Page 30 of My Master
Ezzy stared at the bag then back up at him. For a moment, she had forgotten that she was mad at him for all of the things he was doing. She knew it was a sweet gesture on his part, as if to say he was sorry for acting the way he did, and was trying to make up for it by taking care of her.
Esmeralda smiled. “Thanks, but I hate raisins.”
“Well, I don’t know much about human food, but it looked like the only thing healthy there. Anything that looksthatgross has got to be good for you.”
Esmeralda giggled, recalling a scene where Antonio had stood in the kitchen at Santiago mansion, trying to flip an omelet and epically failing then giving up and fixing her a bowl of cereal instead. She opened the bag and popped a raisin into her mouth. It was gross, yes, and the bitter taste and texture of it made her want to cringe, but she forced it down.
“You don’t have to eat them.” Antonio took the bag back from her. “If you want I can go in one of those offices and steal a box of donuts. We’re in a police station; they’re bound to have them here.”
Esmeralda shook her head. “We’re in a police station, like you said, and I don’t want them to arrest you for stealing their food.”
He lifted his lip up in a half grin. “I doubt they’ll even notice. I’ll be right back.” He walked away from her, chucking the bag of raisins into a trash can on his way. She watched him go up to an empty office and, with a quick look around, he slipped inside. Seconds later he was back at her side, holding a white box with warm donuts. Her mouth watered.
“Buen provecho, querido.”
Funny, Ezzy thought, he had said the exact same thing to her after presenting her with a silver tray of cinnamon cereal and orange juice. She smiled and took the box in her hands, digging into the food greedily. Her energy came back to her in a rush the moment the food settled in the pit of her stomach.
“You.” Ezzy glanced up at the demanding voice. It was Terrance, looking from Antonio to Esmeralda with intense frown. “Come. Now.” Swallowing what was left in her throat and wiping off crumbs from her chin, Ezzy stood up, cradling the box of donuts in her arms like she would a broken cat.
“What do you need?” Esmeralda asked.
Terrance said nothing, only beckoned them to follow him. He led them into a different office, this one had a bunch of computers and high tech gear with a lot of buttons that looked extremely complicated, perhaps from the future, Esmeralda thought weirdly as she stepped into the room.
There was a nerdy looking guy with glasses and orange hair behind the computer screens, clicking away rapidly at the keyboards. Victoria was beside him, looking at the screen as well, except her expression was that of confusion, like she didn’t know what in the hell the kid was doing. She looked up upon their arrival.
“Ms. Ortiz, we’re going to need your help with a few things.”
“Sure, anything you want,”
“You see, my tech nerd, Savvy, here…” She fluffed her hand through his ginger hair. “Needs to know a few things, so he can find them on his super dandy computer.”
“Stop calling me ‘Savvy,’” Savvy said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Without turning, he asked Esmeralda. “Does this friend of yours have a cell phone?” He stopped clicking for a moment to flex his fingers then began typing away again.
“Uhm, yeah. But I don’t see how that’s going to help.”
“I’m going to track her, obviously.” Savvy sighed, as if he were already annoyed with Esmeralda. She blushed.
“I thought you could only track somebody while they were on the phone, to find their location and all?” Antonio put in.
Savvy exhaled—loudly—and swiveled around in his rolling chair, to glare at them. Ezzy noticed he had orange freckles, dotted all across his face, and that his eyes were a luminous green color, the green of spring grass. “Do you people know nothing?” he muttered, which earned him a slap across the back of the head, courtesy of Victoria.
“Savvy! What did I tell you about playing nice because nobody knows jack shit about technology here?”
Savvy rubbed the back of his head, grumbling. “Fine,” he said. “I can use her number to track the area where she made her last call from, regardless of if she’s on the line or not.” He pushed his glasses up again.
Ezzy pulled her phone out of her back pocket and tossed it over to him. “I tried calling her a bunch of times earlier but it kept saying she wasn’t available.” She worried her bottom lip.
“Won’t be a problem.” He punched Isis’s number into his computer then began clicking away again, pretending that they weren’t there. A map flashed up on his computer screen, a red dot blinking in a certain area. Savvy leaned back, cracking his fingers, and grinned. “There you have it,” he said. “That’s where your friend made her last call from.”
Terrance leaned over Savvy’s shoulder and looked at the map. Savvy, obviously uncomfortable around Terrance, scooted his chair all of the way in, so as to avoid any contact with the man. “Long ways away,” Terrance stated, his voice smooth.
Victoria leaned in with him and studied the map curiously. “Yeah, I recognize the area. Full of abandoned buildings and farmland.” She scratched her head.
Savvy typed in some more stuff, so fast that it was beginning to annoy Ezzy and make her head hurt. “The property from where your friend made her last call from was initially abandoned, but it was bought two years ago.”
“By who?” Antonio asked, stepping forward to get a closer look at the map. Esmeralda stayed where she was, only listening.
Savvy punched in more things in his computer and files popped up on the screen. “Voila!” He said. “The factory was purchased by a man named Arturo Benson.”
