That made him snort out a laugh. “Just a cop who sees way too much bad shit and works way too many damn hours.”
They spent a moment in silence before she said, “Is that why you don’t have a woman?”
“One reason,” he said. “And because I’m one of those awkward guys in the getting-to-know-you stages.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“You’ve pulled all the weight.”
She smirked. “Guess I’ve done my job.”
“Amen,” he said. “Does your boyfriend know you’re doing this?”
“Don’t have one. Too busy.”
He didn’t want to quit talking, but even he felt the awkwardness settling in. “Sorry I ruined your night.”
“You didn’t.” She sighed and traced the pattern on her bedspread with one finger. “It was headed that way before you came along.” Her gaze lifted to the camera, and he saw the woman beneath her facade. Deep, conflicted, maybe a little hopeless. “Thanks for caring enough to tell me. I’d better get going. I have another long day tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Disappointment stabbed at his gut. “Take care.”
“You too, Marcus.”
She sent him another air-kiss, though this one was less enthusiastic, and pointed the remote toward the camera, then disappeared from Marcus’s screen.
He sat there for a long time, trying to untangle the complicated emotions filling his chest. He didn’t like how easily he’d pegged her. Didn’t like how easily he’d liked her. Didn’t like how easily she’d turned him on. Didn’t like the way he wanted to see her again. Talk to her again.
But what he really didn’t like, what made his brain spin and his hands fist, was the thought of her getting into trouble in that way only naive women could.
A pop-up drew his attention. On the screen, the website invited Marcus to leave a “gift” for “his” girl. He clicked on the link, which brought him to a page where someone could purchase everything under the sun for a model. They even had Amazon wish lists. Out of curiosity, he clicked on Tandi’s, and found it empty.
Definitely a newbie. And, man, having her out there, getting naked and sexy in a world of predators,
really
worried him. He’d definitely seen too much bad shit. And what the fuck was he going to do about it? It was her freaking life.
He scrolled down a list of most popular gifts and paused on a phone card. With no more than a split second of hesitation, Marcus clicked on the card and added twenty dollars’ worth of minutes. Then he wrote her a note.
Take care of yourself.
If you ever need help, contact me.
And he gave his cell number.
Four
Tova drew her gaze from the metal fence separating Mexico from California along the border at Otay Mesa, inland San Diego county, and glanced at her Honda’s dashboard clock. Cedro was late. As usual.
She turned her gaze back to her phone and the message she’d received from Marcus through the website three days ago. She hadn’t been able to stop looking at it since. Nor had she been able to go back out to try her hand at the sexcamming. Whether Marcus had been a cop as he’d said or not, he’d been right, bringing up all sorts of drawbacks she hadn’t considered in her haste to gather the money for Cedro. And after more in-depth talks with Carrie, Tova wasn’t sure she could do what her friend had said the men who frequented those sites would want her to do. Yeah, she was just doing it to herself, but…
She stopped the spiraling thoughts before they ended up knotting her brain. It was all in how she framed it in her mind. She knew that. She’d gotten through performance after performance, test after test, interview after interview with that outlook. Once she decided one way or the other, she’d be fine. She just had to
decide
.
She read the e-mail aloud, just because it was so freaking sweet. “Take care of yourself. If you ever need help, contact me.”
After spending his own money in sexcam-minute fees to fix her camera and give her safety advice, he’d spent more on the phone card minutes—ironically, the same gift she’d bought for Cedro for his birthday—and offered his help. And he didn’t even know her.
She was fully aware he could be a fake. But Tova was a pretty good judge of character. Growing up in crime-ridden Mexico with a trouble-seeking brother had taught her a lot—how to deal with police, how to spot trouble, how to know a good guy from a bad guy.
She sighed, lifting her gaze to the fence in the distance again. This had originally seemed like a good idea a couple of weeks ago when Cedro said he’d be in Tijuana visiting friends for his twenty-fourth birthday. Now, while she was parked behind a Dumpster at the edge of the Las Americas outlet mall after all the stores were closed, the night dark, it seemed…less than smart. If she didn’t have to cross that wide expanse of sandy dirt and uneven terrain to reach the fence, it might not be so bad. But she did. In the dark. Alone.
And that wasn’t her only concern at the moment.
She calculated routes and drive times to work in her head. If her brother didn’t show in the next ten minutes, she and the
tres leches
cake she’d had made especially for Cedro would be headed to the diner together and she’d be sending it home with Carrie instead. And, damn, Tova didn’t have that kind of money to waste.
Her cell rang and she glanced at the caller ID: Cedro.
She answered, a little breathless. “Are you here?”
“Yeah. Coast looks clear on my side,” he said. “Coming up to the fence now.”
Happiness spurted through her chest. She never realized just how much she’d missed him and her parents until she saw them again. And between school and work, she hadn’t been able to get back to Mexico for over six months. “I’m on my way.”
She climbed out of the car, balancing the cake as she leaned over to glance at the dashboard clock again. She couldn’t risk losing this job. The tips were good, the customers regular, and Tova liked the people she worked with. This job paid the expenses her scholarships and student loans didn’t—things like rent and food. And the occasional birthday cake.
Luckily, there was no sign of the signature white-and-green Border Patrol vehicles on her side of the fence. She’d never been here before, but she’d heard people talk about this minuscule break in the massive border fence in hushed tones. And she followed the markers on the ground now with the help of the light on her cell phone. The path was marked with random stones imbedded into the cement-like dirt—a pattern that would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know how or where to look for it.
But navigating the uneven terrain in the dark by cell-phone light, carrying a cake… Not the easiest thing she’d ever done. Or the smartest. And by the time she reached the border fence, a monstrosity of vertical black metal bars topped with razor wire, she was panting and all her senses seemed heightened.
