No Way Back

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It took a month for Harold and an immigration lawyer to prepare Lauritzia’s case. He had to familiarize himself with the records from the first trial in Texas, in which the immigration court denied the family’s petition for asylum. The split ruling seemed so inexplicably flawed.

Then he got the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Dallas to agree to hear them in an expedited manner.

In the meantime Lauritzia remained hidden in an apartment the firm rented for her in New Haven, Connecticut, watched over by private security. She kept up her classes on the Internet and drove back to Greenwich and Harold’s office a couple of times in secrecy to go over her testimony. During all this time she saw Roxanne only once, when Roxanne drove up to New Haven for the day to visit, bringing pictures and cards from the kids. Harold found a government witness willing to talk about Cano: Sabrina Stein, who had been head of the DEA’s office in El Paso as well as the government’s covert action unit there, known as EPIC, the El Paso Intelligence Center. Stein knew Cano to be a ruthless and remorseless killer, whose thirst for revenge was almost as strong as his shrewdness and his instinct for survival. It was Sabrina Stein’s agents who had been the targets of the hit in Culiacán, Mexico, that began this whole tragic affair.

It seemed a positive sign that the court agreed to hear the case so quickly.

The decision two years ago to deny the Velez family asylum seemed more a result of the furor at the time over lack of immigration control along the Mexican border than proper jurisprudence or fairness. The United States government no longer needed Lauritzia’s father’s testimony after the case against Cano broke down, and thus there was certainly no need for his children to be granted asylum in the United States, simply because of their “unsubstantiated” claim of a vendetta against them back in Mexico. Therefore they ruled that the privileges of asylum that were extended to Mr. Velez as a government witness did not extend to his children. However, now, Harold would argue, the situation had tragically changed. Lauritzia’s three sisters and a brother had been killed; Cano had made no secret of his vendetta. Now Harold could show a clear pattern of “retaliation and threat” against the family, of which Lauritzia and her father were the only surviving members. He would argue that her situation was akin to any “persecuted refugee” in any political or ethnic “class.” That Lauritzia legitimately feared persecution and even death should she be returned home, as was ordered by the court. A situation only worsened, in fact, by the U.S. government’s decision not to pursue the prosecution of Eduardo Cano. Any test of reasonability had to find for her now.

Their court date, September 20, finally came around. Harold and his associate flew down to Dallas with Lauritzia. Roxanne came along too. It took place in the federal courthouse on Commerce Street downtown. The courtroom seemed strangely empty to Lauritzia, who had only seen trials in movies or on TV. There was no media attention; they didn’t want any. And no jury. Only three judges, a woman and two middle-aged men. Harold was optimistic. The night before, they’d gone over her testimony one last time. Her story was as compelling and tragic as any the court would have ever heard.

They had to win.

In his opening, Harold began by arguing that no one could possibly be brought before this court with a stronger case for asylum in the United States. Lauritzia’s father, while a criminal himself, had risked his life and freedom to testify against a notorious drug enforcer whose trail of blood included five American lives. That it was only due to the United States’s questionable decision not to pursue the prosecution against Mr. Cano that he was even freed and returned to Mexico to pursue this reign of terror against Velez’s family.

“Ms. Velez has faced a fate of terror and uncertainty. She has lost virtually every close member of her family due to Mr. Cano’s openly declared vow of revenge. In that sense alone she belongs to a ‘persecuted class,’ as legitimate as any political or ethnically motivated persecution. That class,” Harold argued, “being her own family.”

It came time for Lauritzia to take the stand. She was sworn in wearing a dark suit they had bought her for the occasion, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, both pretty and serious-looking.

“Ms. Velez, I’d like you to tell the court the last time you spoke to your brother Eustavio,” Harold said to her.

“Eustavio…” Lauritzia moistened her lips. “That was in 2009. Before he was found shot dead on the street in my hometown of Navolato in Mexico. His body was mutilated.”

“I know this is difficult, Ms. Velez…” Harold approached the witness box. “But can you tell the court how the body was mutilated?”

Lauritzia glanced at up the black-robed justices and took a breath. The white-haired male judge seemed to nod for her to go on.

“His genitales,” she hesitated. “I think it is the same in English. They had been cut off and put in his mouth. Where I come from it is the sign of a traitor.”

