No Way Back

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The sounds of a soccer ball being batted and of children laughing echoed in the courtyard of the large, white-stucco hacienda high on a hill in the Sinaloa province of Mexico.

The heavyset man with the mustache and three-day growth, his white shirt worn open against the heat, kept the ball aloft with his feet, counting, “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…” Keeping it at bay from his two sons, who scampered around him trying to steal it. Showing the surprising skill and agility of someone who once played at a high level.

“Nineteen!” the man said, pivoting away from Manuel, who was nine, then finally losing control. “No, no!” he shouted as the ball fell onto the pavement, as Tomás, who was six, ran it down near the black Mercedes Maybach and the three Land Cruiser SUVs that were parked in the courtyard. The young boy dribbled toward the soccer goal that was painted on the fortresslike white wall.

“Pass it, Toto!” Eduardo Cano shouted to his son, who scrambled around Ernesto, one of Cano’s bodyguards, whose Tec-9 semiautomatic pistol sat on the hood of the Maybach and who ran after the boy with an indifferent energy, clearly trying just to please his boss. “Pass it to Manuel. He’s open!”

“Here, Toto!” the older brother shouted as the ball found its way to him and he approached the unmanned goal, his father hustling back into the goal mouth, announcing, “Guttierrez of Juárez coming in on goal for the win… Julio there to stop him… Shoot!”

Manuel swung his leg hard, but the ball weakly glanced off his ankle, the shot hugging the ground and hitting off the wall a couple of feet wide of the goal.

“Aaargh.” The boy put his hands to his head in dismay.

“So close…” Cano tried to console his son, going up and messing his mop of black hair. “Next time, set yourself and strike it here,” he said, pointing, “on the instep. But no whining now. Even the great Ronaldo went wide at point-blank range against Argentina in the America Cup. You remember?”

The boy shrugged. “Yes. But he won it with a penalty kick…”

“So there is still hope! But not for you, old lady,” he said to the bodyguard with a shake of his head. “You play like my ninety-year-old grandmother. And she had gout. Thank God you pull the trigger with better skill than you can kick.”

“I didn’t want to hurt the boy,” the bodyguard said in his defense.

Cano heard his cell phone inside his trouser pocket. It was a number only a handful of people in the world knew, all of them important on some level. Or equally dangerous.

The call was encrypted. The screen read, KVC Consulting, which Cano knew was merely a fake address, routing through an empty office simply meant to conceal the caller.

“Who wants lemonade?” he asked.

“I do!” Tomás said.

“And me!” added Manuel.

“Then go upstairs. Your mama has it ready for you. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“Papa…,” Manuel groaned with disappointment. He’d seen this happen many times before. These few minutes often grew into hours. Sometimes even days.

“Go ahead now,” Cano barked, a bit sternly. “I’ll be along. Shooo… it’s business. Go on.”

He said “Hold on” into the phone as the kids ran upstairs, and with a wave to Ernesto indicating that he should remain close by, he went up the staircase that led to one of the house’s many terraces. He took a seat on a chaise underneath a large white umbrella and stared out at the palm trees surrounding his house that he had brought in from the coast and the hills that reached to the sky-blue sea.

“It’s a Sunday,” he said in English. “Is a poor man not allowed a day of well-earned rest with his family?”

“It’s because of another Sunday in Culiacán that we are even in this mess,” replied the caller, who was known to him as “Grasshopper,” one of Cano’s highest-level contacts across the border in the U.S.

“Yes, I heard the little bitch is still alive,” Cano said. “She is a hard one to kill, no? Like a centipede, you have to stamp it out with your heel or else it will follow you home. But no worry, due to the openness and accessibility of your own judicial system, it appears she has nowhere to go.”

“Yes, your threats have their merit,” Grasshopper said. “But Lauritzia Velez is not why I’m calling. Someone else has been asking around. He’s been to the ranch. He’s even been to see the girl. He seems to know about things.”

“What things?” Cano lit up a cigarette.

“Gillian,” the contact said.

“What does he know?” Cano asked.

“Enough,” his contact said. “Why else would he be out west? Why else would he visit her in the hospital?”

“Who is this person?” Cano grunted, swatting away a mosquito that had landed on his arm. “Governmentale?” A zealous government investigator who had stumbled onto something indeed could prove to be a pain in the ass.

“No,” Grasshopper said. “A journalist.”

“Periodista!” Cano exclaimed. “Here, a nosy journalist is like a lousy goalie in football. Or a judge. We don’t like them-we just get rid of them. No trace. And I mean in a real box, my friend, not a ballot box.”

“Well, here it is different,” the caller replied. “Which is why you’re not currently in a federal prison awaiting execution, I might add.”

“Eh, well, not so different at all.” Cano shrugged. He lowered his sunglasses and stared out at the blue sea. “I’m a great believer in the freedom of the press. You know that, right? Just give me the maggot’s name, and we will be free of him for good.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I slept in the Explorer that night, after making it away from Grand Central. I took the Metro-North back to Rye, my heart bouncing as bumpily as the train over the tracks, and found my way back to my car.

I had no idea where to go. All I wanted was to get away from there as fast as possible. Away from anywhere I could possibly be traced back to. I didn’t know if the police had a read on my car. I didn’t know if Joe was alive or dead. The news reports only said an injured bystander was rushed to Bellevue Hospital.

I drove north from Rye and pulled off I-95 in Bridgeport and drove around the city until I found a large, multistory garage downtown. I took a ticket and drove through the gate, then found an open space up on the third floor, which I assumed would be far less trafficked.

At first I just sat there. For an hour. Realizing I was finally safe. For my heart to finally calm.

I knew I had to change how I looked. And maybe switch out the license plates on the car, if I was going to continue to use it. I also knew I needed another phone. They now had Joe’s in their possession, and it might well lead them to mine.

As soon as it was dark, I got out and found a Honda with Connecticut license plates in the same row as mine. I took off the front plate, using a wrench I’d found in the spare tire tool set in the back of the Explorer. It would probably take a while for the Honda owner to even notice it was gone. Then I took off the rear plate on the Explorer and replaced it with the Honda’s.

I ventured out, my face hidden behind sunglasses and in an old Mount Snow baseball cap I found in the back of the Explorer. Downtown Bridgeport wasn’t exactly the best neighborhood at night.

I found an open bodega on Congress Street and picked out another disposable phone, as well as a slice of pizza and a beef empanada, the first food I’d have all day. I also grabbed a box of blond hair color and a pair of scissors.

As I stood in line to pay I found myself behind a woman who was counting out change. A cop came in and got in line right behind me. My heart almost jumped through my chest. I stood there, blood rushing, totally freaked out of my mind, sure that I was giving off this aura, like, You know that woman who’s wanted for the murder of her husband and that Homeland Security agent… well, hey, I’m here, buddy. Take a look. Right in front of you!

“Next, please.” The cashier looked at me. I tried to block what it was I was buying on the counter, certain it would give me away.

I paid with cash, muttering, “Thanks,” and averting my face, hurried out of the store. Exhaling, I headed back to the garage. I asked the attendant there-a Middle Easterner who was more absorbed in a soccer match on the tiny TV than in me-if there was a bathroom. He pointed to the rear of the first floor.

The door was open. I didn’t even need a key. I locked it immediately behind me and looked at myself in the greasy, cracked mirror: the harried uncertainty in my eyes; my face pale from nerves. I ripped the scissors out of their package and held them up to my hair-my beautiful hair that I had worn thick and below my shoulders ever since I could remember, that people always looked at with envy, and began to chop away. Fistfuls of it, sheared off. I stuffed them into the plastic bag from the bodega. I kept cutting and shearing, until I looked and my hair fell to my shoulders.

It all meant nothing to me anymore.

I opened the box of color. I had always been some kind of dark brown with occasional streaks of henna. But I bent over the sink and poured the goopy, amber-colored liquid all over my hair and massaged it in, averting my eyes from the mirror. I waited a few minutes, then rinsed it out, washing the viscous liquid down the drain. When I looked up, I saw a completely different face. One I barely even recognized. But filled with nerves and shame.

I went back to my car, unable to free my mind of what had happened to Joe. He had been so brave for me. I needed to find out how he was. I had to take the chance.

I called Bellevue Hospital and nervously asked the operator for an update on his condition. She asked if I was family, and I answered yes. I was transferred to another line; it took forever to connect, which began to get me a little edgy.

“May I help you?” a man’s voice finally answered. “You’re inquiring about Joseph Esterhaus?”

Suddenly it ran through me that they might be thinking I would call in and were tracing me as I spoke.

“Hello? Private Patient Information. May I help you? Hello?”

I hung up. My hands were shaking. I didn’t know how to do any of this! I was ashamed to be so cowardly. Joe had put everything on the line for me. Joe, please, just make it through. I closed my eyes. I’m praying for you, Joe. Please…

I’d never felt so alone or isolated. I just needed to feel close to someone. Anyone. I thought of my stepson. He’d probably be at his uncle’s. I thought it was worth the risk.

I punched Neil’s number into my new phone. After what had come out, I wasn’t sure if he would even want to talk to me.

It rang-once, twice, three times. I anxiously waited to hear his voice. Come on, Neil, please!

I just wanted to hear my stepson’s voice. To tell him I loved him. He’d just lost his dad. I only imagined the anguish he must be experiencing. And feeling… not knowing the truth. Thinking I had done it… By the fourth ring I was dying. Please, Neil, pick up.

Then I caught myself. I had no idea if he had been to the police. They might have his phone under observation too. Was it possible that they could trace incoming calls? Even a quick one, from an unregistered number?

I didn’t know.

