that."

"Pig!" The young man spat, but couldn't turn far enough to aim it in Colby's direction. He settled for a pungent description of Colby's heritage and probable after-life destination in gutter Spanish.

Colby grunted. "And I thought my grammar was bad. I'm positively erudite compared to you. Where'd you grow up?" He shoved a little harder on the arm lock that he had on the kid. "C'mon, Shark, make this easy on both of us. Don Juan Rivera. Where is his hang out?"

"I don't know. Let me go, pig! Police brutality!"

"I'm not the police, and somehow I suspect you know a little more than you're saying." Colby shoved a little harder. "Location, Shark. Or I'm going to pull a few teeth."

"Someplace in California."

"Wrong answer." Colby pushed again, rewarded by a yelp. "Aw, c'mon, Shark. It wasn't that bad. We're just getting started."

"Let go of me!"

"Sure, Shark. Right after you tell me where Rivera stashes those people that he drags over the border. And don't think I'm going to be satisfied with hearing 'L.A.' You're going to have to narrow it down a little bit further than that."

"I don't know!" The wail sounded insincere. The yelp that followed had more veracity. "Okay, okay! Ease up, man!"

"Talk."

"I don't have an exact address…"

Colby squeezed.

"Downtown neighborhood, man! Four blocks over from Fat Manny's! That's what I heard!"

"How many blocks?"

"Five! Maybe six. I don't know the exact address! Let go, man!"

"You ever been there?"

"No. You crazy, man? Rivera'd kill me if I went there. He thinks I work for Cool Dee."

Which was no more than the truth. It went along with what Colby already knew. Colby let Shark loose, watched the boy—almost a man—scurry off into the distance.

At least they had a smaller area to search.