Two glaucoma-ridden eyes blinked at me before the door swung open wider and a woman smaller than my mom—and thinner too—appeared in a pink house robe. “My new neighbor?” she asked, blinking those milky eyes at me. “With the two boys and the big dog?”

At first glance, her eyes said she couldn’t see well, but her knowing I had the two boys and being aware of Big Mac, told me I couldn’t let this woman fool me. She knew what was up. I could appreciate that. “Yes, ma’am. I brought you some cookies over.”

“Cookies? I love cookies,” the elderly woman commented as she slipped glasses over her fragile nose with one hand. The other rose toward me, thin and heavily veined.

“Mexican cookies,” I explained, picking one of the containers out of the bag.

And the smile melted right off the woman’s face. “Mexican cookies.” Her voice had changed, too. “You Mexican?” she asked, her eyes narrowing at me as if she was barely noticing I had some yellow and tan in my skin tone.

Unease tickled my neck, making me hesitate. “Yes?” Why the hell was I answering like it was a question? I was and it wasn’t some secret. I couldn’t exactly hide it.

Those small eyes got even smaller, and I didn’t really like it. “You look a little Mexican, but you sure don’t sound Mexican.”

I could feel my cheeks start to get hot. That familiar burn of indignity scorched my throat for a brief second. I’d lived in multicultural cities my entire life. I wasn’t used to someone saying the word “Mexican” like the greatest food on the planet wasn’t from there. “I was born and raised in El Paso.” My tonsils tickled, my face getting hotter by the second.

The old lady hummed like she didn’t believe me. Nearly hairless eyebrows went up. “No husband?”

What was this? A CIA interrogation? I didn’t like the tone of her voice before, now the husband thing… I knew where this was going. I knew what she was going to assume considering she was already aware of Josh and Louie’s existence. “No, ma’am,” I answered in a surprisingly calm voice, holding on to my pride with both hands.

The thin slivers of her white eyebrows went up half an inch on her forehead.

That was my cue to get the hell out of there before she could ask something else that was going to make me mad. I smiled at the woman despite being pretty sure she couldn’t see it and said, “It was nice meeting you, Miss—”

“Pearl.”

“Miss Pearl. Let me know if you need anything,” I forced myself to offer, knowing it was the right thing to do. “I work a lot, but I’m usually home Sundays. My phone number is on the container,” I said, holding the Rubbermaid right up against her hands, which were clasped in front of her.

She took the container from me, her expression still a little off.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” I said, taking a step back.

Were her eyes still narrowed or was I just imagining it? “Nice meeting you, Miss Cruz. I hope these Mexican cookies are good,” she finally replied in a tone that said I shouldn’t hold my breath.

I blinked at the “Miss Cruz.”

With a sigh punching at my throat to get out, I jogged down the steps and headed toward the next house. Unsurprisingly, no one answered. It was the middle of the day on Tuesday. Most people would be at work. I didn’t need to look at the bag to know there was one more container of polvorones to deliver. One more set of cookies for the home where I’d helped break up a fight and seen a man in his undies. I’d be damned if I went back home with them, or worse, tried to hide them because I didn’t want to have to listen to my mom rail me for not doing what she requested.

I blew out another breath as I climbed down the steps of the second to last house, distractedly noticing that the red car that had pulled over while I’d been talking to my next-door neighbors was still there. Huh. In the day since the beat down, I hadn’t seen any cars in the driveway. But a red sedan didn’t exactly seem like the kind of car either man that had been in the house would drive.

For a moment, I hesitated. Then all I had to do was think of my mom waiting for me in the house, and I knew I didn’t have a choice unless I wanted to hear about it all night, or worse, have her threaten to go meet the neighbors herself because I hadn’t. Was I ever not going to be scared of her?

Down and around the sidewalk leading up to the house I had been in once, I jiggled the cookies in my hand. I eyed the Chevy for a second as I walked by it and headed up the neat walkway toward the front door. It was a better-looking cousin to my place… only this one was hiding the horrors within.

At the door, I knocked but there wasn’t a single noise from inside. I rang the doorbell, and when still nothing stirred, I set the container of cookies on the deck on top of the doormat, ripped my business card off the lid, leaving only the Post-it, praising Jesus that I’d gotten out of talking to this neighbor—or his friend or roommate or whoever that man had been—at least for a little while longer. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed. I wasn’t. I hadn’t done anything other than save the man’s ass, but I didn’t want to seem like some stalker showing up to their house just two days afterward.

“Hey!” a feminine voice called out.

Turning around, I frowned at the black-haired woman standing on the side of the sedan furthest away from me.

“Yeah?” I called out, squinting against the sun.