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But she didn’t want to risk losing out on a payment. An easy payment, not one that would anger Sofia.
Instead, she ate a pair of empanadas from a stand on the street corner and then took the long way back to the office, twining through the narrow, crooked alleys between buildings. She held her breath as she walked up the stairs, but no one was there.
Eliana didn’t know if she was relieved or not.
She walked straight to the filing cabinet and opened up the L–R drawer. Not a lot of clients in there. She ran her thumb over the tabs. She’d intended to start calling about follow-ups, but none of these clients were worth it.
Eliana slammed the drawer shut and opened the one above it. She told herself she wasn’t going for Juan Gonzalez’s file, but she pulled it out anyway. It was slim, not containing much more than an information sheet and some of her false notes from the first time she visited the amusement park. Still, she carried it over to her desk and looked over his information.
Juan Gonzalez. There were probably a hundred different Juan Gonzalezes in the city, which made the name an appealing one, assuming you wanted to lie. The information sheet didn’t give her much. Just the name, an address, a telephone number, all his payment information. Nothing about a place of employment.
She tapped her fingers against the desk. She’d always assumed, deep down, that Juan Gonzalez was working, through some convolution or another, for Cabrera, that Cabrera had wanted to check up on Sofia without her finding out. And she might still believe that, except the point was moot. Cabrera was dead. He’d lost. They’d all lost. If Mr. Gonzalez was still looking for Sofia’s weak spot, if he’d been hired by Cabrera, then Sofia had to know about him. She was a fucking andie, after all. She didn’t make mistakes.
Eliana’s heart clenched.
No, she decided, Mr. Gonzalez wasn’t working for Cabrera. But who, then? Who else would even know about Sofia?
She checked the home address again. 5894 Prieto. She didn’t recognize it, so she dug around in her bottom drawer and pulled out her big paper map of Hope City and spread it on top of her desk. It was dotted with marks and notes from old cases, but she ignored them, sca
A fifteen-minute train ride, and she’d be there. If Mr. Gonzalez caught her, she’d just lie and say she’d reconsidered, then worm her way out of it later.
It didn’t seem like a good plan, but it was something to do.
So Eliana folded up the map and the information sheet and stuck them both into her purse. She left her gun. She’d had enough of guns, enough of violence, for this lifetime.
The train was crowded, and Eliana had to stand, scrunched up against the cold metal wall. It vibrated against her spine. She didn’t want to look at anyone, because looking at people made her feel co
Stepping off that train was like breathing for the first time. No one was on the platform, and after the u
The walk didn’t take long.
The house was a squat little stone thing, with a postage-stamp yard and a single pine tree growing next to the sidewalk. The neighborhood had been built later—shortly before the amusement park had closed down, when the park officials had been desperately trying to lure in new employees. The houses had been thrown up quickly, and that shoddy workmanship was apparent in the dark foundation cracks and shabby roofs of most of the houses Eliana had passed. Mr. Gonzalez’s house was no different. If anything, it looked worse than the others. One of the windows was a piece of plywood instead of glass, and the end of his sidewalk was crumbling into chunks.
The grass was mowed, though. Weird.
The house had a driveway and a carport, but they were both empty. All the lights were turned off, as well. Eliana stood on the sidewalk and stared up at the house, trying to decide if she wanted to risk breaking in.
Mr. Gonzalez nagged at her. The bland name and the bland suits and his obsession with Sofia—something wasn’t right here. Or at the very least, something wasn’t clear.
“You lost?”
Eliana jumped. The voice belonged to a little girl, her hair braided into pigtails. She blinked up at Eliana.
“Do you know the man who lives here?” Eliana pointed at the house.
The little girl frowned. “No one lives there, miss.”
Eliana felt a surge of triumph—she was right. Something was off about Mr. Gonzalez.
“You sure?” She wanted to find out as much as she could. “A man I work with listed this as his address.”
The girl shrugged. “I’m sure. Sometimes these guys show up here at night, and there will be all these cars around. My mom makes me come in when that happens. But most of the time the house is just empty. I can show you.”
Before Eliana could respond, the girl took off ru
A man like Diego.
She shoved the thought aside. The girl was waiting for her on the porch. Now that Eliana was closer, she had to agree the house had the air of something abandoned. The porch was coated in a thick layer of dust, and the windows were grimy.
“Here.” The girl pressed her face against the glass. “Look in. You’ll see. Nothing there.”
Eliana crouched beside her and peered in, her hands cupped around her eyes to block out the light. The girl was right. She was looking into a sizable room that was empty save for a stack of folding metal chairs leaning up against the wall.
“See?”
Eliana pulled away from the window. The girl stared at her with her hands on her hips. “I told you,” she said. “Nobody lives there. Your friend lied to you.” Her eyes glittered mischievously. “Is he one of the guys that shows up here?”
“I doubt it. He probably just wrote the number down wrong.” Eliana smiled. “Thanks for your help, though.”
The girl shrugged. “My mom says the guys won’t hurt me, but she doesn’t want me hanging around them. It’s a bad crowd.”
“Oh yeah? What else does she say?”
“I du
The Independents. The word rang like a struck chord in Eliana’s head, and suddenly things made more sense. Not just the Independents, of course. The Antarctican Freedom Fighters. Cabrera had enough money to disguise his work, but Independent terrorists didn’t. And they met out here, in some shabby little house no one cared about.
And Juan Gonzalez had actually fucking written the address down on his information form.
“You know what?” Eliana said to the little girl. “You’ve been a huge help.”
The girl smiled, big and bright. “You’re welcome!”
Eliana left the house, her thoughts in a whir. She wasn’t exactly pro-Argentina, just pro-not-living-in-Antarctica, but that didn’t mean she trusted a group of terrorists. Still, the underlying danger struck a fire inside her chest.