Missings, The by Peg Brantley Page B

barely pay our rent.”
    His mother’s outlook relied on the practical while his father’s leaned more to the spiritual.
    “ Confia en Dios.” The soft words of his father, “Trust in God,” both gratified and irked Efraín.
    At some point didn’t a man need to take control? Be responsible?

Chapter Twenty-Five
    Aspen Falls Memorial Hospital, ICU
    Friday, September 21
    The woman had come to hate the soft lighting in her husband’s hospital room, the jazz playing low because that’s what he enjoyed, the still air that surrounded him. Rather than a kind of sexy background to their lives, these things signified sickness. Death. Helplessness. These things meant she waited for something that might never happen.
    Waited for someone else to die.
    They’d had no match through living donors and she hated this vulture she’d become. Listening to the police scanner for calls that might mean she and her husband would grow old together as they’d planned. A car accident. A fall. Even some kind of shoot-out. All they needed was one good kidney.
    She had come to terms with the idea that violence might bring her peace. Even though she hated herself a little more every time she looked in a mirror, she had come to terms with being a scavenger. You do what you have to do.
    She stood outside the door that would open to her own private hell and sucked in deep breaths. Somehow the pain-infused air of the hallway tasted better than the air in the room. The hallway held the pain of other people. The room held her own.
    She shot up a prayer for strength and plastered on a smile because she loved him so much. She pulled open the door and walked in.

Chapter Twenty-Six
    Aspen Falls' Hispanic Neighborhood
    Saturday, September 22 nd
    Daniel Murillo just wanted this morning to be over. To get through the rest of the day, get out of this neighborhood, leave these people and their lives behind. It wasn’t that he had abandoned his Hispanic heritage. Not at all. It was that he felt his Hispanic heritage had abandoned him.
    Elizabeth Benavides walked at his side, more comfortable with these surroundings than he would ever be—or would ever want to be. He couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty she wore like a casual pair of jeans. Most Hispanic women, in his experience, thought of themselves as goddesses. They moved and acted like they wore crowns—or at the very least, tiaras—and everyone around them should consider themselves a subject. Elizabeth Benavides moved with the grace of those women but without the superior attitude. She was relaxed and confident and eminently approachable, even when her eyes glazed over and her shoulders sagged for a moment. She was determined to find her sister’s killer, and being a part of her community might be the key. The curves of her body and the curve of her lips warmed him. Maybe this enforced servitude in the Hispanic community wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought.
    When they’d met a few minutes before ten, Elizabeth carried an insulated tote along with her purse. Daniel offered to carry the tote for her and she handed it over to him.
    “Whoa. What do you have in here? Lead weights?”
    “If you can’t manage it, Detective, hand it back. I’m stronger than I look.”
    Daniel hefted the tote over his shoulder. “I’ve got it.”
    They’d been strolling up one block and down another for twenty minutes now. A lot of other people were enjoying the weather or they would have looked conspicuous.
    Illegals frosted his butt. They were problems in more ways than one. Because of his appearance and his surname, Daniel Murillo had to prove his legitimacy and his potential every day of his life in the country he’d been born into as a fourth-generation citizen. Forget the military service he and his family had given. Forget the sacrifices they had made. Forget the fact that his brother lived in Boston, a respected neurosurgeon, and his sister was serving as a missionary in South America. Because some