Page 554 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“The guy you chased today?”

I nod and it’s all I can do to sit here, every corpuscle in my body on fire. “I knew it.”

“You think he’s involved with the Child Labor Defense League?”

“He and Gustavo.”

She has clicked on Gustavo’s picture, and is reading his stats. “He’s from a village in the State of Espirito Santo…” She clicks on Ramses pictures. “Bingo. Same as Ramses.”

“They knew each other in Brazil.”

She’s typing again, and the awkwardness of feeling older, even more experienced is starting to dim, flushed away by that familiar, sweet jazz we get when we’re onto something.

“The State of Espirito Santo is the biggest producer of Robusta coffee beans in the world.”

“So these two boys escaped, through soccer. Except, why would Mariana not bring her son with her when she left Brazil?”

Eve looks at me. “Who?”

“Ramses’s mother. Mariana Vega. I know she is divorced, but?—”

“Mariana Vega. Of the Vega Family coffee growers?” She is pointing to a listing on the original protest site. “What if she couldn’t bring him?” Eve turns, her hazel-green eyes alight. “I’ve heard stories of drug lords keeping mothers from seeing their children, from immigrating.”

“Eve, you’re brilliant,” I say, and it’s a such an easy, common word between us that it takes me by surprise when her eyes widen, a smile tipping her lips.

It hits me that this is the first time she’s heard that from me and my throat thickens because I’m realizing that I’m not only rewriting the bombings.

Eve really likes me. The spark in her eye is easy, the smile lit with something inviting and if I’m reading her right—and let’s not jump to any conclusions because I don’t have the most attuned emotional barometer—I’ve somehow accelerated our romance by about a year.

Hooyah.

I’m trying not to act on the pulse between us. “It’s not a difficult leap to suggest that Gustavo had friends—or even family—pressed into the coffee bean labor pool. And maybe Ramses saw it. Maybe he even became sympathetic to Gustavo’s point of view.”

“Maybe Gustavo recruited him for the Child Labor Defense League.”

“But why is Ramses here, in Minneapolis, and not playing on the team?”

She clicked on his photo. “He’s on the injured list.”

“He didn’t look injured when he was doing his 100 meter sprint today. See if you can find out anything else. I think it’s time I have another chat with Mariana and her son.”

Just like that, as if I can hear it, something clicks inside my brain.

Maybe I never heard of Ramses because he was killed in the third bombing. A voyeur to his own crime, drawn in too close to the flames.

“I heard Booker tell you to stay away from her.” Eve looks at me, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she bites her lip. “I mean—sorry.”

She has a point. More, probably Ramses isn’t going to give up anything—not unless I haul him down to the precinct for a face to face. It’s a good bet Mariana won’t open her door to me. And, I’m not getting a warrant after today’s tackle.

“He didn’t tell Burke to stay away, though.” I pull out my cell phone and Burke is on speed dial. He’s grouchy and not a little irked that I abandoned him this afternoon—an opinion he didn’t spare when I returned, two hours later, the meeting in Stillwater spinning in my head.

The watch is working.

Whatever. Right now, all I know is that my instincts are also working, and I ignore Burke’s late night ire and update him on what Eve and I have found.

“It can’t wait until morning?” he asks, and for a moment, I’m stymied.

He’s already suspicious of me.How did you know?The memory of his disbelief, his fury this morning punches through my thoughts.

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