Someone in the courtroom gasped.

“And Eustavio’s occupation?” Harold asked. “Your brother wasn’t in the drug business, was he, Ms. Velez?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He was a postal clerk, Mr. Bachman.”

“And your sister Nina? When was the last time you saw her?”

“That same year. In August. She was killed in the beauty parlor where she worked. Along with twelve others who were there when the men came in. They filled her body with sixty bullets.”

“And your sister Maria?”

“Two and a half years ago,” Lauritzia said. “She lived in Juárez. She was shot dead in her car. My little cousin Theresa was killed too.”

The female judge shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cleared her throat.

“And your sister Rosa?” Harold continued. “Your twin, I might add. And the person, I remind the court, who originally filed this motion for asylum.”

Lauritzia nodded. She glanced at the judges and then back at Harold, who was nodding gently at her, as hard as it was to go through this. “My sister Rosa was killed too. She was here in Texas. In her home. Illegally, I know. She was five months pregnant with her first child, her son, who she intended to name Eustavio, after our brother.”

“That tragically makes four-three sisters and your brother. Murdered. How many remaining siblings do you have, Ms. Velez?

“I have none.” Lauritzia shook her head.

She allowed herself a glance toward the judges. The other male judge, a heavyset black man, appeared to wince with emotion, which she assumed was a positive sign.

“And if you would tell the court what happened on July twenty-fourth of this year?” Harold changed the questioning.

“At the Westchester Mall?” Lauritzia asked, to be sure.

Harold nodded. “Yes. At the mall.”

“As I was leaving, with the children I take care of… your children, Mr. Bachman… the elevator I was riding in was shot up by a man with a semiautomatic weapon. Three people in front of us were killed. Others were wounded. The assassin was clearly sent by Eduardo Cano, because they were Los Zetas, which he commands. It was only by the grace of God that I, or either of the kids, was not killed as well.”

“And how do you know this killer was sent to harm you, Ms. Velez, and not one of the others?”

“I saw the shooter’s neck. His tattoo. The skeleton with the dragon’s tail. It is common back home, for members of the drug cartels. Especially that of Los Zetas. The length of the tail marks the time that person has spent in prison.”

“But you chose not to come forward at that time, didn’t you, Ms. Velez? That you suspected that what had happened there was directed at you personally?”

“No.” Lauritzia nodded. “I didn’t.” She bowed and shook her head.

“Can you tell the court why?”

“Because I was afraid. Afraid if I did, I would be found out and sent home. I just wanted to run. To not put your family in any more danger. And I did run.”

“And what fate would you face if you were deported back to Mexico?”

“The same fate my entire family has met.” She looked at the judges. “Eduardo Cano has vowed to kill us all. I would be no different.”

The hearing took just over three hours, including the testimony of Sabrina Stein, who stated that Eduardo Cano “was one of the two or three most ruthless killers operating in the higher echelons of the Mexican narcosphere right now,” and “what a short-sided mistake it had been for the government to have ever let him slip through our hands.”

“And you know this firsthand, don’t you, Agent Stein?” Harold asked her.

“Yes.” She nodded, looking down.

“Can you tell us how?”

“Because I lost two of my best agents. Rita Bienvienes and her husband, Dean, who both worked under me. They were the targets of the ambush that Ms. Velez’s father was prepared to testify on.”

“And you’re familiar with the dragon tattoo that Ms. Velez referred to, aren’t you? Which was on the body of the shooter at the Westchester Mall.”

“Yes.” The government witness nodded. “It’s a common mark of valor and loyalty in the Los Zetas drug cartel.”

The government prosecutor had his time. He argued that tragic as Ms. Velez’s story was, it did not merit the “stay of removal,” in that she was not a member of any accepted persecuted class, only that of her own family, and that Mr. Cano’s vendetta against them did not constitute the type of “ethnic or political” persecution that merited a reversal. He also argued that Ms. Velez had not legally complied with the court’s original ruling but, in fact, had secretly hidden out in the United States “in direct opposition of it.”

To which Harold objected that it would have been a death sentence if she had complied. “Ms. Velez was not hiding out,” he said to the court. “She had a steady job. She was enrolled in school. She has embarked on a path to better herself. Coupled with the obvious threat should she be forced to leave, there is no more compelling case of someone who deserves to remain here.”

