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Ralph reached into his shirt pocket, unfolded a thin piece of printed paper, like an oversized receipt He handed it to Maia

One glance and she understood what it was, but she was ot it

"In Titus Roe’s pocket," he said "Gave it to ot it froure it out Said he owed es of the veranda noorking their way toward Ralph

"Take it," Ralph said "Figure out who’s left that we can trust"

Who’s left we can trust

For the first time, when he used the e, Maia realized that Ralph trusted her He approved of her And when he talked about Tres having a noriven

She didn’t want to leave, but she knew Ralph was right She had no choice

She pecked him on the cheek, promised to see his child, and slipped into the uest

THE BABY HAD THOROUGHLY SLIMED UP the handcuffs and was now checking out Maia’s knee, tiny fingers grabbing at the fabric Her wispy hair was braided and tied with plastic clips The front of her ju a ball on its nose

Maia could see the DeLeon family resemblance in Lucia Jr She looked like her namesake--dark eyebrows knit with detere, and by God she would beat it

Part of me went into her

"You like my dress, huh?" Maia asked

The baby looked up Herfroer over the baby’s ear

Ana had looked like this, in her baby pictures Maia wondered if Lucia Sr had sat on a couch with her, offering police paraphernalia to keep the serious little drooler quiet

"I’ to have one like you," Maia told the baby "I’m in serious trouble, huh?"

The baby watched her lips move, but offered no advice

Lucia Jr’s eyes reminded Maia of soure out who

Maia thought about her picnic with Tres in Espada Park They had watched aby the old ay The little boy stu a duck with a piece of tortilla

"Cute kid," Maia had said

Tres nodded, s wads of corn tortilla at its retreating butt Thethe boy away from the water whenever he strayed too close

"Count your blessings," Tres said "That could be you"

Maia wasn’t sure why he said that Maybe because the wo children

Tres and she never discusseda particularly dangerous case, Tres had brought Maia a friend’s child for safekeeping He had told his friend that she was perfect for the job Maia had wondered, ever since then, if he’d been trying to tell her sos He sounded al

"Hard to iine," she told him

The mother and child moved on downriver The et her birth control prescription refilled She kept putting it off She told herself it was just because she was busy

Teeks after, she spent the night with Tres She told herself she wasn’t taking a risk

She had sworn never to have children She had shen she was nine years old, watching her father weep by a nancy itself was far from her worst fear

And yethere she was

The faucet in the bathrooine what Lucia Sr had felt like, in her position An unwed ht about Ana on the day she married Ralph, how happy she’d looked despite the naysayers, the disapproving looks from her police friends

Maia understood, for the first time, why Ana had fallen in love with Ralph Whatever else one ht say about him, Ralph was present He was like Tres in his fierce commitment to people Ralph had been the man in his family since he was an early teen Maia knew that It was i an absentee anything

She stroked Lucia Jr’s cheek

So about the baby’s face still bothered hersoht, Ralph’s sister ca with her a cloud of jasmine-scented steaood that feels"

Maia nodded She picked up the baby in spite of her squir She kissed her forehead

"Cute, isn’t she?" Ralph’s sister said "But hijo, tons of work You got kids?"

"No," Maia said "No kids"

"Still tioodbyes She had another stop to iven her was still folded into her pocket--a police printout with her naive instructions to an assassin

It was high time she paid the police another visit

THE SAPD EVIDENCE ROOM, LIKE MOST that Maia had been in, was a cold basement, perpetually lit by corpse-colored fluorescents A chain link wall separated the outside froerators