Detective Branston’s House:
Alejandra yawns as she gets up out of bed. She had come home after capturing state trooper Cuthbertson and trooper Heyde. Detective Branston had stayed behind to make sure the troopers were put in jail. She walks towards the kitchen to fix herself a cup of coffee.

She stops in the living room and moves the curtain aside to look outside and see if detective Branston was home. She spots his car in the driveway. A smile appears on her face as she heads back towards the kitchen.

Alejandra picks the remote up for the television and turns it on. She was enjoying living with detective Branston. The problem she needs to figure out now, is what is she going to do about her legal status. The three solutions she saw before her, was to keep living as an illegal immigrant or live the life of the person’s identity she had. The second choice was to go back to Mexico, which isn’t something she wanted to do. She liked living here in the United States. The third choice, which would take some work on Detective Branston’s end would for him to adopt her. However, she would still face problems, because of the current politics going on in Washington D.C. about immigrants.

She fixes herself a bowl of Lucky Charms that detective Branston bought for her when they went grocery shopping two days ago. A smirk appears on her face because Detective Branston was like most bachelor's. He didn’t know what to buy for a teenage girl or what foods they might like.

She eats her bowl of Lucky Charms and enjoys her first cup of coffee. She watches the morning news to see if there was going to be any mention of the State Troopers that were arrested last night. A piece about her uncle appears on the news for being a human trafficker.

They show the junkyard as he is lead out in handcuffs. She does wonder what is going to happen to the place. She can’t claim it, because she was illegal.

Once Alejandra finishes eating and drinking her coffee. She heads back to her bedroom and slips on her coveralls. She felt something come loose on her dune buggy last night while playing mouse. She heads out to the garage to work on her dune buggy.

Alejandra finds the problem and notices that the cotter pin that held the castle nut in place had broken. She knew she should have replaced it with a brand new one, instead of an old one. She goes over to her tool chest and looks for the package of new cotter pins.

“Ah! Here you guys are.” Alejandra takes out a new cotter pin.

Alejandra walks back over to the dune buggy and tightens down the castle nut. She slips the cotter pin in.

“There! That should do the trick.”

Alejandra goes over the rest of her buggy, double-checking everything. She notices the NOS bottles were low, from using them last night. She checks the oil and fuel filter.

Afterward, she stands back with a shop rag in her hands. She glances at the Autolite neon clock hanging on the garage wall and notices shes been out in the garage for at three hours. She tosses the rag into the basket she keeps out in the garage to be cleaned.

When she walks into the house, she notices detective Branston up and drinking coffee in the kitchen. A smile appears on her face “it lives!”
Sebastian watches as Alejandra comes walking in from the garage. He knew she was somewhere around the house, but didn’t know where.

“Been working on your buggy again?”

“Yep, one of my cotter pins snapped last night.” She walks over to the refrigerator and grabs an ice tea.

“Well, you will be pleased to know that ex-trooper Cuthbertson and Heyde are in jail. There is enough evidence to put them away for a long time. Also, their associates will be joining them.”

“That’s good to know. I saw on the news this morning that my uncle was arrested.” Alejandra sits down at the table.

“Yeah, the troopers gave him up as well. They figure since you caused them to be arrested. That they weren’t going down without taking him down.”

“Good! My uncle deserves to go to jail. We do have another problem.”

“I know. You’re here illegally and if ICE finds out, you’ll be arrested and deported. I was thinking about adopting you. That way, there would be nothing they could do.”

“That could be complex because then I would have to tell them how I got here. Also, the political environment will be a problem.”

“Don’t worry about the political environment. I know a lawyer that deals in these matters.”

“You do know we have a second option. I can keep using the identity I found.” Alejandra looks at Sebastian.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like that idea, but you should keep that as an undercover identity, instead of using your real name.”

“Okay. You do know my uncle had something to do with the original person's death and disappearance.”

“I know.” Sebastian knew from some records and from what Alejandra told him.

“So, what do we next?” Alejandra was curious.

“I was planning on going to speak with the sheriff of Crystal Spring resort about Belka Ann Karlen. They caught the men that were trying to kill her. I figured you might like to come along.”

“Sounds good to me. Are we going to today?”

“No, today, I’m going to work on my paperwork, and later we will go out for dinner.”

“Cool, I’ll get started on some laundry.”

“Okay.”

Alejandra heads towards her bedroom and gathers up all her dirty clothes. She still finds it amazing that she has new clothes, instead of wearing rags all the time. She separates them into different piles and takes them out to the garage to start washing them.