“Luz sent me. Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Alex said, then stepped aside. Caitlin did the same, moving over so Miguel could enter the house. He went past them and on into the family room, seeming so familiar that she couldn’t help raising her eyebrows at Alex. Shrugging helplessly, he followed his cousin.
“What’s up, Miguel?”
The older man dug a piece of paper and a wad of bills out of the baggy khakis he wore, then handed the piece of paper to Caitlin. She blinked down at it in confusion when she realized it was her birth certificate.
“Where the heck did you get this?”
“Luz figured you’d like to have your I.D. back, so she contacted your parents and had them fax over a copy. Now you can take that to the motor vehicle office and get a replacement license.”
Caitlin turned the paper over in her hands. This didn’t look like a fax. It looked like her actual birth certificate, right down to the fancy blue border and the watermark shaped like the state of Arizona.
Once again, he seemed to detect her astonishment. “All right, so Luz might have cast a minor illusion spell on it so it would look right. But it’ll pass muster with the MVD. Just take care of it today, since the illusion won’t last forever.”
Since she wasn’t sure what else to do, she nodded. At the same time, he gave her the folded-up wad of money, neatly rubber-banded together so it would be easy to carry.
“And that’s five hundred dollars. Your parents wired that down as well.”
She’d been worrying about having Alex pay for everything, but Caitlin hated the thought of her parents having to send her money. They helped out a little with her school costs, but she’d been paying for her own room and board, had supplemented her McAllister clan stipend by tutoring in English part-time and picking up some hours at one of the coffeehouses in downtown Flagstaff. All right, she’d been using money from all those sources and her other side project, the one nobody, not even Roslyn and Danica, knew about.
“Thanks,” she said, realizing that she really should have called her parents yesterday sometime. Yes, her phone was gone, but she could’ve borrowed Alex’s. Well, the money would help to replace her phone and a few other necessary items, and she’d try to be as sparing as possible with the rest.
Alex spoke up for the first time. “This is all great, Miguel, but why couldn’t my mother have just brought these things over herself? Why did she have you come all the way from Mesa to do it?”
Miguel’s expression sobered abruptly. “Well, actually, she’s up in Scottsdale right now. Maya had a stroke last night.”
“What?” Alex demanded, and Caitlin went very still, a shiver of cold running across her skin, even though it was warm enough in the house. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she had about a hundred other things to take care of?” Miguel answered, his voice seemingly unruffled, although the way his brows pulled together told Caitlin he wasn’t too thrilled with Alex’s tone. “And I’m telling you now.”
“How is she?”
“As well as can be expected. Valentina went up to assist Manuela, and the two of them got her stabilized, were able to stop the bleeding in her brain. She’s very weak, though, and doesn’t seem able to speak.”
Alex let out a small, tortured sound, not even a groan, and Caitlin wished she could go to him, put her arms around him and give him a comforting hug. But since she wasn’t sure how well that would go over with Miguel, instead she stayed where she was, that same icy fear seeming to move inward, snaking its way through every vein. Foreboding…but what was its source? Was it only her worry about what would happen if Maya took a turn for the worse?
Looking uncomfortable, Miguel went on, “They’re watching her carefully. If they can’t keep her stabilized, they’re prepared to move her to a hospital. But we’re all hoping that won’t be necessary. Besides, since I was coming down here anyway to check out the neighborhood where the kidnapping took place, ask around a bit, I volunteered to bring these things over to Caitlin.”
“Thank you,” she said again. “I appreciate it. And I’m very sorry about Maya.”
“She’s tough. She’s survived worse than this,” Miguel remarked, somewhat cryptically.
No way was Caitlin going to ask about that comment. Not with Alex looking stricken, and somehow pale and pinched beneath the usual warm brown of his skin. He did seem to gather himself enough to say, “I’m glad you’re following up on that, Miguel. So you’ll call me if you find out anything?”