I cut off the call.

I put down the phone, my heart as aching as it had ever been. I missed Dave so much. And I was missing my dad. If he were alive, he’d be the first one I would go to. I had never felt so overwhelmed or so alone in my life.

The hell with it, said a voice that leapt up inside me. They’re my family! I’ve lost my husband too! I rifled through my bag and took out my iPhone. I remembered reading somewhere that a text message couldn’t be traced. That that was how Wall Street honchos looking to avoid a paper trail were communicating with each other these days. I scrolled under Contacts to my son’s.

What would I even say?

I began to write:

I KNOW WHAT YOU MUST THINK . BUT DON’T BELIEVE IT , HONEY . I DIDN’T KILL YOUR DAD . I SWEAR! I MISS HIM TERRIBLY , JUST LIKE YOU MUST NOW. I WISH I COULD TELL IT TO YOU MYSELF , BABY . Y OU HAVE TO TRUST ME . I WISH I COULD TELL IT TO YOU ALL .

I closed the phone and let my head go back against my seat, the blood draining from me.

I heard a loud beep and a car lock go on. I jumped. A couple got into their car directly next to me, sending my heart clawing up my throat. I sank down, hiding myself in my seat.

And I began to cry.

Knowing I was so alone and in such trouble. Knowing anyone who knew me probably thought I was a murderer. Or a lunatic.

Knowing my husband was dead. Because of me. That people wanted to kill me, and I didn’t even know why.

Now Joe…

Suddenly my phone vibrated on the car seat. My heart leaped up. I grabbed the phone and checked the screen. For a moment, I was excited, almost giddy.

It was Neil.

With a lifted heart I checked out his reply. But what I read sent a shiver down my spine.

DON’T WRITE ME AGAIN. HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE THIS, WENDY? HOW?

He had it all wrong. Just like I thought he would. Like the world would. I was about to tell him to just hear me out when another text came through.

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN. JUST TURN YOURSELF IN , WENDY.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I was sitting in a stolen car, on the run, inside a dank and freezing garage, but Neil’s answer left me colder and more alone than ever. I found an old blanket in the back that Jim and Cindy must have used as a ski warmer and wrapped myself in it.

I was scared to be out here on my own, even more scared at the thought of turning myself in. I knew the only way to prove my innocence was to find proof that the agent who’d shot Curtis in that hotel room was engaged in some kind of nasty business that resulted in both of their deaths.

I just didn’t know how.

From the car, I googled Curtis on my iPhone. What came back was that he had written articles for publications like The Atlantic and The New Yorker and some online magazines like Mother Jones and The Daily Beast on topics such as the financial meltdown and the war in Afghanistan, with titles that seemed to focus on some form of government or corporate corruption. I had to know what he was working on when he was killed. Did I dare call these publications? I knew that would be insane. What could I possibly say? That I was a reporter looking into Curtis’s death? Should I try to find his agent or maybe a friend? The first call I made, I was certain the police would be all over me in minutes.

I scrolled through his phone again, through his e-mails and photographs. I stopped again at the one of the pretty Latina-looking woman in the hospital gown. There were other photos of Curtis with his friends, seemingly in party mode. Further along, I found several in a mountainous terrain, which now I figured was Afghanistan. In several of them Curtis was decked out in combat gear with soldiers and villagers. I also found a shot of him and a younger woman who looked like she might be his sister around a table with an older couple who I guessed were his mom and dad.

A shudder of emotion came over me. A mother’s emotion, as I looked at Curtis’s mom, surrounded by her children. Proud, happy eyes that reflected what would have been in my own, only days ago.

It suddenly occurred to me that that might be a way. She might be able to help me. If it were me, if I had lost my son, I would want to know-I’d have to know-the truth about what really happened up there. Not just what the news was saying.

The truth-how my son died.

At the bar, Curtis told me he hailed from Boston. I went through his contacts until I came up with a number marked Home. A 607 area code. It was after 9:00 P.M. I didn’t know where his parents would be right now. In Boston, or even in New York, maybe, claiming the body? It was just a few days ago that they had lost their son.

I figured it was worth a try.

I clicked on the number and waited with trepidation until the fourth ring, when a woman finally answered. “Hello?”

I felt paralyzed. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how she might take me. As some crazy accomplice in their son’s death? Someone wanted by the FBI? Or just a panicked, promiscuous woman?

“Mrs. Kitchner?” I uttered haltingly.

The woman hesitated. “This is Elaine Kitchner. Who is this?”

“Mrs. Kitchner, I’m sorry to bother you. I know this is a difficult time. I realize you just lost your son.” I heard a man’s voice in the background, asking, “Who is it, Elaine?”

I sucked in a breath and said the only thing that came to my mind. “This is Wendy Gould. I don’t know if you know my name. I just thought you might want to know what happened up there. In that hotel room.”

I was met with silence. And who could blame her? Her son had been shot at point-blank range under mysterious circumstances. It was being portrayed in the press as if he’d shot it out with a government agent. And that I was there.

“Is this a joke?” she asked, her tone stiffening.

“It’s not a joke, Mrs. Kitchner. And please, please don’t hang up. I was in that room with your son when he was killed. I was there.”

I waited; the silence grew stonier the longer it went on. She was probably trying to decide if this was some kind of crank, or just some freak who wanted to cause her pain. I knew she might hang up on me at any second.

“Please, Mrs. Kitchner, the last thing in the world I’m trying to do is cause you any pain. I’ve lost someone myself. I just need to talk with you. It’s vitally important.” I was almost in tears.

“How did you possibly get this number?” she finally replied.

“Please don’t hang up! I know what this must seem. But I’m not some psycho. I’m a mother too, and a mother who, right now, watched her husband get killed and can’t even talk to my own son. I can’t even call the police. I can only imagine you would want to know what happened to Curtis. Because it’s not like what anyone’s saying… and I lost the person I loved most in the world last night too. So my life’s been taken from me as well…”

I heard her husband in the background, trying to take the line from her.

“You were with him?” she asked expectantly.

“Yes, I was.” The words flew out of me, jumbled and rambling. “Your son wasn’t in a shoot-out, Mrs. Kitchner, like it’s been portrayed. He was murdered. In cold blood. By an agent from the Department of Homeland Security. I saw it happen! I know. I was up there with him, and I know that doesn’t make me look particularly good, or reliable, and for that I’m truly ashamed, though in truth, that doesn’t really matter much right now. But an agent of the U.S. government found his way into his hotel room and shot your son at point-blank range. He tried to plant a gun on him, to make it appear that Curtis had a gun too, which he was about to fire. Which he did not. There wasn’t any fight. Curtis barely even touched it. He was murdered. The agent went to kill me too. The only reason I got out alive was because the gun he tried to plant on Curtis fell across the bed to me, and I shot him in self-defense.”

“Self-defense? You said this was a government agent, Ms. Gould?”

“He was, but whatever he was doing up there, he clearly wasn’t up to any good.”

I knew I wasn’t making complete sense. I also knew I couldn’t back up a thing that I was saying. And that the accounts that were filtering out completely contradicted me. Elaine Kitchner muttered something to her husband, and then she actually pulled back the phone from him, going, “Desmond, please… Why are you calling us, Ms. Gould? These are things you should be telling to the FBI, not me.”

“I can’t tell the FBI! I tried to turn myself over to the police yesterday in New York, and I’m sure you saw what took place. I didn’t try to run. People were trying to kill me. I know it seems as if I’m just some crazy woman who’s out of control, but it’s just not true. I need to know some things. It’s the only way I can prove my innocence. I need to know what Curtis might have been working on and why a federal agent would want to kill him.”

“You expect us to share this kind of information with you? All I know is you’re implicated in my son’s murder.”

“If you want the truth about your son to come out, there’s no other way!”

“You’re wanted in connection with multiple murders, Ms. Gould. Your own husband’s murder! I’m sorry, but if I were you, I would think about turning yourself in.”

“I can’t!” I said again, my voice cracking. “Don’t you understand, I saw what happened up there and they don’t want any witnesses.” I realized how I was sounding. “I didn’t kill my husband… They killed him. Why do you think it wasn’t the police who showed up at my house? Why was it the same government agent who tried to kill me at the hotel? Please. Mrs. Kitchner, I’m not some lunatic! I don’t know what Curtis was into that he had to die. The person who shot him mentioned a name, Gillian. I don’t know if that name means anything to you?” She didn’t say anything. “But whatever it was, my husband ended up being killed for it as well. I’m not able to see his body. I can’t even touch his cheek a last time and tell him I loved him or how sorry I am. I don’t even have a fucking clue where I’m going to go once I hang up this phone! But we still have one thing in common, Mrs. Kitchner, whether you like it or not. Today we’re both mourning people we loved.”

I was crying. Not just for Dave. From the realization that I would never see him again. And that I might have lost my family too.

But because of what I’d just said. That Dave was dead, maybe Joe as well, and I didn’t know what my next step was, or where to turn. I was desperate. I was out of options, the moment she hung up.

“He was a good young man,” Elaine Kitchner said. “He put himself on the line. He cared about things…”

I sniffed back my tears. “I could see that. This probably sounds silly, but he was a gentleman to me.”

She said, “When he went up against these people… I told him, this time it was different. This wasn’t like the war. Afghanistan…”

“Went up against what people?”

“He said he knew what he was doing. He said he was working on something important.”

“Please, what people, Mrs. Kitchner?” I pressed her again.

There was a pause. I had no idea what I was expecting. She could simply say good-bye. She could just hang up on me. And then I’d be nowhere. I had nowhere to turn next.

“Do you know Boston?” Elaine Kitchner finally asked.