The U.S. attorney dropped this and brought up another appeals ruling-some Albanian gangster, who had gone on a similar spree of terror against a family here, who had been denied asylum-which, he claimed, acted as a precedent.

One of the male judges asked the government if Lauritzia’s father was still under U.S. protection, and the lawyer answered no. The female judge asked whether, if the government had known the tragic repercussions the Velez family would face, they would have argued against a stay.

Everything seemed to be going well.

“We made the right case,” Harold said in the hall outside the courtroom. “Two of the judges showed clear sensitivity to your story. That’s all we need. They’ll have to reverse it. It’s the only reasonable thing. Even the prosecutor wasn’t objecting strenuously.”

“Now what do we do?” Lauritzia asked as they were transported into the basement garage and into a black SUV.

“Now we just wait.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

She waited three weeks. Three more weeks of hiding, of not knowing her fate. Everyone seemed to think the chances were good. Certainly Mr. B felt that way. Lauritzia trusted him when he said that only a heartless person could not see what Cano had in store for her if she was denied. At least two of the judges had smiled at her and thanked her for her testimony. She deserved to be here. This was America, not Mexico. Sending her home would be sending her to her grave.

Lauritzia was reading one of her retail books when her cell phone rang. “It’s Harold,” said Mr. B. She got nervous. “The ruling is in. We need to talk with you.”

“Do you want me to come down to your office?”

“No. Roxanne and I are on our way. We’ll be there in an hour.”

An hour. Her blood raced for most of it, with alternating anticipation and excitement. But when she heard the knock at the door and ran to open it, she could see immediately in the lines of their downcast faces that it had not gone her way.

“How?” Her hand went to her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Lauritzia. The court found two to one against our stay,” Harold said, giving her a bolstering hug.

They all sat at the kitchen table as Harold read from a printed-off ruling that had been posted on the Internet. “They claimed ‘the threat against Ms. Velez, sympathetic as it is, is nonetheless not due to her membership in “a persecuted class,” but to no more than Mr. Cano’s anger against her father for a personal transgression. Therefore it does not rise to the kind of threat that makes one eligible for protection under federal law.’ They cited this Demiraj case as precedent.”

She looked at him blankly. “So what does this mean?”

“It means the government is saying that whatever protection had been afforded your father for his testimony against Cano does not extend to you. The original ruling is intact. We’re ordered to turn you over to a court-appointed immigration agent in the next thirty days.”

A downcast silence settled over the room. For a while, no one spoke.

“Thirty days?” Lauritzia muttered. She looked at them, worry in her eyes.

Harold leaned against the kitchen counter. “Pending appeal.”

“Which means it’s not over,” Roxanne said, taking Lauritzia’s hand. “This was an appeals court, Lauritzia. It means we take this higher up, to the Supreme Court.”

“If they’ll agree to take it.” Harold shrugged. “Their ruling is a completely narrow reading of the asylum law. It totally ignores whatever is human about it. It’s like the government is somehow siding with this son of a bitch Cano. What they’ve come back with goes against the very spirit of the law it was designed to protect.”

“Thirty days…” Lauritzia sat down. “This is not right.” She felt numb. She had allowed herself to believe, and now once again it was clear who had won and who had lost. Harold was right, it was as if the government was siding with this monster. Why? In thirty days she could be sent back and-

“Lauritzia, we’re not done yet,” Roxanne said, bracing her by the shoulders. “I don’t want you to give up on this fight. And I don’t want you to give up on us either. Harold’s already agreed to go on.”

“I’m going to try to put together what they call amicus briefs from various law professors and immigration advocates-”

“Go on?” Lauritzia looked at them in confusion. “How can we go on? I can’t stay here forever. With you continuing to hide me and pay for me and-”

“We have another plan we’d like to propose.” Roxanne leaned forward, her blue eyes brimming with resolve. “We’re going to fly you out to our house in Edwards, Colorado. No one will know you’re there. You can stay there until we can determine the right legal move.” Lauritzia’s hand was trembling and Roxanne squeezed it tightly. “I know you want to give up… I know you don’t want to burden us. But the last thing we’re going to do is hand you over to the immigration department. That’s not going to happen.”

“You’ll go against your own law?”

“If we have to,” Roxanne said.

