You could smell Pepito's from a full block away.

This was both a blessing and a curse.

It was absolute torture to stand in the McDonald's parking lot while Hanna sprinted inside to use their restroom. Andre and I sat on a strip of grass underneath a stop sign and talked about what we were going to order. All the while, we could smell it—the slow-roasting meat, the fresh-chopped tomatoes and cilantro, the warm homemade corn tortillas.

"Alright, I'm done," Hanna announced when she returned.

We were up before she'd even finished speaking.

Pepito's was, in essence, a food truck without wheels.

The stand was compact and a bit dingy, with faux-adobe walls and a red terra-cotta tiled roof that held a large marquee letters spelling out P-E-P-I-T-O-S. Some of the letters flickered. On the adobe wall over the order window, painted in loopy red script, were some of their primary menu options—burritos, tacos, enchiladas—and off to the side, between the stand and a small parking lot, were a few metal tables and benches where drunk students were stuffing their faces.

Pedro was at the grill, Joaquin was handling condiments, and Oscar was manning the register. He grinned under his wiry mustache when Andre and I stepped up to the counter to order.

"Back already, eh?" he asked.

"Por supuesto," I said, beaming.

Andre and I had accidentally become regulars during sophomore year. The guys had taken to calling him Tigre, because of the stripes buzzed into his hair and his voracious appetite.

"The regular?" Oscar prompted.

"Y una quesadilla para mi amiga," I said.

Everyone is always a bit alarmed the first time they hear me speak Spanish.

This is partly to do with my name, and partly to do with my dad being Irish. There are still traces of my mom in me—the thick, caramel brown hair and olive skin that tans after fifteen seconds in the sun—but most people just assume I'm just a slightly darker version of the white my dad is.

My Spanish is also not good Spanish.

What I speak is not the pretty, flowing language that my mom's family members speak.

My dad did his best to learn Spanish after my mom died, so I'd have someone to speak it with, and took me to Mexico to visit her family every couple of years, when our budget allowed for it. Still, I didn't get all that much practice. Which is why I loved Pepito's for more than just the quality tacos.

Oscar punched a couple buttons on the register.

"One large quesadilla, three carne asada tacos," he read off, "y para el Tigre, un super burrito de pollo con todo."

Andre slapped his debit card onto the counter.

"I got this one," he told me. "You paid last time."

Hanna and I found an empty table. The metal benches were cool beneath my bare thighs, and the breeze that carried down Cerezo Street was a welcome relief from the warm night air. Andre followed us over when he was finished paying and slapped a receipt on the table, informing us we were order 86.

Then the three of us sat and waited.

We talked about nothing, and everything.

Andre was frustrated because he'd been doing really well in practice—he'd worked out all summer to try to put on some more weight—but Coach Vaughn didn't seem to notice. Kyle Fogarty, the first string tight end, was a senior. He'd probably start every game, leaving Andre to warm the bench.

Hanna, on the other hand, was already struggling in her painting class.

"I practiced all summer," she groaned. "Like, why can I still not paint hands? It makes no sense. Everything I try—it's like five baby carrots attached to a potato."

Andre's phone buzzed loudly on the metal table. He plucked it up and blinked at the screen for a moment. Then his eyebrows pinched in confusion.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Um. Nothing. St. James just texted me."

"Bodie St. James?" Hanna frowned.

"What'd he say?" I asked, propping one elbow on the table and cupping my chin in my hand in an attempt to seem totally chill and not at all dying to know.

"He wants me to come by the Baseball House," Andre said, shrugging. "He says a bunch of the guys are there hanging out. It's a good time. Plenty of drinks left. I should bring some friends."

I tapped my fingertips against my cheek erratically.

"He said that?"

Andre nodded.

I sat up straight in my seat.

It was hard not to let my mind roll out the cork board and start pinning strings between photographs and news clippings, like some kind of television detective.

It'd looked like Bodie was leaving the Baseball House when we passed. Maybe he'd just been running out to get something—more beer, more snacks, more girls. Maybe he'd left, then changed his mind and gone back. Maybe he'd seen Andre walk by and thought to invite him. Maybe he'd just sent out a mass text to the all the players that weren't there.

Or, the drunk-off-boxed-wine part of me proposed, maybe he saw me walking with Andre and recognized me from the elevator.

I needed to lay off the wine.

"You have to go!" I said, giving Andre's arm an encouraging shove that might've been a bit too aggressive. "It's team bonding. And Hanna and I will come with you."

"I, for one," Hanna piped up, "would love to kick St. James's ass at beer pong."

Andre still looked unsure.

"Order 86!" Joaquin bellowed from the pick-up window.

"You text St. James back," Hanna said, "and we'll grab the food. Okay?"

She and I both rose from the table.

"But—" Andre began.

"Do it," I said.

I felt jittery and light on my feet as Hanna and I walked up to the stand. It was embarrassing, really. I didn't know why I had to get all excited at the prospect of seeing Bodie St. James again.

It wasn't like he'd recognize me.

"That was nice of Bodie," I murmured. "To include Andre, I mean."

Hanna scoffed.

"It's about damn time the first string got their heads out of their asses," she grumbled. "I swear, it makes me so mad that some of those guys hang out in like—like these little, exclusive groups. It's like they're middle schoolers. They think they're so cool, they can't be seen with the non-starters."

She had a point, unfortunately.

Joaquin shoved two greasy paper bags across the counter. I reached out to grab them and noticed, for the first time, that there were fliers taped to the inside of the pick-up window—most of them in Spanish, all of them brightly colored.