“A little. I went to BC.”

“Do you know the island that divides Commonwealth Avenue? It’s known as the Mall.”

“Yeah, I know it,” I replied, hopeful.

“Between Dartmouth and Clarendon. It’s across from our house. I’ll be on a bench that faces east. Can you be there at noon?”

“How do I know you just won’t turn me in?” I asked her. “How do I know the police won’t be there too?”

“I guess you don’t,” Elaine Kitchner said. “Other than like you said, tonight we’re both mourning people we loved.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It may not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done, going up there on a hunch. Meeting a grieving mother who thought I was connected to the murder of her son. Who reminded me I was wanted by the police.

But what choice did I have?

I guess I thought, what would Elaine Kitchner gain by seeing me in prison? I hadn’t killed her son. And if she did call the police on me, maybe I thought better the Boston police or even the local FBI than the ones who were trying to kill me.

It took around three hours the next morning to drive up to Boston. I hadn’t been there in years. I wound through the Back Bay and found a parking space just off Newbury, a few blocks from where she told me to meet her.

Commonwealth Avenue was upscale and residential in between Dartmouth and Clarendon, attractive brownstones lining both sides of the divided street. From a few blocks away I watched joggers running by, people out walking their dogs. By noon, mothers had come out with baby strollers. The skyscrapers from Copley Square and the Financial Center rose above the townhouses.

I suddenly saw a police car speeding up ahead. Its lights were flashing and its siren was on, and as it came closer, my heart started to grow twice its size, and I was thinking, You’re a fool, Wendy, a fool to have trusted her. I started to climb the stairs to a brownstone, sure that the car would screech to a stop directly in front and cops with their guns drawn would jump out.

That it was over.

But it zoomed on by.

I think the breath I let out could be heard all the way in Copley Square.

I didn’t see anyone else who looked like a cop or an FBI agent milling around, but of course, it wouldn’t have taken much to wait until I’d made contact with her and then sweep in. Not to mention I was hardly an expert at this. I waited until precisely noon, then I circled around the block to where Elaine had said she’d be. A woman in a green down coat was sitting on a bench holding a book in her lap. As I got closer, I saw she had silver-colored hair.

The woman I saw in Curtis’s phone.

I said to myself, You can just leave, Wendy. You can just bag this. Stock it up to intuition, but what she’d said to me the night before made me feel I could trust her.

Hopefully, she was thinking the same thing about me.

I walked up, my scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, a late-October chill coming off the bay. “Mrs. Kitchner?”

She looked up. She was a stately, attractive woman. She had warm brown eyes and sharp, defined cheekbones, though she looked peaked and gaunt from what she’d been through. I saw Curtis in her handsome face.

She said, “My husband thinks I’m a fool to even be talking with you. He said we should call the police.”

I shrugged and gave her a half smile. “It crossed my mind that this isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done either.”

She forced a begrudging smile too.

She said, “Maybe there are mothers who loved their son as much as I did…” Her brown eyes lit up just a little. “But no one could have possibly loved theirs more. I need for you to tell me what happened.”

I sat down next to her. At this point, whatever fears I had about walking into a trap had disappeared. “Curtis fought him.” I shrugged, not sure just how much detail she was looking for. “He didn’t give in.”

She shook her head. “I mean it all, Ms. Gould.”

So I told her. Everything. From the beginning. How I’d met him in the bar. How we talked a bit, and how I listened to him play. How magical that was. Which made her smile.

“I know I should have never gone up to that room with him. It was my doing, as much as his. Not that that matters much now.”

“If you’re looking for a sympathetic ear, Ms. Gould, you don’t win many points from me having met my son at a bar and not an hour later you end up in bed with him.”

“We never did.” I shook my head. “I was about to leave when the man came in. I couldn’t go through with it.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“It’s not how everyone is saying… I’m not some floozy, Mrs. Kitchner. I’ve been married almost ten years. I’d never done anything like this before in my life. Your son could have been angry with me, but we both…” I smiled. “We both kind of found the humor in it. You can’t believe how much I appreciated him for that. I was in the bathroom preparing to leave when the man came in.”

I told her how he’d tried to force a second gun into Curtis’s hand, to make it appear like he was drawing a weapon.

“The gun fell across the bed when he and Curtis struggled. Then he shot him. Twice. Point-blank. When your son wouldn’t pick it up. He said this was about Gillian. Do you know that name?”

“No, I don’t know any Gillian.” She shook her head.

“I knew I’d be next. While he was checking on Curtis, I came out. The gun was pretty much in arm’s reach. I told the guy to put his down. He only looked back at me and said, ‘You have no idea what you’ve stepped into.’ That’s when he raised his gun at me.

“I guess you know the rest… Except that I didn’t kill my husband either, as everyone’s saying.” I told her how they came for me, as Dave and I were leaving. Not the NYPD, but the same people who killed Curtis. Who tried to kill me! “I’m being framed, Mrs. Kitchner. Because of what I witnessed up there. I tried to turn myself in. Now the only way I can prove what I’m saying is to find out why they wanted to kill your son.”

“I’m sorry,” Elaine Kitchner said with a truly sympathetic shrug.

“What was Curtis working on?” I put my hand on her knee. “What had he found out that the government needed to kill him? You told me you said that these people were dangerous. That it wasn’t like in Afghanistan. What people are you talking about? Please, tell me who would have wanted him dead? Who?”

She stared at me. For a moment I thought we were done. That she was about to get up and leave. Then, “Please, take off your sunglasses,” she said. “I want to see your eyes.”

I did. If I could’ve summoned every bit of the fear and helplessness I was feeling at that moment, it would have shown right back at her.

She took out a Kleenex and handed it to me. I smiled in thanks and dabbed my eyes.

“I wish I knew what he was working on, Ms. Gould. But I don’t. Curtis didn’t share his work with us.”

“But you do know who he was trying to expose? You said you warned him that these people were dangerous.”

She looked away. I could see she was thinking about what to say. Traffic rushed by us. She waited until a man walking his terrier went by.

“Do you recall that private jet that was blown up at Westchester Airport?”

I nodded. “Of course. A month or two ago.”

It had happened in the county where I lived. I’d flown out of there dozens of times. The bomber, who had posed as a tarmac worker, was never apprehended. Four passengers were killed, including the wife of the lawyer who had chartered it.

“Curtis insisted it was some sort of retribution. By Mexican drug enforcers. Against an informant, or someone who was on that plane. It was these people I told him he mustn’t mess with.”

Mexican drug enforcers… A tremor rippled through me. No people to mess with at all. I thought back and recalled there was a housekeeper or a nanny on board who had survived.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What would all that have to do with the U.S. government? The person who shot your son worked for the Department of Homeland Security.”

Elaine looked at me blankly. “All I know is what he was looking into when he went down to New York.”

I felt something creepy and foreboding wrap its tentacles around my heart and squeeze. That explosion had been one of the ugliest acts of terror in recent years. The bomber had been able to infiltrate security at the private airport that was used by many hedge fund magnates and CEOs. Drug enforcers? The United States government rubbing Curtis out? Something between a shudder and the feeling of being completely overwhelmed passed through me. This was so far out of my league I didn’t know where to begin.

That agent was right-what had I stepped into?

I looked back at Elaine. I knew my face had taken on a worried cast. I reached into my pocket and brought out Curtis’s BlackBerry. I pushed the camera icon and scrolled to the photo of the pretty Latina-looking woman in the hospital gown.

“Do you know who this woman is?”

Elaine looked at it and shook her head. But suddenly, the hospital gown, the Latina features, combined with the story of the airport bombing, gave me the feeling I now knew.

“This was your son’s,” I said.

Elaine’s eyes grew glassy as she took it in her palm.

“I took it. From his hotel room. I didn’t even know who he was. I just thought I might need something. Was there any place Curtis might have kept his notes? Or a record of what he was working on?”

“Other than his computer?” Elaine shook her head. “Curtis’s laptop was basically his office. He had an apartment over in Boylston Street. Near Fenway Park. But it’s already been gone through by the police.”

“The police?”

“The police were with them. My husband went. I don’t know. Maybe other people too.”

It wouldn’t be safe to go there. Not now. Plus I knew it was also too late. There wouldn’t be anything there for me to find.

“You mind if I keep this for a while?” I asked, pointing to the cell phone in her hand. “I promise, I’ll make sure it gets back to you.”

Elaine shrugged and handed it back. “It may be of more help to you at the moment than any comfort to me.”

“Thank you.” I squeezed her shoulder warmly. “I appreciate everything you’ve told me.”

“I wish it were more.”

I stood up and gave her a heartfelt smile, the kind that maybe only another woman who had lost her deepest love might fully understand. “I know you took a risk in talking with me. I’ll get this back, I promise,” I said, tucking her son’s phone into my pocket.

“So you heard him play?” Elaine Kitchner said, her eyes lighting up.

“I did. He was brilliant.”

She smiled. “I used to say he could charm the birds right out of the trees.”

“He did that to me.” I smiled back and started to walk away.

“Wendy,” Elaine called after me. I turned. “By the way, he’s alive.”

“Who?” For a second I thought she was referring to Curtis.

“Your friend. I just heard it on the news. He was hit twice. But he’s alive.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The private room in the trauma wing at Bellevue wasn’t large, but it came with a view of the East River, which was the first thing Joe Esterhaus saw when he opened his eyes.

The next thing was a black man in a tan suit sitting in the chair across from him.

“Lucky man.” Alton Dokes smiled thinly.

“And how’s that?” Esterhaus stared back at him. He had seen the man on the news before he’d been shot and knew exactly who he was.