She looked at Harold. “And you agree, Mr. Bachman?”

He nodded. “We talked it over. Yes, I agree.”

Roxanne took her by the shoulders. “You’ll be safe out there. No one will know. I know it seems like you’ve lost, but we’re not done yet…”

“Not by a long shot,” Harold said.

Lauritzia pressed herself against Roxanne. Thirty days… She didn’t know, maybe the right thing was just to disappear. This was her fate, not theirs. She had already cost them enough. She felt love for them, these people who treated her like their own family. Yet she’d felt the bond of love before, and it had only turned to blood and tears.

She should go.

But she heard herself mutter back, “Thank you.” And felt the tears rush. Because it was a fight and she was not ready to give up. To pay her cuota. Not without one more battle.

She hugged Roxanne and said a prayer for those who had died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It would be so easy, Roxanne thought, gazing out the window on their trip back home to Greenwich, to simply let her go.

They’d already done more than anyone could have asked. More than Lauritzia herself even asked. She wasn’t their family, no matter how many times Roxanne declared it. She simply wasn’t. They had their own lives. Their own kids. They could so easily just say that they had tried their best. A trial. Standing by her. Protecting her when others would have turned their heads.

Simply let her go.

It was night when they made the ride back home down Interstate 95. She and Harold didn’t say much to each other. Most of what they wanted to say had already been said. They both felt dismal about the outcome. Angry. They felt as if they had let her down. Their friends already thought they were crazy to have gone as far as they had. It would be easy to have treated the whole thing as if it were some kind of charity. Just write the girl a check, without ever having to have put yourself on the line. After all, it wasn’t their fight. Their fate.

It was hers.

And maybe in another life, another moment, Roxanne could have done all this. Before what had happened at the mall.

But not now.

When those shots rang out, Lauritzia’s only instinct had been to protect their kids. She’d put herself on the line for them. She’d made them her fight.

Now it just seemed like the right thing, the only thing, to do the same for her.

Roxanne asked herself, if a hundred blessed things came into their life-if Harold was named head of the firm, or got some honor, if the kids won some big recognition in school or some prestigious trophy, if she was honored by the local hospital for her charitable work there-would it offset knowing that they had cast Lauritzia away to an unknown fate? That they hadn’t done all they could?

It would always haunt her.

She thought, life was safe here, seemingly protected from harm. But sometimes in that safe, predictable life, you had to risk it all. You had to go “all in.” Or else the rest didn’t mean anything. Love is simply love, Roxanne realized as she stared out the window. You couldn’t legislate how it came into your life. Or defend yourself against it when it’s inconvenient. Or divvy it up, like vegetables on a plate. When it enters, it becomes the only thing that matters. The only thing of meaning. The rest … the rest is not the painting, it’s just the painter signing his name.

She looked at Harold at the wheel. She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “Are we doing the right thing?” Roxanne asked. “People think we’re crazy.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure there is a right thing.” He looked back at her. “The right thing is only what you feel with a hundred percent certainty inside that you have to do.”

Roxanne nodded. “Then we are.” She squeezed him and looked back out the window. Whichever way it goes. Whatever happens. She was sure. Her heart never felt more at peace.

She looked back out the window.

We are.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The following Wednesday was clear and bright. Harold had chartered a jet at Westchester County Airport to take Lauritzia out west. Everything was done in secrecy, including the flight plan. Only a handful of people who were connected with the case even knew.

Roxanne decided to go along. She’d stay a couple of nights, make the house livable for Lauritzia, then come back home. Lauritzia was pleased to have her along. She’d only been out to the house there once. And the whole thing made her a bit nervous and overwhelmed. Relax, they all tried to assure her. No one knows where you’re going. It’s perfectly safe. We’ve covered every step.

In a couple of weeks they would decide how to handle it legally.

Harold drove them to the airport before heading to work. The jet, an eight-seat Citation from Globaljet, was set to leave from a section of the airfield for private planes located at Hangar E.

Harold drove down Route 120 and through the airport gates and parked his white Mercedes in front of the private terminal. He unloaded the bags, which were taken by a Globaljet attendant. The sleek white jet was waiting on the tarmac.

“So, uh, you both take it easy out there,” Harold said to Lauritzia with a smile. “No parties. Don’t hit the slopes.”

