Dead Heat by Allison Brennan Read Free Book Online Page B

He’d planned to head south, back to the border to rescue the others. But he’d barely gotten out of the Sanchezes’ neighborhood. Jaime was looking for him, and Michael thought he saw him everywhere. So he laid low, hiding in an alley behind a Dumpster, fear eating at him more than his hunger.
    Bella had packed him tortillas and water, and he ate one and drank an entire water bottle, even though he knew he should save it. But he kept the empty container; he’d refill it when he could.
    It was while he sat there, trying to ignore the stench, trying to make himself invisible, that he thought about Hector and Olive. Just as Michael knew that Jaime would kill him, he knew that Hector and Olive would help him. He wanted to sit in their kitchen, the smells of snickerdoodle cookies and homemade carnitas and spices that he equated with love and a full stomach.
    He couldn’t remember a time in the last fourteen months when he hadn’t been hungry.
    At dawn he found himself walking across the city, keeping to the shadows, using alleys when he could. Staying off the main roads, staying out of the neighborhoods where one of Jaime’s people might recognize him. It took him hours, but he found himself in this neighborhood—across the street from the house that had saved him. Across the street from the woman he loved as much as a mother.
    Olive had lost weight. She’d always been a plump woman, with warm folds that smelled like the vanilla lotion she liked so much. She was still plump, but no longer like a Mexican Mrs. Claus. Her hair was short and streaked gray. Were there more gray hairs than before?
    He’d never wanted to hurt Olive. He respected Hector, but he loved Olive. Hector was a man who worked long hours, a man who never raised his fist or his voice. He remembered one night Hector had come home with daisies. They were yellow and fresh, a little wilted from the heat; he’d bought them from a street vendor. He gave them to Olive with a smile and a kiss on her cheek. She had tears in her eyes, happy tears she told him.
    Michael had said, “It’s not your birthday.”
    She shook her head. “It’s an anniversary.”
    “Your wedding anniversary?”
    “No. The day he saw me, working behind the counter of the Dairy Queen. He said it was the day that changed his life.”
    Michael didn’t understand what that meant, but he knew that Hector and Olive loved each other, that she couldn’t have children for some medical reason she didn’t explain to him, and that Olive had more love to give than anyone Michael had known.
    Olive stood at the top of the stairs and looked out onto the street. Did she see him? No way, he was too well hidden. And she didn’t have on her glasses. She could barely see without them. She wiped her hands absently on her apron. Then she slowly turned and went inside.
    Michael couldn’t risk going to the Popes for help. They would love him and hug him and call CPS because he was a runaway. CPS would take him away from them, no doubt. Michael didn’t trust anyone with CPS or the government or the police. Someone there had to have told Jaime where Michael lived. How else would he have been able to track him down? This wasn’t a neighborhood anywhere near the ghetto where Michael had grown up. The Popes had sent him to Catholic school, something they could scarcely afford, but they knew the priest and Michael suspected Olive volunteered many hours just so Michael didn’t have to go to the public school where people from his past might hurt him.
    Not your past. Your father. You didn’t do anything. It was him.
    Didn’t matter. He was still running from his father’s crimes, his father who refused to sign away parental rights even though the first chance he might get out of prison Michael would be over thirty. He did it out of anger, spite, the belief that Michael was his property. He didn’t want Michael to have anything, not even parents who loved him.
    Michael couldn’t risk Hector and Olive. He