“Nothing vital hit. No infection. I hear you might be leaving as soon as tomorrow. An inch or two either way, no telling what the result would have been.”

Esterhaus shifted. “The way I see it, I’m the one with a hole in my shoulder just trying to do my civic duty. We must have a different sense of the word.”

“Civic duty?” Dokes smiled again. “Maybe I’m the one with a different sense of the word.”

Esterhaus shifted, dragging across his IV, which an hour earlier had been delivering a morphine drip. The first shot had gone through his shoulder, a solid through-and-through. The second grazed his neck. Dokes was right-another inch in either direction, he’d be at the morgue, not in a private room. The first thing he had asked his daughter as he was coming out from under the anesthesia was if Wendy had gotten away. And finding out that she had, and that her whereabouts were still unknown, made him feel good he was still alive, and no doubt accounted for why this government agent was in front of him.

“Alton Dokes.” The agent stood up and came over to the foot of the bed.

“I know who you are.”

“Then let’s not pretend, shall we? We’re going to get her, you know. Sooner than later. You can help make that easy. On her, I mean.”

Esterhaus craned his bandaged neck and gazed around. “Can’t say I see her in here anywhere. You?”

“At the same time”-Dokes put his hand on the railing-“maybe there’s a way to help each other out as well.” He picked up Esterhaus’s prescription from the bedside table. “Parkinson’s, correct? You lost your pension years ago when you were canned from the force. You’re going to become a burden to somebody soon. Your daughter? Her husband? Maybe we can see about getting it back.”

“My pension?” Esterhaus chuckled. “You’d do all that for me? I’m touched.”

“If you do your civic duty.” Dokes kept his eyes on him.

“You mean give her up?”

“I have every belief she’ll find a way to contact you. She’s got no one else.”

“She didn’t do it.” Esterhaus stared back at him. “She watched your partner shoot a man in cold blood. But I guess I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

The agent put the medication back on the table. “That’s not how it appears to me. Or anyone else who’s taken a look at the evidence. I know you have protective feelings for her. We know you were tight with her dad. But the woman meets a guy at a bar and an hour later ends up in his room. She takes off from a federal agent who directly ordered her to stop. She panics and shoots her husband, likely when she told him what had happened and he called her a whore. You can’t let a sense of duty to her father blind you to the facts. She’s bad. She can’t be trusted.”

Esterhaus pushed back the urge to rip the tubes out of his arm and wrap them around this shit bag’s throat and strangle him.

“There’s that angle,” the agent said. “Then there’s the angle of making this all come out for you.” Dokes dug through his jacket pocket. “Here. Instead of leaving a card.” He came out with a cell phone. Esterhaus’s phone. The one they’d taken from him after he was shot. “I think we got as much off it as we can use. Especially those calls to someplace called Waccabuc. I don’t have to remind you, do I, Joe, the wavy line that separates doing your civic duty, as you call it, and aiding and abetting a federal fugitive? That little shake of yours wouldn’t play so well in a federal prison, would it now?”

There was a knock at the door. Esterhaus’s daughter, Robin, came in, with an armful of newspapers and magazines. “Hey, Pop.” She looked at Dokes. “Sorry, didn’t know you had company. Good news,” she said. “They’re saying you’re not worth keeping here past tomorrow.”

“That is good news,” Dokes said to Robin, smiling. “I was just trying to urge your father to rethink his civic duty…”

Esterhaus pushed himself up. “And I was just telling the agent here to go fuck himself with a rusty nail.”

Dokes placed the phone on the bedside table next to Esterhaus’s Parkinson’s pills. “Tell your dad what a shame it would be for things to have worked out so luckily for him, only to end up being a burden on the taxpayers for the rest of his years.

“Have a speedy recovery,” he said, heading to the door and looking at Esterhaus with an icy smile. “And let me know if you get any calls. We’ll be watching too.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I took Comm Ave. all the way out to Chestnut Hill and drove around Boston College, where twenty years ago I’d gone to school. It all seemed pretty familiar to me. Although HTM and Five Guys Burgers had replaced the Gap and Blockbuster.

On a chilly fall afternoon, people were either in class or studying. Beacon Street was pretty quiet.

I parked the Explorer near the reservoir and walked back, passing a coffeehouse with a sign on the window: INTERNET. GAMES. BESTCOFFEE/CHEAPESTRATES. A high industrial ceiling and brick walls. There were only a couple of people in the place.

I took a seat at a long wooden table in front of an old recycled Dell. The waiter instructed me how to log on. I ordered a coffee and a berry tart. Between my shortened, newly blond hair and my sunglasses, I wasn’t particularly worried I’d be recognized.

I logged onto Google and typed in “Westchester Airport Bombing.” More than 6,700 hits sprang up. I started with one on the first page, from the local Westchester newspaper, the Journal News.

FOUR DEAD IN PRIVATE JET BOMBING AT COUNTY AIRPORT . ONE SURVIVOR . BOMBER , POSING AS TARMAC WORKER , SOUGHT

I started in, following the tragic story over several days. The eight-seat Citation 7, owned by an outfit called Globaljet, had been leased by a law office out of Stamford. Sifton, Sloan, and Rubin. The victims, all of whom were on board, included the pilot, the copilot, the one flight attendant, and a passenger, Roxanne Bachman, of Greenwich, the wife of a senior partner in the law firm. The one survivor, Lauritzia Velez, twenty-four, was a nanny traveling with Mrs. Bachman, her employer. A spokesperson at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla confirmed that Ms. Velez was in critical condition but was expected to survive.

I took out Curtis’s cell phone and scrolled to the photo of the pretty girl in the hospital gown identified only by the initial L.

Lauritzia Velez.

The blast occurred just as the plane was preparing to roll back from its gate. The explosives were thought to have been in a suitcase on a mobile baggage carrier that had pulled up next to the plane. The suspect, “a man with Hispanic features, and wearing the uniform and carrying the ID of a tarmac worker,” managed to escape by a vehicle in the parking lot and still hadn’t been found. The blue Toyota he was seen escaping in was later discovered abandoned on Route 120 in nearby West Harrison, N.Y., suggesting there had been a change of cars. A motive for the bombing was yet to be established.

I scrolled down to a follow-up article from the following day:

The Citation’s final destination was Denver International Airport, where Roxanne Bachman had booked a rental car. A source at Harold Bachman’s law office confirmed that the couple owned a home in the resort community of Cordillera, Colorado, near Vail. Investigators speculated that Ms. Velez, a native of Mexico, might have been the actual target of the blast, the first of its kind at any major airport in the United States, as she and her family have been targets of a bloody retaliation from a Mexican drug cartel that left several of her siblings dead. It is not known whether Ms. Velez was currently acting as an informant or in the employ of any law enforcement agency.

I wrote down Lauritzia’s name, underlining “retaliation” and “drug cartel,” and flashed back to what Elaine Kitchner had said about Curtis messing with the wrong kind of people. I continued past several follow-up articles. SECURITYATPRIVATEAIRFIELDSAIDTOBELAX. HANGAREHOMETOGLITZYA-LISTERSFROMAROUNDTHEREGION. Finally I opened one from the New York Times: REVENGELIKELYMOTIVEOFWESTCHESTERAIRPORTBLAST. SURVIVORHADSUEDTOREMAININU.S. AWEEKBEFORE.

I read how only days before, the same Lauritzia Velez’s petition for permanent U.S. asylum through the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas was turned down.

The logic of the ruling was difficult to follow, even with a year of law school under my belt. But what came out was that Ms. Velez and her family had previously been denied asylum, even though a Mexican drug enforcer, Eduardo Cano, had carried out what amounted to a reign of terror against her and her family, the result of Ms. Velez’s father having turned government witness against Mr. Cano and his intent to testify against him at a murder trial.

The article went on to say that Ms. Velez’s brother and three sisters had all been murdered, in both Mexico and the U.S., but that to date, no one had been brought to trial.

I looked again at the young woman in Curtis’s photo, my stomach feeling a little hollow.

Elaine Kitchner said that her son had been looking into the Westchester Airport bombing. He had visited Lauritzia Velez in the hospital and taken her photograph just days before he was killed. What was it he needed to find her for? Information on Eduardo Cano? The cartels? Ms. Velez’s father? And how did the United States government fit into this? The agent who had killed Curtis worked for Homeland Security, not some drug cartel.

And finally, who was Gillian? The name Ray Hruseff had uttered before he shot Curtis. The name that was nowhere to be found in any of the articles related to the bombing.

Frustrated, I typed in “Lauritzia Velez.” Pages of hits came back, more than 2,100 of them, but all focused on her connection to the airport bombing.

There was nothing about Eduardo Cano, or any vendetta against her family.

Nothing about her father, or what he may have testified about to incur Eduardo Cano’s wrath.

Yet Curtis’s interest in that bombing had been enough to attract the attention of two Homeland Security agents bent on keeping him quiet. Enough to get him killed.

I scrolled further down, filtering through the numerous articles on Lauritzia Velez’s involvement in the bombing.

Something struck my eye.

It wasn’t connected to the bombing, but to the appeals court’s ruling on her petition for asylum, literally the week before.

Velez vs. United States/usappealscourt.justice.gov.

At that point, this would likely have been the only thing that came up against her name, but after the bombing, it was buried among a thousand AP wire pickups.

I skimmed the court’s 2-1 decision. It mostly mirrored the article I had just read about a possible motive for the bombing.

