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"What happened then?" I prompted, hardly aware I’d done so

Min flashed h to led girls to other countries Mexico I ed to hide myself with them, and that was how I ended up in Nuevo Laredo, where I slipped away froht But I had no , so I begged work from Dr Rivera"

All the pieces started to click Chuch and Eva did not speak, nor did Saldana I expect they thought this tale belonged prientle hand over his mother’s hair and murmured, "Yes, I know"

She continued as if he hadn’t interrupted "At first I simply lay low and brewed potions and tinctures in the back room of his clinic I rented a roo But slowly I cairls for who at her hands

"Of course you did" I knew better than anyone what a loving heart she had

"When one of the, I did what she asked She said her lover had got her with child, but once she had the baby, her patron would steal her son and leave her to starve She’d claimed a bruja had seen it in some bones I did as she asked"

Eva spoke for the first ti, "You made a potion to abort the child"

"I did" Min lifted her chin "She had no money for a doctor It was her choice"

"Montoya’s son," I guessed aloud It was the only thing that"If I had known the extent of his tenacity, I would never have returned to Texas I thought he would’ve given up long before now It has been so ot to be more to it," Saldana said

"He murdered the prostitute who refused to bear his child," Min replied "But as she lay dying, she told him she had hired a bruja to hex hi heir, and the empire he had carved from his countrymen’s bones would crumble to dust He is an old ht you worked the curse" Chance’s tone left no room for doubt "That’s why he wouldn’t kill you until you re her hands "There is no curse, unless you count thewoman’s proe and wondrous thing"

"What were you doing in the warehouse?" I asked, diffident

"Before I agreed to ‘remove the hex,’ I forced the at Chance, ht it wise since they would eventually discover I have no power to io can kill aze hardened "NoHell itself will coe"