One in particular caught my eye.

CHICA DESAPARECIDA.

Girl missing.

Beneath the words was a grainy photo of what had to be a girl my age smiling under the arm of someone who'd been cropped out. Someone had written in red marker across the poster, JUSTICIA PARA JOSEFINA.

Something prickled in the pit of my stomach.

"Joaquin!" I called into the pick-up window.

"Qué pasa, hermanita?" he said over his shoulder.

"Quien es esta chica?" I asked, tapping the glass.

Joaquin explained, in rapid-fire Spanish, some of the wild rumors he'd heard. The girl in the photos had been a housekeeper at a two-star resort in Cabo San Lucas when she suddenly disappeared. Some people thought she'd run away to avoid an abusive boyfriend or overbearing parents. Some people thought she'd been kidnapped by the band of drug traffickers that'd moved into the area last year.

Hanna's eyebrows pinched as she listened. The introductory Spanish class she'd taken freshman year hadn't prepared her for Joaquin's heavy accent.

But she caught one phrase.

"Alvarado Resort?" she interjected, then snorted out a laugh. "Isn't that where the Real Housewives of Garland said Coach Vaughn threw a rager in his room?"

It was.

My heart did a bellyflop and landed in my stomach, where it sunk like a rock.

Joaquin slid the third bag onto the counter. I murmured my thanks as Hanna riffled through the bags, identifying which two contained her quesadilla and Andre's burrito. She grabbed one in either hand and started back towards the table.

I stood there for another moment, staring at the poster, feeling sick.

"Aight," Andre called, "St. James said we're good to go. He's on for BP."

Hanna whooped and smacked the side of her quesadilla bag.

"Son of a bitch doesn't know what's coming," she said.

Bodie's at the party, I thought.

The flicker of excitement I felt was brief, since I was still preoccupied with thoughts of Coach Vaughn and shady motels.

"C'mon, Laurel!" Andre called.

He and Hanna were waiting at the crosswalk.

I told myself I'd be quick—one minute on the internet, and I was sure I'd be able to clear up the worst-case scenarios running through my head. But until I knew for sure that there was no connection between the girl on the poster and the head coach of our football team, I was in no mood to party.

"You guys go ahead," I said.

"Oh, c'mon," Hanna said, propping one hand on her hip and giving me an exasperated look. "We can eat our food at the Baseball House. Cute boys aren't gonna run away screaming just because you're shoveling tacos down your throat. In fact, I'm pretty sure some of them will be into it."

"I'll catch up with you," I insisted. "I promise. I just need to do something—I, uh, think I forgot to take this online quiz for class. It'll only take, like, five minutes."

Hanna frowned.

I knew I was being weird.

"Do you want us to wait with you?" she offered.

I didn't want to keep Andre from bonding with his team, and without Hanna as a wing woman and (slightly pushy) spirit guide, he'd probably chicken out before he even got to the Baseball House.

"No," I said, forcing a smile. "It's fine."

"Alright," Hanna gave in, still looking skeptical. "Text me when you're outside!"

They weren't even halfway across the crosswalk before I'd taken a seat at the table they'd just vacated, my phone in my hands and my thumbs trembling. I typed josefina rodriguez alvarado resort into Google and prayed my gut feeling was wrong.

There were only a few results.

I clicked on the first hit.

I'm not sure how long I spent at that table, reading through articles. Some were in English. Others were in Spanish. The facts were always the same.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Oscar and Joaquin had started singing along with the music they were blasting on a tiny, old speaker, and their voices—full of joy and slightly tone deaf—carried. I'd had too much wine; the world felt like it was swaying under me.

The feeling didn't stop when I opened my eyes.

I pulled up my contacts and searched for Ellison Michaels, pausing with my thumb over her name. It occurred to me that was about to call the editor-in-chief of the school paper at one in the morning, while slightly wine drunk and clutching a bag of tacos.

But I didn't know what else to do.

I needed a voice of reason.

I needed Ellison.

Without allowing myself another moment to second-guess, I clicked her name and pressed my phone up to my ear. It rang four time, agonizingly slow, before there was a little click and someone grunted on the other end of the line.

"Cates," Ellison snapped. I'd definitely woken her up. "What in the world—"

"There's this girl," I blurted, my voice tight and breathless. "She went missing in Cabo. She was a housekeeper at this resort. Super shady place. One of those hotels that hosts spring breakers and drug dealers. And she went missing. In June."

There was a beat of silence.

"Son of a—are you drunk?" Ellison asked.

I hiccuped.

"No. I swear, that was just horrible timing."

"Look," she huffed. "I know you're not happy with your article. I get it. Everyone has their off weeks. But your article had some real potential, so why don't you work on a second draft for next—"

"Ellison!" I shouted.

Her end of the line went quiet. I'd surprised her.

I'd surprised myself.

"Ellison," I said, softer. "I think Coach Vaughn did something bad."

❖ ❖ ❖

I panicked, yesterday, thinking that readers might get scared off by how long it's taking for the drama with Bodie to develop. And I'm hoping that the breadcrumbs of what's to come are enough, but if you're reading this and scowling over your popcorn like "BOO BRING OUT THE ANGST AND SHIRTLESS BOYS" please know that the shit is going hit the metaphorical fan in due time. I'm just as jittery with impatience about getting to the fun stuff.

But, much like a roller coaster, you gotta do some climbing to get the satisfaction of a big drop.

Your friendly (and chocked full of lame metaphors) author,

Kate