But then I got to the summation of the one dissenting judge. Judge Marilyn Vickers wrote:

Denying Ms. Velez’s claim is a repudiation of the basis for encouraging anyone with a criminal history to testify against their co-conspirators without fear of whether the U.S. government will stand behind them. Mr. Cano, having allegedly masterminded the ambush in Culiacán, Mexico, that cost two distinguished DEA agents their lives, as well as three completely innocent U.S. college students, seems the only one the United States appears interested in protecting. Mr. Velez’s decision to turn on Cano resulted in the deaths of his son and three daughters. At the very least, this government owes Ms. Velez the same rights that were extended to her father.

The ambush in Culiacán. Two DEA agents murdered. Lauritzia’s father turning state’s evidence against Cano.

I read it again. I was sure that had to be what was behind the attempt to kill her at the airport.

What Curtis had been looking into at the time he was killed.

For the first time I actually felt that I was on to something. I punched “Culiacán drug shooting” into the computer. I took another sip of coffee and a bite of my tart.

That feeling only became more real when I read over what I found.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

On a quiet Sunday morning in March almost four years before, two decorated DEA agents out of the agency’s El Paso, Texas, office were shot dead in their car while stopped in a square in the remote town of Culiacán, in northwestern Mexico.

Up to two dozen Los Zetas gunmen under Eduardo Cano’s command were said to have carried out the killing, which also resulted in the deaths of three American college students traveling on spring break, who were inadvertently caught in the rain of gunfire.

There was a picture of a handsome, athletic-looking teenager, Sam Orthwein, one of the students killed, who reminded me a lot of my stepson, Neil.

I sucked in a deep breath.

The article in Mother Jones online described the recent history of violence in the Sinaloa region, one of the thriving centers of drug trafficking to the United States. It also described the group Los Zetas, known as the Z’s, onetime elite Mexican special forces soldiers trained by the United States to combat the drug trade who subsequently defected and became killers for hire to the other cartels. Los Zetas had become a de facto drug cartel of its own, taking over billion-dollar supply routes, warring with the other cartels, even siphoning off supposed billions of dollars from Mexico’s largest oil pipeline. Eduardo Cano, an ex-special forces captain, had built a CV of death and retaliation that included judges, reporters, politicians, and hundreds of rival cartel soldiers whose mutilated bodies could be found dumped in the streets of Juárez and Guadalajara, “jarring symbols of the cartel’s unlimited reach and their willingness to resort to violence.”

The article traced the lives of four individuals whose paths converged that Sunday morning: the murdered DEA agents, Dean and Rita Bienvienes, who were married. Orthwein, a lacrosse player and dean’s list student at the University of Denver. And Cano.

Dean Bienvienes was an accountant assigned to the El Paso office whose job was to estimate seized contraband and follow the money trail flowing in and out of the cartels. His wife, Rita, was a decorated field agent, a former narcotics detective in Phoenix, and a veteran of two tours of combat in Iraq. At the time of her death, she was working undercover on a case involving a capo in the rival Barrio Azteca cartel-an organization currently at war with the Juarte cartel that was aligned with Los Zetas. It was thought that the killing of the U.S. agents by Cano was a kind of favor, a gesture of peace to the Barrio Azteca cartel.

But how did he know the agents would be there? And on their own, without protection?

I read on, the article going into the two murdered DEA agents, who by all rights had exemplary careers, and why they were even traveling in that region, known to be a center of drug violence. Supposedly, they were on their way to visit a friend in Mazatlán, farther south. The fact that they were there at all-in a dangerous area, without protection-cast suspicion over their previously unblemished careers. Whispers emerged that one or both of them were dirty. It was stated that almost 30 percent of the DEA or the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) border guards were on the payroll of the cartels, paid hundreds of thousands to look the other way when shipments crossed the border. But Sabrina Stein, then head of the DEA’s office in El Paso, ground zero in the war against drugs along the Mexican border, called both agents “exemplary,” and their job reviews were filled with commendations and praise.

Still, the fact that they were there and the targets of a Los Zetas death squad raised concerns that the Bienvienes were not as lily white as once believed. Their personal bank accounts were delved into, as were the couple’s purchase of a condominium in the Bahamas and expensive jewelry Rita was photographed wearing. But nothing questionable was found. Four months after the shootings, Eduardo Cano was apprehended by the FBI while in the United States, the result of a tip from one of his lieutenants, Oscar Velez, who had defected.

Lauritzia’s father. My eyes grew wide.

But apparently no trial ever came about. Sources at the DOJ were tight-lipped on exactly why, pointing to problems in Oscar Velez’s testimony. But the whisper mill suggested the decision not to prosecute was more due to troublesome things that began to emerge about Rita and Dean Bienvienes. Things which, if revealed at trial, would embarrass the U.S. government. Ultimately, Eduardo Cano was released and deported back to Mexico. Oscar Velez was granted asylum in the United States. Sabrina Stein was now working in Washington for the Justice Department as assistant attorney general for drug enforcement policy.

The same Sabrina Stein, I suddenly realized, Harold Bachman had used at the hearing as a witness against Cano.

I still had no idea who Gillian was. Or how this all led back to Curtis’s death.

But a bloody ambush in Mexico; two DEA agents killed; a vendetta of blood against Lauritzia Velez’s father, who had turned against his boss; the shocking decision by the U.S. government to drop the prosecution-all culminated in the bombing at Westchester airport meant to kill the informant’s daughter.

Who Curtis had been to visit only days earlier, and which I was now damn sure had gotten him killed.

By U.S. government agents.

The byline on the article was Curtis Kitchner.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I lifted my head from the screen. An hour had passed since I had come in. Several more customers, mostly students, I guessed, were in the café. Two of them sat directly across from me, laughing at some YouTube videos. I began to think it was time to leave.

But first I put Ray Hruseff’s name into Google Search.

Several responses came back, mostly newspaper articles chronicling his history of military and government service, as someone who had always put his country first throughout his career.

First in combat. He had served two tours in Desert Storm. Then in various law enforcement posts for the government. He’d only been at Homeland Security for the past year. Before that, according to what I found, he’d been assigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for three years as a supervising field agent. He distinguished himself overseeing a raid that netted a group of cartel members who were running guns across the border.

“Prior to that…” I continued scanning his bio.

My heart came to a halt.

“… between 2006 and 2010” Hruseff served as a field agent in the DEA out of the agency’s El Paso office.

I fixed on it. Those were the same years when Sabrina Stein was in charge of that office.

I leaned in closer to the screen, my eyes wide, and read it again. The pieces were starting to fit together.

Hruseff must have worked for Sabrina Stein.

It still wasn’t all fitting together. I realized I needed to find Lauritzia Velez. Ultimately she led back to Curtis. To what he was looking for. She was the one link that could get me to what I needed to know.

I didn’t have a clue in the world how to find her now. But as I looked back through my notes, and clicked back on the articles I had opened, I came across the name of one person I thought would have a pretty good idea.

The person who had chartered that jet and represented her.

As I got my notes together and was about to leave, I plugged one final name into the computer.

Alton Dokes.

I stared at what came back, and suddenly everything-Hruseff, Dokes, Cano, why they were trying to keep me quiet-became clear to me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The modern six-story brick-and-glass office building was on Atlantic and Summers Streets in downtown Stamford.

I got there at 7:30 A.M. and waited in the garage.

I had looked up the address for Sifton, Sloan and Rubin, where the article I’d read the day before said Harold Bachman was a partner. The underground garage had two floors. I asked the attendant at the entrance if there was any designated parking for the law firm, and he directed me down to the lower floor.

I just didn’t go in.

I positioned myself near the elevator, where I could get a decent look at anybody going in, and watched the procession of office workers and businesspeople arrive at work. None of them resembled Bachman.

The first hour felt like three. Worried that he might be away or still on leave and not even coming in, I called the firm from inside the garage and asked to speak with him. The receptionist who answered put me on hold and then told me he hadn’t come in yet. So I was pretty sure he’d be here at some point.

All I could do was pray he’d listen to me and wouldn’t alert the police.

At ten of nine, a white Mercedes 350 drove in and rounded my corner. Through the glass I saw the driver’s curly gray hair and wire-rim glasses. I checked the photo I had printed at the café.

It was him.

Bachman parked on the lower ramp, took out a leather briefcase from the backseat, locked the car with his remote, and made his way over to the elevator. I stepped out from between a couple of cars, my heart beating nervously.

“Mr. Bachman?”

He squinted back through his glasses, clearly taken by surprise. “Do I know you?”

“No. No you don’t,” I said. There was no one else around. “Can I talk with you just for a moment?”

I knew he wouldn’t recognize me. He had no reason in the world to suspect who I was, nor that I would be here looking for him. He glanced around; I figured I looked harmless enough, or desperate. He nodded and stepped away from the elevator to a spot near a handicapped parking space and shrugged. “All right. Sure.”

On the ride down from Boston I’d gone over at least a dozen times what I would say. But my blood was racing and I was nervous and scared, and there was no chance it would come out the way I planned. “Mr. Bachman, I’ve got something to tell you that will take you by surprise… and maybe bring up some things that I know are still painful… things you may not want to talk about. But I need you to just hear me out-”

“Who are you?” he asked me, his brow wrinkling.

I didn’t know how else to say it. I just handed him a copy of the New York Times. There was a photo of me, one taken with Dave at an advertising industry function we had attended a few months back. It didn’t exactly look like I did now. I lifted my sunglasses. But the headline said it all: WESTCHESTERWOMANSOUGHTINCONNECTIONTOHOTELSHOOTINGS.

Bachman looked back up at me and his eyes grew wide.

His gaze darted around again, trepidation coming onto his face, and if a security guard had come by at that particular moment, I don’t know what he would have done.