Lauritzia giggled back and put her nerves behind her. She hugged him. “I have no words to thank you for everything you’re doing for me. You’re in my heart, and I know the grace of God will look down on you.”

Harold said, “We’ll be in touch in a few days. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I know.”

She waved, in her jeans and black boots, her hair in a ponytail, and went inside the terminal.

“You’re a good man, Harold Bachman,” Roxanne said, smiling at him. “Though most people probably think we’re crazy.”

“We are crazy.” Harold smiled back. “Actually, though, I’ve never been prouder of you.”

“Tell me.” Her eyes beamed, and she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“You remember what I said a while back. That somewhere in this is the reason that I love you. Well, it’s true, Rox. You put yourself on the line for people. You live ‘on purpose,’ as they say; the rest of us are just bouncing around in this world randomly. You’re the kind of person we would all want in our foxhole.”

“Go on,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist with a wrinkle of her nose.

“I would,” he said, hugging her back, “but I’m afraid the plane has a tight departure window.”

“We are going to make this happen for her, aren’t we, Harold?” Maybe for the first time Harold saw doubt on her, a crack in her veneer.

“We are. I believe it now more than ever.”

“We’re not going to send her home, no matter what the judges say.”

He shrugged and smiled philosophically.

“Are we, Harold?”

He shook his head. “No. We’re not.”

She kissed him and strapped her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll call you when we land.”

“You can call me in the air from one of these things. But don’t get used to it. The firm’s paying.”

He lingered, looking at the reflection on his wife’s face, the sun off her freckles, her bangs in her blue eyes. He remembered how when he first saw her at a Merrill Lynch cocktail party he knew she was far too pretty for him. She had it all: smarts, looks, the kind of energy that attracted everyone around her. Out of his league. He had nothing to offer, other than a self-deprecating sense of humor and droopy eyes. It took him half an hour to work up the courage to go up to her.

“You look like you’re dying to hear a little more about real estate bond financing,” he had said, smiling coyly.

“You noticed!” she had replied.

“I love you!” Roxanne turned and waved at the terminal doors. “Make sure the kids eat at six. And no watching the Knicks game with Jamie past his bedtime.”

“I love you too.” He waved. And she went in.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Lauritzia boarded first, while Roxanne finished up a call to the kids’ school’s auction committee. She wasn’t sure exactly where to sit, never having been in a plane like this before. Everything looked so sleek and modern. A pretty flight attendant welcome her aboard and told her to take any seat she wanted. She put herself in the first one she found.

Then Roxanne climbed on and took the seat across from her and a row behind. “Everything okay?” She squeezed Lauritzia on the arm.

“Sí.” Lauritzia nodded. “Everything is wonderful.” Though it was clear she really didn’t think so. It was just that being around Roxanne made her feel that way. Thirty days out there would go by like an instant. Then what? Her whole life was now in the hands of this family.

“Would you like a glass of champagne or some orange juice?” the flight attendant asked, holding a tray of fluted glasses.

“No, thank you,” Lauritzia answered.

“Soft drink?”

“Maybe a Sprite.”

Then the attendant went past her to Roxanne. “You, ma’am?”

Roxanne took a champagne.

One of the pilots stepped out of the cockpit and made a quick speech about how long it would take for them to get to Denver-around four hours, as there were headwinds. Denver, they had decided, instead of Eagle Vail, in order to conceal their final destination. From there they would rent a car. He also told them that it would be a smooth flight and there were a bunch of treats to eat and drink on board, and that Kathy, the pretty flight attendant, would take excellent care of them.

“They pay him to say that.” Kathy laughed. “But I’ll do my best.”

The copilot pulled up the outside steps and shut the cabin door.

Lauritzia started to grow nervous. She wasn’t the best flyer anyway-she had only been on a couple of planes, all with the Bachmans-and the sooner she left here, the safer she would feel. Feeling the engines start to vroom, she put her head back and looked out the window and tried to remember what it was like at the Bachmans’ place in the mountains.

So pretty there. No one would know.

She rested her head against the window. That’s when something unusual caught her eye.

A baggage cart had pulled up alongside the plane, two or three suitcases on it. A man in an orange jumpsuit and sunglasses behind the wheel.

She wasn’t sure what exactly made her pay attention to it, other than all the bags had already been loaded on and the compartment was on the other side. She had watched them go on as she boarded.

