Cracked by Barbra Leslie Page A

system, I wanted to eat. It was either grief, a crack replacement, or a bone-deep knowledge that I would need my strength for whatever lay ahead.
    “
Sí! Sí!
” Marta swiped at the back of her face with her hands and wiped them on her apron. Very slowly, she said, “This morning, I make churros.” She pointed to a large, fragrant basket sitting right in front of me. My sense of smell wasn’t what it used to be, and I wasn’t used to food just sitting around, unless it was an open bag of stale popcorn spilling onto my carpet at home. Suddenly, the smell of deep-fried dough with sugar slammed into my brain and I thought I would faint from the sheer joy of it.
    On the plane, I’d eaten because it was there, and once it was in front of me it tasted good. But this? This was heaven. A plate appeared as I was shoving my second churro into my face, washed down with coffee. I could hear Darren arguing with someone in the living room, and I was aware of Miller watching me eat, but at that moment, all I could do was consume. Food as crack. Huevos rancheros, fresh pineapple and two more churros filled the gap. In the minutes it took me to eat Marta’s breakfast, I thought of nothing else.
    “Wow,” Miller said again. “Never, and I mean never, have I seen any woman eat that much, that fast.” He was looking at me with something approaching awe.
    “Whatever,” I said, adding to my feminine appeal by belching. Loudly.
    Marta smiled and patted me on the back as she refilled my coffee.
    “Marta,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you so much. That was the best food I have ever had, ever.” My eyes filled with tears. My God. What was happening to me?
    My tears, of course, set Marta off again, and she hugged me like I was her little girl. Which set me off even more. Still sitting on my stool, I rested my head on her sturdy shoulder and cried.
    “Go,” Marta said over my shoulder, waving Officer Miller away. “Vamoose.” I heard him leave the room, clearing his throat.
    I kept crying. For losing my parents three years ago, so suddenly and horribly. For giving up on Jack. For the mess I’d made of my life, from which I wasn’t sure I could ever recover. Or ever wanted to. And for Ginger. And Fred and the boys. Do people ever recover from loss like this? At that moment, I was sure the answer was no.
    The only answer, then, was revenge. Swift, brutal revenge on whoever had done this to my family. And then, if I got away with it, I could escape, go back to Gene, the rock and the pipe, and live my life my way. Until I died.
    And if I didn’t get away with it? I was in jail anyway.
    But there was no way, I decided, pulling away from Marta gently, that I was going to let Darren help me. He had a good life. He wasn’t like me, and there was no way I was going to let him spend the rest of his life in jail. And even if that didn’t happen, I knew it would change him so profoundly that he would never be himself again. No way.
    “Beanpole,” Darren said, coming into the kitchen and taking in the scene of me cleaning up my swollen red face at the sink, with Marta patting my back and cooing in Spanish. “You okay?”
    “Never better,” I answered drily.
    “Good point,” he answered. He sat down on one of the stools and grabbed one of the last churros from the basket. “Can you fucking believe how good these are? I’m going to get fat if we stay here.” His voice was too loud, distracted. He was trying to put a brave face on this nightmare, and I loved him for it. I turned and leaned against the sink, looking at him. Marta patted me one last time, smiled brightly at Darren, and left us alone.
    “So what the fuck is going on,” I said.
    Darren took a deep breath. “Okay. The good news is, there’s a security tape of Fake Danny getting the boys into a minivan outside the home,” he said. “They have her license plate, or some of it, and they’re running down leads.”
    “Running down leads,” I repeated. “Yes, Miller