“Mr. Bachman, there’s no reason for you to be alarmed. I know what you’ve recently been through, and if there was anyone else in the world I could talk to, I would-I swear!-and not put you in this position…”

He looked at me and then glanced back down at the article. “You’re Wendy Gould?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Ms. Gould, if you have any thoughts of me representing you, I’m afraid you’ve sought me out for the wrong reason. First, it’s not what I do; it’s not my specialty. I don’t do criminal work. And anyway, I’m not doing this kind of thing right now.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I don’t need you to represent me-”

“You’re a federal fugitive, Ms. Gould.” He handed me back the paper. “I can’t talk to you. You’re wanted in connection with the murder of a government agent. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, the murder of your husband…”

“None of which is true.” If I could have shown him the truth with a single, steadfast look, my eyes as solid and steady as they’d ever been, I gave it to him now. “None. I swear. At least, not the way it’s being portrayed.”

“Then let me say, as a lawyer, Ms. Gould, someone’s doing an awfully good job of making you look bad.”

I swallowed, and nodded back with a resigned smile. “That’s the only part that is true. Mr. Bachman. Look, you can look around, but I’m the one who’s risking everything just being here with you now. You can see I’ve changed my appearance. What would it take for you to call for security or even the police and let them know? In an hour, everyone would know.”

“I appreciate the trust, Ms. Gould, and I’m truly sorry for your predicament, but unless you’re looking for someone to mediate the terms of handing yourself over to the police-”

“I can’t hand myself over to the police!” I shook my head defiantly. “I can’t. I’m not here because I found your name on some lawyer’s website. I’m here because you’re the only person I know who can help me prove that I’m being framed. Trust me. Otherwise I’d be as far away from here as I could. Please, just hear me out. Two minutes is all I’m asking. I’m begging you, Mr. Bachman… I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

“Why me? You said you’re aware I’ve been through a situation of my own…”

“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”

Maybe it was the utter desperation on my face. Or that I had sought him out, the one person who could prove my innocence. But Bachman put down his bag. He nodded reluctantly. “You have two minutes. Make it good, Ms. Gould.”

CHAPTER FORTY

Do you know the name Curtis Kitchner?” I asked him.

“Kitchner? If I recall, he was the guy who was killed in New York up in that room?”

“That’s correct.”

He shrugged. “Then only what I’ve heard on the news.”

“Mr. Bachman, I did an incredibly foolish thing. I ended up in someone’s hotel room I had no right being in. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. But nothing happened up there… and I’ve had nothing to do with the murders I’m being implicated in. I was actually in the bathroom, preparing to leave, when I heard someone else come into the room.”

Bachman said, “I’m listening…”

Harried, I explained the whole thing to him. Hruseff. Curtis. How the agent killed him right in front of my eyes, and the second gun fell across the bed to me. “This person was a Homeland Security agent, Mr. Bachman. And I watched him kill Curtis. Not in a shoot-out. Not under any threat, or in self-defense as it’s been alleged. But in cold blood. Right in front of my eyes. Right there on the bed.”

Bachman shook his head in puzzlement at me. “Why?”

“That I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Curtis was a journalist. He was working on something that implicated the U.S. government in a shooting in Mexico. Look, I found something he wrote on the subject…” I reached inside my pocket and took out a copy of the article. “I’m certain he found out something to do with the Mexican drug trade. Something he shouldn’t have.”

“You said this other person in the room was a Homeland Security agent. He identified himself?”

“No. Afterward, I looked through his pockets and found his ID. And if he was an agent, he damn well wasn’t up there for any good. He was only there to kill Curtis, Mr. Bachman.”

The lawyer nodded, taking it in. We heard a car door slam, and a man who had parked nearby walked up to the elevator. Bachman smiled briefly, uttering, “Morning,” as I looked away. The elevator opened and the man stepped in. Then Bachman turned back to me. “The problem is, Ms. Gould, two other people ended up dead.”

I told him the rest. How I picked up the gun, knowing that the killer would come for me in the bathroom. How I identified myself and still the guy just raised his weapon. “Yes, I shot him. He was preparing to shoot me.”

“And then you just ran?”

I told him how I ran from the room and how the guy’s partner tried to silence me too. Then I told him how Dave died as well. I went through the whole thing. “Not in the kitchen. Not by my hand. They shot him! I left that gun on the bed back in that hotel room, Mr. Bachman. I swear!”

He kept looking at me with this lawyerly, evaluating stare. I had no idea if he actually believed me. But I kept going.

“I tried to turn myself in. You heard what happened at Grand Central the other day. I wasn’t trying to run away. They’re trying to silence me, Mr. Bachman. For what I saw. A close friend was trying to work out my arrest, and he ended up being shot too. That’s why I can’t turn myself in. Not until I find out why they’re trying to kill me.”

“So how do I fit in?” he asked. “Assuming I even believe all this. You said I was the only person who could help you.”

I reached inside my jeans and pulled out Curtis’s BlackBerry.

“I took this from Curtis’s hotel room when I ran. It belonged to him.” I pushed the power button and then scrolled through Curtis’s pictures. “This is the last one he took. Just a couple of days before he died.”

I held it out and watched Bachman’s eyes go wide. He stared at the photo of Lauritzia Velez.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The picture hit home. Harold Bachman’s face went ashen.

“Curtis visited her,” I said. “Just before he died. She knew something he needed to find out. I’m sure it was connected to Cano. To the killing of those two DEA agents down in Mexico, which he thought was connected to the airport bombing that took your wife. Maybe he was trying to get to her father. Maybe he suspected something else about why those agents were killed.”

Bachman shook his head. “This just isn’t something I can get involved in, Ms. Gould.”

“Mr. Bachman, this is the second time I’ve had to say this in the past two days, but we’ve both lost people we loved.” I put my hand on his arm. “Whether you believe me or not, I loved my husband every bit as much as you did your wife. The difference is, I can’t even grieve for him. I’ve got half of the United States government out looking for me. And I’m being framed for a horrible murder I didn’t do.

“And the thing is, their deaths are connected, Mr. Bachman. Your wife’s and my husband’s-whether you can see that or not. I need to find out why Curtis Kitchner was killed. It’s the only way I can clear myself and get my life back. Mourn who I’ve lost. And whatever that reason is”-I looked in his eyes-“I’m absolutely certain it leads through Lauritzia Velez. I’m here because I need to find her, Mr. Bachman.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Ms. Gould.”

“Why? Why is it impossible? You and your wife were her protectors. You represented her. You have to know where she is! I have to find out what she knows. Why Curtis needed to find her. What there was about the killing of those drug enforcement agents in Mexico that every one’s trying to keep quiet.”

“You don’t understand…” His voice lowered, but it was still firm. “This girl’s been the target of some very dangerous people, and I’m not about to put her in any more danger. Any more than I would put my own kids in danger. Besides, I’m quite sure she doesn’t know anything that can help you. She wasn’t a part of any of this.”

“Maybe what Curtis needed to know was how to find her father? He was a part of it.”

“I assure you she doesn’t know where her father is.” Bachman reached down and picked up his briefcase. “Look, I understand your predicament, Ms. Gould, and I’m sorry. I truly am. If you want, I’ll recommend someone who can represent what you’ve told me to the proper authorities. This is the United States, for God’s sake; they can’t just put you in a cell and make you disappear.”

“They damn well can, Mr. Bachman. They’ve already tried.”

“But I hope you understand it’s best if we don’t have any further direct contact. I can’t allow my name to be connected with this Cano person in any other way. I have my kids. My only goal is to protect them now. We’ve already seen what this man will do…”

He was slipping away from me, and without Lauritzia Velez I had nothing. Only possibilities. Suppositions. No proof on anyone. He made a move to leave, but I grabbed his arm. “You looked into those DEA murders yourself, Mr. Bachman. For Lauritzia’s trial. Did you ever come across someone named Gillian?”

“Gillian?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, no…” He moved toward the elevator.

“The agent who killed Curtis said that name. ‘This is for Gillian,’ he said, before he pulled the trigger and killed him. Maybe Ms. Velez would know who he meant.” My voice took on a tone of desperation. “Just let me speak with her once. That’s all I ask. Please…”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have to go.” He pushed past me and pressed the elevator button several times. “I wish I could help you, Ms. Gould. You see the position I’m in.”

“Here…” I tried to force the article Curtis had written into his hand, but it fell to the floor. “Curtis wrote about all this. It’s what got him killed.”

“And that’s precisely why I can no longer afford to get involved. Don’t you understand?”

The elevator opened. Bachman stepped in.

I stood there looking back at him, my last chance to prove myself dissolving away. “Look up the agent I shot. Hruseff. You’ll see, he wasn’t always Homeland Security. He was in the DEA. He was reassigned. You’ll see.”

“I’m really sorry, Ms. Gould-”

“Look them all up,” I said as the doors began to close. “They’re all connected.”

Harold Bachman’s face disappeared, and I kneeled down to pick up Curtis’s article, sure my last chance to prove I was innocent was now gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Harold sat in his corner office on the sixth floor, a view of the Long Island Sound in its large picture window. He’d gotten his coffee, checked his schedule for the day. He started to prepare for his ten thirty meeting on the Lefco vs. Connecticut case, but his mind kept drifting back to Wendy Gould.

He thought he’d mishandled the situation. What he should have done, he decided, was gotten on his phone as soon as that elevator door closed and called 911. He was a lawyer. He was sworn to uphold the law. Whatever her guilt or innocence, she was a fugitive, wanted for her involvement in two capital crimes. He’d lost his wife a few months ago in such a crime. If true, Wendy’s story was a rough one, and he was sorry for that. He actually did believe her. But that was for the authorities to figure out, not him. He had his kids. He couldn’t get involved.