Before the plane could leave its blocks, the vehicle came to a stop directly underneath the fuselage.

What was going on?

Lauritzia turned to Roxanne, who was sipping her champagne, leafing through a magazine. Seeing her unsettled expression, Roxanne just smiled. “Everything’s okay, Lauritzia. Just sit back and relax.”

Lauritzia leaned forward to locate the baggage cart.

The plane didn’t taxi out. The door to the cockpit was still open, and Lauritzia could see the copilot straining his neck, peering out the side window. They seemed to be asking over the radio for the tower to tell the cart to move.

But it wasn’t moving.

It just sat there, blocking them.

Something didn’t seem right. Suddenly, the man in the orange jumpsuit jumped out and began to walk away, leaving the cart directly underneath them. Lauritzia watched him; instead of heading back toward the terminal, he just kept on going, in the direction of the wire gates leading to the parking lot. Everything was so open and relaxed.

Lauritzia’s heart jumped in concern.

“Missus,” she said, pointing to the window. “I think something isn’t right.”

“Lauritzia, relax,” Roxanne said in a tone she might use with one of the kids, deep in her magazine. “Everything’s just fine.”

“No! It isn’t! It isn’t!” She watched the man in the jumpsuit quicken his pace, her eyes growing wide. The concern that had been nagging her now heightened into outright fear. She had seen these things. El Pirate can reach anywhere! He can know anything. She unbuckled her seat belt. “Missus, we have to get out of here now! Something is not right.”

“Lauritzia, what are you talking about?” Roxanne finally started paying attention.

“That man, look! He-”

The copilot climbed out of the cockpit. “Not to worry, Mrs. Bachman,” he said, “but we just want to take a precaution.” He pushed out the staircase door. “There’s a baggage cart blocking the plane. I think we’re going to have you exit. Just a precaution. Sorry for the inconvenience. But if I can get you to-”

Lauritzia pointed. “Look!”

The man in the orange suit was in a full run now, slipping through the wire gate to the parking lot. She was sure she saw him take out a cell phone.

“Mrs. B!” Lauritzia’s eyes grew wide with terror. She grabbed Roxanne’s arm and frantically started to pull her out of her seat. Unbuckle her belt. She had to get her out of there. They had to get out now!

The pilot shouted something to the flight attendant about getting everyone off the plane. Lauritzia knew the sensation-that something terrible was about to take place. And the knowledge that there was nothing she could do.

Nothing.

Oh, Mrs. B!

When the blast blew, Lauritzia had made it out of her seat, trying desperately to help Roxanne out. It blew her into the air and slammed her against the cockpit ceiling, and a whoosh of searing, suffocating, orange heat engulfed the plane.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Harold had barely made it out the airport gate when he heard the blast. Even in his car, it almost rocked him out of his seat. He turned, seeing the plume of orange flame shooting up, followed by the spire of smoke.

What just happened?

He jammed on the brakes and spun the car around. The thing that truly terrified him was that it seemed to be coming from exactly where he’d just been. The private terminal at Hangar E.

No, no! a voice was screaming inside him. This couldn’t have happened. It can’t be.

He drove at full speed back toward the terminal. As he got close, the billow of smoke rose higher in the sky, and grew darker too. He could see it came from the tarmac he had just left. Which was scaring the shit out of him. He kept repeating to himself that it couldn’t be-it couldn’t be Roxanne’s plane. It had to be something else. Only a handful of people knew. And all were people he trusted. Cano couldn’t have found out. He sped into the terminal’s parking lot. It had to be something else.

But the closer he got, the more he knew his hopes were futile.

He screeched to a stop in front of the terminal and bolted out of the car, leaving the door wide open. The smell of burning metal and jet fuel almost made him retch. He raced through the terminal’s glass doors, the same doors his wife had just walked through as he waved good-bye to her. A woman was shouting on the phone, staring out the window at the tarmac in horror.

“My wife is on that plane!” Harold shouted, running by. “My wife!”

He bolted through the security gate. “Sir, you can’t go out there,” the woman shouted, trying to go after him.

Everyone was out on the tarmac. He pushed his way through the gate. Harold saw the same white Citation he had just been waving good-bye to-tail number CG9875. His heart sank at the sight. Only this time the fuselage was a knot of twisted, burning metal. Dense black smoke poured out of it, and orange flames whipped all around.

