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For added privacy, I went into the other room, decorated in plaid furniture and protective charh With reasonable deftness, I popped it open and switched the SIM card

My cell doesn’t have roaister for an account and put it on a credit card, leaving an electronic trail a o prepaid all the way, so I slotted the US SIM into nal

Bingo

Backtracking to the front door, I locatedout Saldana’s card Ridiculous the way my heart thumped as I dialed You’d think I believed the bullshit I’d spun for Chance about the guy wanting to take , he barked, "Saldana!" atme disconnect

I had to clear my throat before I could speak "Uhetting dinner toht"

Relief colored his buttery drahich I liked quite a lot "Glad you called, sugar Just a uessed I’d caught hih whisper: "I don’t suppose you know anything ’bout the ht?"

I enuinely concerned "Huh? You’re cutting out"

Luckily he possessed a sense of huht It’s on San Dario, near the mall Can you make it?"

"I’ll be there" Whether Chance liked it or not

"Oh, that you heard" But I could sense his suys were eating a second plate of talanced up and then indicated the seat opposite him As I sat, I saw he’d laid out colored pencils and paper

"I need you to sketch the syiht have some info Most of the players in toork in Santería or straight hudu, but I know people online who can help with ular Lone Gun him eat That’s why he kept his card

"That’s a reh, and I’m not much of an artist But I’ll try"

As they ate, I tried to remember In the end, I found it easier to re-create the whole thing, starting with the circles I couldn’t draw the people so I represented them with Xs and then took my best shot at the symbols Yi Min-chin had drawn

When I handed hied "Looks like a suuessed "I’ll send it to a homie who’s into the hermetic stuff Maybe he can hook us up"

I studied hi us? You know it’s dangerous"

Chuch flashed a slightly gap-toothed grin "My old lady took off and I don’t have anything better to do" I held his look, and eventually he sighed, looking sheepish "Plus I owe hiarage but business has been slow Lot of people leaving Laredo It’s a scary place to be lately"

Thatabout scanning , Chuch headed toward his home office I didn’t like how quiet Chance was He hadn’t said a single word since I came back into the room, not even when I took his plate to the sink for hi to say so stupid like Are you okay? when I kneasn’t Finally I settled on "What’s on yourit over," he said, staring at his hands "I wanted to think theyback to the fact that she knew the spell, and there’s a lot I don’t know about her You ever have that feeling? Like you’ve known someone your whole life but you don’t know them at all"

I reached for his hand No ly history between us, I was still his friend I didn’t think I had it inand elegant, ift, I supposed My fingerprints never seeht

"No," I said finally "I never have that feeling Because I don’t have anyone I’ve known my whole life" The words came out starker than I intended, h , he would have remembered Chance knew my history, at least the bare bones of it He knew I’d spent my adolescence in foster homes They deteriorated as the years went on because nobody wanted to takea jeweled hair clip It singed ed to your great-aunt Cecilia She earing it when she died"

The gentle Methodist lady alray, before snatching the hair clip away and fussing over burns she couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten A retired school-teacher, Miss Minnie was actually the nicest about my weirdness, but she didn’t want ht, she called the social workers and said she wasn’t equipped to deal with "a child like e during sex or watch the Exorcist, though it isn’t des when you’ve been tied to a bed for real

I’ll leave it at that

At first, the state of Georgia accused the host fa uess It didn’t h by the end, they had psychiatrists asking hteen, they cut o I sure left my mark, even then; left enemies behind me