Putting down his brief, Harold had to admit he was nervous now. He wanted nothing to do with Eduardo Cano again. Since he first heard his name, it had caused him nothing but heartbreak and ruin. He still had Jamie and Taylor. Keeping them safe was the only thing that mattered now. Yet no matter how he tried to block him out of his mind, this Cano kept knifing his way back in. Back into his life. Someone he had never met but who had caused him the most pain he had ever known.

He glanced at his watch. He could still call 911. He could merely say that he had hesitated for an hour, that the whole thing had simply taken him by surprise. Surely the FBI would want to know her whereabouts. That she was around there.

So why haven’t I dialed?

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled to face the window. On the credenza in front of him were several photos of Roxanne, whom he missed more than anything in the world. Whom he still couldn’t contemplate having to spend the rest of his life without-who would not just call up, at any second, and ask him what he was doing for lunch or if he’d ever heard of this Off-Broadway play or this dance company that was performing in the city. Death was always something abstract and far away until it hit home; and then it became a black, bottomless pit you could never crawl your way out of. He picked up the photo of his wedding day, and then next to it one of them sailing off Nantucket, where Roxanne’s eyes shone as blue and brightly as the sea. And he remembered his thoughts as he looked at her that day from the tiller, thinking that he was the luckiest man in the world to have someone of such vitality and beauty. And courage. Roxie never backed down from anything she truly believed in. Look at what that had done to her now. He missed her more and more every day.

But today those eyes seemed disappointed in him. They seemed to contain a form of accusation. For him having backed down when someone needed him so much.

To have given in to the fear when inwardly he really wanted to stand up. Stand up and say, Yes, I believe you. I will help you. In his heart he knew what Wendy said was true. He felt she was innocent. He could hear it in her story; he saw it in her eyes.

Look what it has gotten you, Roxie… He put down his wife’s photo and looked away. All the “standing up” in the world. He put his hands over his eyes and felt like weeping.

Look what it has gotten you.

Was it such a crime, wanting to keep Jamie and Taylor safe? To keep this evil away from their already damaged lives? He wanted that more than anything. Except for maybe one thing… one thing that did burn deeply inside him. A flame he could not put out. And that was to see the person responsible for Roxie’s death brought to justice.

Made to pay.

To know he wasn’t out there, living in some lavish home. Basking in the rewards of his evil, gloating, never knowing the pain he’d caused and the beautiful life he’d extinguished.

Both their deaths are tied together, Wendy Gould had said. Whether you accept it or not. And as much as he wanted to deny that, the throbbing in his soul told him she was right. They are connected.

He looked at the phone. Why haven’t you made that call?

Look them all up, she had said, the desperation clear in her eyes as the elevator door closed. They’re all connected.

Connected to whom?

Harold logged on to his computer. He went into Google and typed in the name she’d told him to look up, Hruseff. The agent she had shot.

He paged through several articles, finally finding one that gave his personal bio. Growing up in Roanoke, Virginia. His two tours in Iraq. His short tenure at Homeland Security. Before that at ICE. There was a shooting incident the agent was involved in on the border, in which he was cleared of any guilt. “After earning his release from the army, Hruseff spent four years as an agent for the DEA…”

Was that what Wendy Gould was referring to? Harold took note of the years: 2006-10. He read on:

“… rising to the rank of Senior Field Agent, based out of the agency’s regional headquarters in El Paso, Texas.”

That’s what stopped him. The dates. El Paso.

Harold minimized his search on Hruseff and typed a new subject into the search box.

Sabrina Stein.

He dug up a government press release announcing her appointment to the DOJ, which also contained her past history. It credited her success in running the El Paso DEA office, and the Intelligence Center there, in what they called “Ground Zero in the government’s war against narco-terrorism…”

Her tenure coincided with Hruseff’s. Hruseff worked for her.

The killings of the DEA agents in Culiacán took place in 2009, when both of them were there.

Harold felt the blood seep out of his face. He knew anyone who stepped into his room at this very moment would be facing a ghost.

Look them all up. They’re all connected. Was this what she meant?

He took another look back at his wife, then picked up his phone.

But instead of calling 911, he paged his secretary. “Janice, I need a favor. See if Sabrina Stein can see me tomorrow in DC.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Joe Esterhaus pointed to the tree-shaded Tudor at the end of the cul-de-sac. “That’s the one.” Only three days out of the hospital, he still had his arm in a sling. “Pull up over there.”

His daughter, Robin, drove the car over to the curb and turned it off. There was a double line of yellow police tape still blocking both entrances of the semicircular driveway. She stared at the pretty house, thinking that only a week before this was the scene of a creepy murder. “That tape’s up there for a reason, Dad. You sure you should be doing this?”

“I’m just gonna walk around a little and see what gives. You just stay in the car.”

He pulled himself out, grimacing at the pain that still stabbed at his shoulder. Besides the yellow tape, a crime lock barred the front door. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“I’d say, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ ” Robin called after him, “but I know there’s not much chance of that.”

“Not much chance at all.” Esterhaus laughed, ducking under the tape line leading to the bricked, half-circle driveway. He winced. He still had to wear the sling, at least for another week. Then came weeks and weeks of physio. All trying to get mobility back for a guy who for the past two years could no longer put peas into his mouth with a fork. What the hell was it all for anyway?

He went down to the house and tried the front door. He knew it was a waste of time. He stared in through a frosted-glass window. The crime boys had already done their work. Been through the kitchen on their hands and knees. He had no clue what he would possibly find. Still, it was worth a look. Wendy needed anything that could drive a hole in their story.

He waved to his daughter, who was watching him while on her cell phone. Then he headed around the back. Wendy’s lot was a wooded, three-quarter acre bordering a golf club. Through the gaps in the tall oaks and pines, he could see a fairway. There was a pool in the back that was covered up, and a hot tub a few steps away. Nice. He tried the French doors off the patio outside the living room. They wouldn’t budge. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in after all.

Continuing around, he followed the property’s slope down to the side of the house. Under what appeared to be the kitchen was a rear basement door. Eight glass panels, not too thick. Esterhaus had no idea if the place was alarmed.

Only one way to find out.

He bent his good arm and gave a short, hard thrust into the window, smashing through one of the panels. The glass cracked and fell back into the basement.

Nothing sounded.

So good so far. Reassured, he cleared the glass edges still remaining in the door, then reached his hand through and unlocked it from the inside. The door opened, leading to a darkened basement. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. There was a large TV on the wall, a bunch of sofas and chairs. A primo Brunswick pool table. He had always wanted one of those. He found the stairs, which led upstairs to a mudroom off the kitchen.

Bingo.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, right, doll? Esterhaus looked around. The kitchen had been redone. A polished marble island, a fancy farmhouse sink, antiqued wooden cabinets. There were beams above the island with a hanging iron rack with lots of copper pots.

A ton of evidence tape all around.

One taped area marked the outline where Dave’s body had been found. There were numbered flags that indicated shell casings, bloodstains, some marking the wooden stool above the body. He examined it closely, admiring the work the way a craftsman might admire a well-built table. Whoever had manufactured the scene had done a nice job. They’d even created their own spatter.

Anyone would have bought into it. Why the hell not?

A cooking pot was still on the floor, and a glass was still turned on its side. Wendy’s friend had already confirmed that Wendy and Dave had had a spat the night before. The gun that came from the hotel room where the government agent was shot. Everything seemed to back up what they were saying: that Dave was killed here. That maybe Wendy had told him what had happened in New York and he wasn’t so sympathetic. Then she panicked, shot him, and was about to flee when the lights went on behind her…

Esterhaus knew this would be hard to overturn on the basis of the evidence, but he continued to look around. It was so elaborately laid out. He went back down the stairs and left by the same door he’d come in through. He wiped down the doorknob with his sleeve.

Then he squeezed through a wooden fence on the side of the house and came back around the front.

The thought started to worm even in him: What if Wendy hadn’t been telling him the whole truth? What if she was up in that hotel room and panicked? And what if she did tell Dave, and he reacted. The way any husband might react. What if he threatened to tell the police and she shot him?

But he reminded himself that that hole in his shoulder was the best evidence he had that she was telling the truth.

He went back up the drive, then stopped before he got to the car, rerunning in his mind how Wendy had said it all took place. They’d been backing out of the garage. Lights flashed on from behind them. Esterhaus saw the outline of tire rubber still visible on the blacktop, where Wendy had said she floored it past the first agent. There were shots. Which didn’t prove anything in itself-she was trying to escape! She drove onto the front island. He went over and saw tire marks still in the soil. Dave’s door had opened. Wendy sped past the agent, and Dave was shot as they drove by.

“Dad, c’mon!” he heard Robin call from the car. “I gotta pick up Eddie.”

“In a minute…” He walked to the top of the drive and saw where Wendy’s car had bounced off the island and back onto the street. She said she stopped, looking on in horror as Dave fell out of the car. I stared at my husband lying in the street. Then a shot slammed into her car and she hit the gas.

Esterhaus went out onto the street. Bending, he looked over the area where he was sure the car had stopped. That’s when he noticed something.

Specks.

Specks of a dark, congealed substance that had hardened into the pavement.

He kneeled. The whole thing had happened at night. Even someone looking for it afterward, in order to cover it up, would likely never have spotted it in the dark.

He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out his key chain, which had a Swiss Army knife on it. Opening the knife, he scraped at the specks, which were hard, dried, more black than crimson.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself.

How the hell had it gotten all the way out here, on the street, and not in the kitchen, unless it happened just as Wendy said?