Oh my God, no, no…

It had only been a minute or two. A fire truck hadn’t even arrived. Underneath the fuselage there was a mangled chassis of what Harold thought resembled a baggage cart. Harold looked at the plane and understood the same horrifying thought he had had years ago when he stared at the World Trade Center’s North Tower in flames. This is bad. No one’s getting out of there. No one could possibly be in there and be alive.

Except this time it was his wife in there!

“Roxanne! Roxanne!” he screamed, running toward the smoldering plane.

There was confusion all around. No one stopped him. The stairs were down, dark smoke billowing out from inside. His heart plummeted at the sight. “Oh my God, baby, no, no…”

Two rescuers carrying out a body. It was one of the pilots Harold had seen-dead. They put him down on the tarmac, on a yellow plastic tarp that was whipping in the fire’s wind. Then they pushed their way back inside.

“My wife’s in there!” Harold looked in panic at the EMT. “We were chartering the plane.”

“I’m sorry, sir, you have to wait. The smoke is unbearable. They’re trying to get everyone off now.”

“No!” Harold ran toward the plane, covering his face in the intense heat.

The EMT tried to stop him. “Sir!”

He didn’t care. Harold pushed him away and headed up the stairs into the burning fuselage. The smoke was dense and black, and suffocating. His eyes instantly began to burn. He covered his face. There were two rescuers leaning over someone. Was it her? Roxanne? She was blond. Or had been-her hair was now black. It was almost impossible to see. Harold kept his hand over his eyes, which stung like acid was burning in them.

It wasn’t Roxanne. She was wearing a uniform, though it was all sheared and charred.

The flight attendant.

“Sir, you have to get out of here now!” an emergency worker yelled above the sound of sirens and whipping flames. “The fuel is burning.”

“My wife is on this plane!”

He forced his way past them deeper into the fuselage. The acrid smell of fuel and burning metal. He ripped off his jacket and put it over his face, choking back the searing smoke, screaming, “Roxanne! Roxanne!”

He didn’t hear an answer.

Though it was only an eight-seater, the smoke that pushed back at him had the force of an ocean undertow, keeping him at bay. He staggered forward. “Roxanne, are you there?”

Why isn’t she answering? He couldn’t bear to think that she was gone. Flames were leaping out of the fuselage onto the wings. Deeper back, he heard the sound of someone murmuring.

His heart soared. “Roxanne!” He pushed farther back, hiding his eyes, his face. “Roxanne, baby, talk to me!”

“Here… here…,” he heard. Barely muttered under breath. “It’s Roxanne…”

He screamed to the rescuers forward in the cabin. “My wife’s alive!”

He swatted his way through the clouds of smoke and flame, willing himself to the rear, where the voice had come from. “Back here!”

He tripped over something-a leg. He grabbed it and followed it up the body. It was so dark he couldn’t see. “It’s Roxanne,” he heard the voice close, and he pulled it, his heart soaring in hope.

But then he saw the bracelet on her arm. It wasn’t Roxanne. It was Lauritzia. Barely conscious, her blackened lips moving. Her charred eyes rolled up in her head. Harold realized in heartbreak what it was she had been murmuring: “It’s Roxanne. She’s here. Please, someone, someone… help. Roxanne!”

She had her hand on his wife’s arm.

His heart sank.

“Get over here, quick!” he screamed to the workers up in front. “One of them is alive!”

Lauritzia had gotten out of her seat belt and gone behind her. It was as if she was trying to save his wife. He lifted her up and pulled her away from the person underneath. A rescuer pushed his way back and wedged her body onto a stretcher. Roxanne was slumped, her hair singed, dark burns and cuts all over her face and neck.

“Roxanne! Roxanne, honey!” he said. “It’s me. Harold. Rox?”

She didn’t say anything back to him.

Her eyes were fixed, empty, and black. Eyes that used to brim with the beauty of life. Her blond hair was charred like burned parchment. He picked her up by the shoulders, and her head fell limply to the side.

“Oh, Roxanne. Honey, it me, it’s me, it’s me…”

The EMS team had to pull him away from her, and only then did he come to understand that she was no longer alive.

