That reply made him smile a little. This thing wasn’t resolved by a long shot, but at least Caitlin was telling him that relations between the two of them were just fine, even if nothing else was. “She might,” he admitted. “That worries me, too, but we’ll just have to see what happens.”
Caitlin nodded and settled herself back in her seat, then glanced out the window. At what, he wasn’t sure; the area the 10 Freeway cut through at this point in their travels was mostly industrial, and, coupled with the lowering gray sky, anything but inviting.
They drove on, eventually angling south on I-15. He’d propped up his iPhone on the dash so he could watch the miles counting down. About a half hour to go. They’d be pulling into Temecula at the tail end of lunch, but since he and Caitlin had eaten breakfast late, he wasn’t going to suggest that they stop for some food. Better to head straight to Olivia’s house and hope for the best. With any luck, Matías would have completely alienated her, too, and she’d be more than willing to give him and Caitlin any information she had.
Wishful thinking, probably. But he was sort of tired of contemplating worst-case scenarios.
Eventually, they pulled off the freeway in Temecula and wound through neighborhood after neighborhood of tract houses. Since he lived in roughly the same sort of area in Tucson, albeit one where the lot sizes were a bit bigger, he didn’t think twice about his surroundings. Caitlin, though, was staring at the streets with wide blue-green eyes, as if her brain couldn’t quite absorb the notion of mile after mile of nearly identical houses.
The tract where Olivia’s house was located looked a little older, the houses a little smaller. A lot of the cars were parked on the street or in driveways, rather than being tucked into a garage. Alex saw toys lying out on lawns or sitting on sidewalks, but no kids. They were probably inside eating lunch or, if they were older, still at school.
By contrast, Olivia’s home looked very neat and clean from the outside. No scattered Big Wheels or buckets of sidewalk chalk. The grass on the postage-stamp lawn was green and bright, and cheerful pansies grew in the flower border next to the front walk.
Seeing all this, Caitlin brightened a bit. “It looks nice.”
“It does,” Alex agreed, then pulled into the first opening on the street, two houses down from Olivia’s place. “Let’s hope she’s just as nice.”
Caitlin’s face fell a little at that remark, but she only nodded and slung her purse strap over her shoulder before letting herself out of the SUV. He followed suit and met her on the sidewalk, and together they went up the walkway.
The front door had a bright flowery wreath hanging on it that partially obscured the peephole. Not that it really mattered; even a nunca such as Olivia would be able to tell from the other side of the door that the two people standing on the floral “Welcome” mat were witch-kind.
Since he was closest, he reached over and pushed the doorbell. A simple ding-dong sounded, none of that pretentious Westminster chimes crap. They didn’t have to wait nearly as long this time for a response, either; a bare minute later, a young woman a couple of years older than Caitlin stood there, staring at them in some perplexity. She had a baby, maybe six months, balanced on one hip, and she was pretty in a rounded sort of way, probably still working to get rid of the weight gain from pregnancy.
“Yes?” she asked. Not “what is it?” Clearly she knew it had to be some kind of witch business for the two of them to be there.
“Hi,” Alex said. “I’m Alex Trujillo, and this is Caitlin McAllister. We need to talk to you about your brother.” On the way up the front walk, he’d resolved to get to the heart of the matter immediately. If she was going to shut them down, she might as well do it right away rather than waste any of their time…or hers.
But she didn’t shut them down. She swallowed, sent a nervous glance up the street, and then said, “Come in.”
He allowed himself the barest sigh of relief as Caitlin entered the house, and he followed closely behind her. The first hurdle cleared, anyway.
The rooms in the house were small, but, like the front yard, everything was neat and clean — not an easy trick with a six-month-old baby. He knew some of his own cousins had let their own places go to wrack and ruin the second a child came along. Olivia led them to the family room, then set the baby down in the playpen there. When she straightened up, there was a look of mingled fear and worry on her face.
“What has Matías done?” she asked.
Alex and Caitlin exchanged a glance. It seemed obvious the young woman was ready enough to believe her brother’s guilt, so clearly she knew he was no angel. Since this was Caitlin’s story to tell, not his, he gave her an encouraging nod.