In his mental visitations to this childhood sanctuary, Carlos would stretch himself out in the moss on the sunny side of the creek, with one leg dipped in the water and the rest of him comfortably sprawled. His eyes would be closed, his ears open, his mouth and nose filled with freshness. He could practically feel the cold water ebbing around his shin, and he imagined it seeping into him, traveling up through his body and into his head to cool his overheated brain.

He held this sensation as he consciously turned his cooled mind toward his current case. There was something that was bothering him about it; some sense that Lyn knew more than she’d revealed. He wondered if he’d be able to coax it from her, or hit upon it some other way. This is what he turned his mind to. Experience had taught Carlos a few things, and he knew that at the intersection of relaxation and concentration lay some of his most important breakthroughs. He headed there now, with his eyes still closed, purposely wading deeper into the waters.

Down the road at Tortillas, Rosa had been nervous about the man staying at the Comfort Inn. She’d spotted him the day before and hadn’t had time to investigate who he might be, so she was left agitated by paranoid assumptions.

Ever since the incident with the chairs and the trucks full of brutal young men, Rosa had been fearful of further trouble. She worried that someone had put in a call to Immigration and that deportation was imminent.

She’d heard that the government had begun employing professional Latino men for immigration assignments, and she was now convinced that this explained the stranger’s presence. He might look like her and speak her language, but he could be her worst enemy, sneaking up.

Juan was in the United States legally, but Rosa was not. Even being the mother of an American citizen couldn’t change her status. Opening their restaurant had been a risk, but they’d put Juan’s name on everything and hoped that positively contributing to the life of this small Mississippi town would grant them some amount of karmic amnesty. It felt more constructive and proactive than lying low and barely scraping by.

Still, Rosa was periodically terrorized by the idea that she might be forcibly separated from her husband and daughter. If she was found out and deported, she wasn’t sure what they would do. They’d left Mexico for a fresh start and a better life, and she hated thinking she could be the reason they’d have to give it all up. But she also couldn’t stand the notion of being separated from Juan and Penelope. Would she insist that they stay on without her? And if she did, would Juan agree to this arrangement? The possibility that he would made her prematurely angry with him. She recognized that this was a regrettable consequence of her paranoia, and a self-sabotaging one. Because the more short-tempered and unreasonably bitter she acted now, the more likely her husband would opt for the enforced separation rather than returning with her to a place they’d decided they didn’t want to be. Unfortunately, the more she contemplated this likelihood, the more angry and bitter she became. And her bad mood was only worsened by her realization that if these were their last days together without her knowing it, she was wasting them on acrimony. Rosa had worked herself into an emotional sand trap.

To make matters worse, the baby had become increasingly colicky, keeping them up all night, almost every night. Rosa had tried everything she could think of, but nothing seemed to work. If something was really wrong, she wasn’t sure what they were going to do. Rosa was wracked with worry, dangerously sleep-deprived, and generally all-around miserable.

When she had first come to Fayeville three years previous, people had been so much friendlier. They hadn’t bent over backwards to make her feel welcome, but neither had they gone out of their way to try to make her leave. But attitudes had changed in the last few years. More and more of her fellow countryfolk had arrived, so perhaps the town had just reached some invisible tolerance threshold. Whatever the explanation, something basic had gone sour.

She tried to focus on her empanadas to give herself a break from her wretchedness. Empanadas were something she could handle. They took time and effort—particularly the secret-recipe, melt-in-your-mouth empanadas for which she was legendary—but she knew she could turn them out perfectly. As long as she had the ingredients and a working oven, she could coax the desired results. In Mexico, in Mississippi, at various roadside kitchens in between, Rosa had whipped up her empanadas in a variety of circumstances. And the results were always the same. People called her gifted, indispensable, a wizard. They considered themselves lucky to have been able to taste her masterpiece just once. This made her happy, it was true. But Rosa would give it all up in a moment if she could instead find as reliable a recipe for how to keep her family safe and whole.

When the bell on the front door jangled, Rosa peeked out between the slats of the screen that separated the kitchen from the main room, then gasped quietly and backed away.

It was the government immigration officer. He was coming for her after all.

“Anyone here?” he called.

Rosa weighed her options. She could scoot out the back door, but then the man would have the run of the place, and her empanadas would burn. Plus, she’d be giving him reason to suspect her. Better to act normal, charming, American.

“Be right with you!” she called back.

She held up a scrubbed pan to check her reflection, then smoothed her hair back and pinched her cheeks. She patted down her shirt and skirt, took a deep breath, and walked into the main room.

The man and his companion were still standing by the door, not fully committing to the inside space.

“You open for business?” the man asked.

Rosa smiled accommodatingly.

“Sure, what can I get for you?”

“Que nos recomienda?” he asked.

She hesitated for only a moment, then smiled.

“What do I recommend?” she replied in English.

She looked at the man until he nodded, determined to show that she needed to check the accuracy of her Spanish comprehension.

“It’s all delicious,” she said. “I have empanadas fresh from the oven.”

“Perfect. And how about a Corona?”

Rosa had beer back in the fridge for her and Juan, but she wasn’t legally allowed to sell it until Tortillas was granted its liquor license, which might never happen given the county’s reluctance to “encourage debauchery,” as it had been put in a recent Fayeville City Council meeting.

“If I gave you one, it would have to be our secret,” she replied.

He looked confused, but the young woman with him smiled.

“Fayeville was a dry county till recently,” she explained to him. “Lots of places still can’t serve alcohol.”

Rosa nodded. She’d made it clear that she was willing to provide though, partially because she wanted to gauge the man’s openness to bending rules. She knew that she was risking the possibility that this was another test and that she should adhere as closely to the law as possible to deny him any reason to find fault, but she was beginning to hope that he wasn’t there to bust her after all. She was gambling on his developing an affinity for her.

“I’ll keep it between us, I promise,” the man said to Rosa.

She smiled.

“I’ll take one, too,” the young woman added.

Juan found Rosa at the refrigerator, retrieving the Coronas from the crisper drawer where they kept them cold.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She looked up at his still-swollen lip and resisted the urge to press the chilled bottle in her hand against it. This was for their guests, who needed to like them. Whether or not the man was with Immigration, it had now become important to Rosa to win him over. It gave her a mission besides being scared and resentful. It was a way back, after the thugs in the pickup trucks had thrown her off track.