CHAPTER THIRTY

She blinked open her eyes. She turned and saw the maze of tubes and wires protruding from her. Her throat was blocked like it was filled with sand. She heard beeping, saw lights and monitors lighting up. There was a tube running from her mouth. And a huge compression lung she could see out of the corner of her eye.

Estoy muerte? Lauritzia asked herself. Am I dead?

No, she told herself, she was not dead. Dios maldida. God be cursed. She only wished she were dead. She didn’t remember what happened. Only after, holding Roxanne, whose limp and lifeless body felt like a child’s doll in her hands. She remembered trying to shout, No, no… But the ringing in her ears was so loud and the smoke was so thick. She thought maybe she could just go to sleep and she would die. She remembered someone calling out of the haze. A voice, coming closer, merely a distant echo in her drifting mind, the flames lapping all around. A voice, maybe God’s voice, angry at her for what she had done. For all the pain she had caused. So she prayed, the words barely reaching her lips. Jesus Christos, please take the soul of Roxanne.

Lauritzia looked around the hospital room and knew she was alive. It wasn’t over. The fear would only continue. A tear came out of her eye and wound its way down her cheek.

Then she closed her eyes again.

It took a week for her to begin to recover. For the first few days, she drifted in and out of consciousness. There were burns on much of her body, miraculously mostly only first- and second-degree. She had four broken ribs, a concussion, and a crushed spleen from the impact. The doctors said she would live, that she was a very lucky woman. But she didn’t feel lucky. She felt cursed. Her situation had brought only pain to so many people.

At some point Harold came into the ICU and sat by her bed. He took hold of her hand. She couldn’t even look at him. All she could do was whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…,” and turn away in tears.

“It’s okay. Just get yourself better,” he said, and through her tears she saw the hurt that covered his face. Hurt that would never go away. She wanted to tell him, “I told you. I told you to stay out! To let me go.” She looked away, too ashamed to even look him in the face.

“Just get yourself better,” he said. “The kids miss you. Maybe they’ll come next time.”

“No, no,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

She was too ashamed to ever see them again.

For days she just lay there, wishing she had died instead of Roxanne.

After a week they reduced her pain medication. They moved her out of the ICU. The police came and spoke with her. As well as the FBI. She was the only survivor. She tried to describe the man in the orange suit but she couldn’t bring him to mind. Nothing from that horrible moment came back to her. She knew that when she was released she’d have nowhere to go. She would be deported and it would all end. More blood and tears.

She should have just gotten on that train.

The day before she was to leave, one of the nurses said she had a visitor.

“Who?” Lauritzia inquired, nervous that she was still very much a target, even in the hospital. That Cano would come and finish the job.

“A man. He’s come several times.”

“From the police?” Lauritzia asked, confused. “An investigator?”

“I don’t think so,” the nurse replied.

The only man she knew was Harold.

“Bring him in,” she told the nurse. She shut her eyes and prayed. If this was it, then let it come. She would welcome it. She would not cause any more pain. She looked away, not even wanting to look in the face of the person sent to kill her. Tears fell down her cheeks and onto the bedsheet.

“Ms. Velez?”

Slowly Lauritzia turned.

The face she encountered was not one she expected. Not threatening at all. It was Anglo, with longish dark hair, and dark, friendly eyes. He was in jeans and a black leather jacket with a satchel slung over his shoulder. He stepped up to the bed.

“Are you with the police?”

“No,” he said. “I’m a journalist. But I know what was behind the bombing, Ms. Velez. I know why Eduardo Cano wants you dead.”

“Eduardo Cano wants my whole family dead,” she muttered, surprised to hear his name. “For what my father did to him.”

“No, not for what he did.” The Anglo placed a hand on the bed railing. “For what he knows. For what I think you know as well. That this was never about revenge, Lauritzia, but about keeping your father from talking. About what really happened in Culiacán. That’s why your brothers and sisters are dead. And why Cano was never brought to trial.”

“Go away.” Lauritzia turned away from him. Blood and tears, that was all this had ever brought. She just wanted it to end.

“Who the real targets were that day. That’s what they’re trying to protect. You know, don’t you? I think you do.”

“Who are you?” She wanted him to leave. How did he know these things? But at the same time there was something in his handsome eyes that made her trust him.

“I’m a journalist. My name is Curtis Kitchner.”