Slowing, she searched for that telltale cobalt-blue circle to direct her, reportedly the bottom of some type of bottle dug into the ground. She swallowed to wet her throat, now dry from the cool air. Every car horn from the streets seemed to carry on the night. The heavy whoosh of traffic on the freeways in the distance sounded so much closer than she knew they were. Yet the night’s dark silence still seemed to close all around her.
Tova’s head spun, and she reached out, grabbing the fence rails for balance. They were hard and cold beneath her fingers. Iron. Unyielding. She lost focus for a moment, her mind divided. She thought of the US soil beneath her feet and all the opportunities she enjoyed and those still awaiting her. Then she thought of her brother, his feet on Mexican soil, just yards…soon, just inches…from hers, and all the struggles he’d endured, all the struggles he would continue to endure.
Same family. Same parents. Same genetics. Same values. Same dreams. Born less than five miles apart, but on different sides of an invisible geographical line: Tova in San Ysidora, California; Cedro in Tijuana, Mexico.
Sheer luck—the guilt of which had plagued her for twenty-six years. Would continue to plague her to her grave.
A siren in the distance dragged her mind back, and she pooled her scattered focus. Her phone light illuminated the blue circle, and her heart jumped. She lifted her phone, skimming the black bars until she found a horizontal break in the metal, no more than eight inches high and twelve inches wide at eye level.
A rush of thoughts hit her at once—images of loved ones talking and touching through these bars. Husbands kissing wives, boyfriends and girlfriends holding hands, mothers and fathers touching their baby’s skin. Tova may have been born in the US, but she’d lived most of her life in Mexico, only coming back to the States for college. She knew firsthand how many families these black bars separated.
And the emotions that realization brought stabbed at her now.
“Tee-Tee?” Cedro’s voice startled her.
Tee-Tee was what he’d called her since he’d been a baby, and the sound of it now broke her last shaky barrier. Tears rushed her eyes and spilled over her lashes.
“Tova?” He grew closer, until she could see the frown of worry on his familiar face. “What’s wrong?”
She stuffed her phone into her jacket pocket and slammed her free hand against the bars. “This. This is wrong.”
The concern in his expression melted into resignation and understanding. He reached out and curled his fingers around hers on the metal. “Hey, it’s okay. You can come see us any time you want. We’re not going anywhere.”
But she couldn’t. School, studying, work, and sleep took every moment she had. She worked every holiday. Picked up double shifts during school vacations to have the cash to catch up on bills. “I miss you.”
“We miss you too. Mama and Papa were sad they couldn’t come, but they said to give you a kiss from them.” He gestured to the space in the metal. “So get that chubby little cheek up here.”
Tova laughed at the memory of how she’d been chubby all over until sixth grade. Then everything in her body had shifted, putting the chubbiness right where it belonged on a woman.
She turned her face to the space between metal posts. Cedro kissed her cheek, and Tova closed her eyes and smiled sadly. God, she was so lonely here. With no time for friends or dates, her social life revolved around a few study groups and her regulars at the diner.
But it could be worse. So much worse. Millions would kill to have her birthright. She had to suck it up. Someday, her family would benefit. They would all benefit.
“Your turn,” she said and kissed his rough cheek when he pressed it against the bars with a grin. “Brought you a surprise.”
“I saw the box. Dare I hope?”
She lifted the top and tipped it toward him where he illuminated the cake with his own cell-phone light. “Your favorite,
tres leches
from the best bakery in town.”
“Dios mio.” He murmured the Spanish words for
my God
with decadent reverence. “Can I just sink my face into it?”
“Not until I sing to you.”
“Oh no.” He hung his head and raked his hands through his hair. “Take pity on me, girl, it’s my birthday.”
Tova pulled the lighter she’d picked up from a 7-Eleven from her pocket and lit the two candles already in place at the center of the cake, a two and a four. A soft glow lit up the darkness, but instead of warming the atmosphere, it seemed to intensify the desperation of their situation.
“Happy birthday to you…” she sang, half laughing while Cedro teased her by howling like a dog. Tova only sang louder, finishing with, “Happy birthday, to my-favorite-brother,” she inserted instead of his name. “Happy birthday to you.”
She drew out the last with drama, making Cedro laugh, and that dimple in his left cheek appeared—a dimple they shared.
“I’m your
only
brother.” He wrapped his hands around the bars, his smile bright white in the dark. “Quiet down, T. Someone will call the cops on us. Can I eat it with my fingers? I’m starving.”
She pulled two forks from her pocket with a beaming smile.
“
Dios mio
,” he said again, his dark gaze rich with affection. “I love you.”
“Love you too.” She passed him a fork and rested the edge of the box on the opening. “Eat. And tell me about life in between bites.”
Cedro had shoveled in a quarter of the eight-inch, double-layered, traditional Hispanic confection before he said a word beyond “Oh my God” and “This is amazing.”
When he finally took a breath, he said, “Haven’t eaten in two days. I’ll probably go into a sugar coma, but it will be worth it. This is heaven.”
Concern dimmed her joy. “Why haven’t you eaten? Have you been sick?”
Cedro took another forkful of cake. “No.” He stared down at the fork. “I lost my job three weeks ago. Can’t find another one. Everyone’s out of work. Ran out of money this week…”
“
What?
What happened?” The words
why didn’t you tell me?
were on her tongue, but she pulled them back. She knew why he hadn’t told her—she didn’t have any money either. “Mama and Papa can’t help?”
He shook his head and licked the fork clean. His eyes met hers, his expression tight. “The price of Mama’s insulin jumped. Papa took a second job just to cover the expense.”