From the car Robin came over, leaning over him. “Find something, Dad?”

“Could be…” Esterhaus got back up to his feet. “Run and get me the camera,” he told his daughter. “It’s in the backseat.”

He had found something.

He was sure he was staring at David Gould’s blood.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Harold wasn’t sure why he was doing it. He didn’t know what he hoped to find out, or what he would do, if something turned up. He was a real estate lawyer, not an investigator. He specialized in REITs, not crime solving.

But waiting outside Sabrina Stein’s office at the DOJ, watching the flow of staffers going in and out, he did know that he’d never ever be able to look at his wife’s photo again without averting his eyes, never be able to hug his kids without the suspicion that their mother’s death could possibly have been solved and he hadn’t followed it up.

Much of what Wendy Gould was saying did have the ring of truth to it. And was backed up by the facts. And if there was one thing that did burn in his heart, drove him, almost as much as the vow he made to protect Jamie and Taylor and that he couldn’t put away, it was that he wanted to see the people who had committed this horrible act brought to justice.

Wherever it led.

“Mr. Bachman.” The twenty-something staffer stepped out from behind her desk. “The secretary can see you now.”

She opened the office door as a young shirtsleeved staffer stepped out, carrying a large stack of files and giving Harold a polite but harried nod. Harold could recognize the crazed look of someone a year or two out of law school anywhere.

Sabrina Stein’s office was spacious, official-looking. An American flag, photographs on the wall of the president and the attorney general. She stood up from behind her large desk, piled high with multicolored folders. “Mr. Bachman.”

Sabrina Stein was in her forties, attractive, with short, dark hair and vibrant brown eyes-eyes that were both intelligent and welcoming, yet at the same time bright with ambition. She hadn’t hesitated when Harold contacted her to testify on Lauritzia’s behalf. She had put her own life on the line both as an agent and then as head of EPIC, the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center fighting narco-terrorism. She’d been shot; she’d been bludgeoned with a bat in a sting in Juárez that went horribly wrong. She still walked with a slight limp. She’d spent a good part of her career inhabiting the murky area between police work and covert action. For twenty years she’d been trying to put killers like Eduardo Cano out of business or take them down.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, coming around with a mug of coffee. She was dressed in a stylish short jacket and pants, a blue crepe blouse, a pretty pin on her lapel. She was from Arkansas and spoke with a slight drawl. “It goes without saying, how shocked and saddened I was to hear about your wife.”

“Thank you.” Harold smiled appreciatively. “I received your note.”

“I know she was an extremely determined woman. With a huge heart. I can promise you that everyone in this building is doing whatever they can to see the person behind what happened brought to justice. Please, take a seat over here.”

She motioned to the couch in front of the large window that had an impressive view of the Capitol dome. “I’m sorry we didn’t have better luck with that court ruling down in Dallas. I’ve been through this situation a number of times. Once it gets in the hands of the courts, you can never tell what’s in the heads of those judges. The ability to protect confidential informants and their families is one of the lynchpins of the federal justice system. Take that away, we’re no better than special-ops guys without weapons. Anyway, I’m afraid I only have a handful of minutes to spend with you. I’m expected over at State…”

“I appreciate you carving out some time on such short notice.” Harold opened his briefcase.

“Alicia said this is about Ms. Velez? I expect you’re deciding whether to continue the case to a higher level? How is she doing?”

“Recovering. She’s obviously been through a lot. And not just the physical trauma, of course. She was also very fond of my wife.”

“Of course. Poor girl. I’m assuming you have her in a very safe place.”

Though Stein certainly seemed like a person who could be trusted with the highest levels of confidence, Harold found himself hesitating. “We have her tucked away” was all he said.

“Well, you’ve certainly gone above and beyond for her. She’s truly fortunate to have someone like you in her corner.” She took a sip of coffee and faced him, indicating that the small talk was over.

“I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me,” Harold said, taking out a yellow legal pad from his briefcase. “Should we go forward, as you say, I think there are some things I’ll need to know, specifically about Mr. Cano and his dealings. I think I underplayed his direct connection to the deaths of Ms. Velez’s siblings. So to start, can I ask your view on why the case against Cano was dropped by the DOJ?”

“I assume you’re speaking of his involvement in the murders of Agents Dean and Rita Bienvienes?” Sabrina Stein replied.

Harold nodded.

She inhaled before speaking. “I don’t truthfully know. The party line, as I’m sure you’re aware, is that problems sprang up with Oscar Velez’s testimony.”

“Problems?”

“Matters of memory.” Stein shrugged officiously. “It seems to happen in certain cases, when CIs come face-to-face in court with the persons they’re testifying against. They get second thoughts.”

“Or when their children are ruthlessly butchered,” Harold felt compelled to add.

“That too, of course.” Sabrina took a sip of coffee and offered a philosophical smile.

“But if that were the case,” Harold said, flipping a page of his notes, “the question I would ask is why Mr. Velez wouldn’t have just simply been deported? If his use to the government was negated, that would seem to have been the perfect leverage against him. Threaten to send him back to what would clearly have been certain death. To the very person who had vowed revenge against him.”

“A fair question.” Sabrina Stein exhaled. “And one I’m afraid I don’t have a very good answer for.”

“Rumors were going around… I’m merely echoing what’s already been written,” Harold said, “that Dean and Rita Bienvienes were less than one hundred percent Ivory Snow clean. And that the Department of Justice grew to feel that a public trial would potentially air a series of allegations that might embarrass them.”

Stein put down her coffee. “Dean and Rita Beinvienes were among the best agents I had, Mr. Bachman. What you’re alluding to is what we in the trade refer to as ‘back draft.’ One government agency sees a firestorm rising around them, so they spread the flames somewhere else. In this case, back at the DEA. The Bienvieneses were turned upside down by our own internal investigative teams. Not a thing was ever found that would give any credence to those rumors. Zero.”

“It’s also possible that Eduardo Cano had some ability to influence the government’s decision, isn’t that right?”

“Influence?” The Justice Department official’s eyes seemed to harden at the word.

“Affect the outcome,” Harold said bluntly.

“If I follow… you’re suggesting he was able to buy someone off?”

“Or possibly have information that might discredit people higher up, that the government might have wanted to keep secret. Cano was trained here, and he is alleged to still have high-level friends in the government. The cartels have millions and millions to spread around, correct? This is still a world fraught with corruption, is it not?”

Stein nodded stiffly, the pleasant veneer of a moment before replaced by something guarded and professional. “Mexico is an excellent place to commit murder, Mr. Bachman, because you will almost certainly get away with it. That said, I’d still like to think that no amount of money would derail the prosecution for the assassination of two people who so selflessly put their lives at risk for the country. Not to mention the three other completely innocent individuals who tragically were caught in the crossfire.”

She uncrossed her legs. “No litigator likes to take on a case they can’t win, Mr. Bachman. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. Especially one that can make or break one’s career. For several reasons, Oscar Velez’s testimony was a matter of concern from the moment he chose to defect. I think the answer to your question lies much more with the witness, Mr. Bachman, than with the United States government.” She glanced at her watch, reflecting surprise at the time. “Now, if you have no more questions, I’m sorry but I have to cut this short.”

“I understand.” Harold closed his pad and began to pack his briefcase. Then he stopped. “Just one more. There’s an addendum to this case that I found a little curious.”

“Which case are we speaking of, Mr. Bachman? Cano’s or Lauritzia Velez’s?”

“I’m sorry, but to me, Ms. Stein, they are becoming pretty much the same.”

“Well, as a representative of the United States government, I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

“The Homeland Security agent,” Harold said, “who was shot and killed in that hotel room in New York City a week ago… I think his name was Hruseff?”

Stein nodded. “That’s correct.”

“I was surprised to discover that he once worked for the DEA. Out of the El Paso office, as it turns out; coincidentally at the same time as the Bienvieneses’ killings… I guess that also means he worked under you…”

“And your guess would be correct, Mr. Bachman.” Stein stood up. “Ray was a good man. Very sad, what happened. And if I recall, there was a third person in that room. I’m pretty certain that when she’s found-and she will be, soon, I promise you-and all the facts come out, it will show that Ray was simply doing his job.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Harold said, and stood up too.

“Only I don’t see what that particular incident has to do with Eduardo Cano.” Sabrina Stein cocked her head. “Ray was working for a completely different government agency at the time he was killed. On matters totally unconnected with his past role-”

“The other person in the room… who Hruseff allegedly shot,” Harold said. “I think his name was Kitchner…”

“Curtis Kitchner.” Sabrina Stein nodded.

“He was a journalist. As it happens, he was looking into Eduardo Cano at the time of his death.”

“Into Cano?” She began to walk him to the door. “How would you possibly know that, Mr. Bachman? I never saw that come out anywhere.”

“Because he visited Lauritzia Velez. In the hospital, just a few days before his death.” Harold picked up his briefcase. “I was merely pointing out how this Cano seems to have his imprint everywhere. And how the two cases might be related.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Drawn out long enough to take on a shape, hard and stony, and even a pro like Sabrina Stein couldn’t hide how she was working to put it all together.

That was the moment Harold first thought she might be lying.

“Eduardo Cano continues to be a dangerous man, Mr. Bachman. A fact that I think you found out for yourself, firsthand. But to your point on Agent Hruseff, we all seem to cross paths in this business if we stay in long enough. Scratch any of us, and I suspect that’s what you’ll find. And now I’m afraid I have to move on…” She stopped at the door. “Once again, I feel like I haven’t been altogether helpful.”

“No, you have. I want to thank you for your time. But if you don’t mind, just one more quick thing. Any chance you ever come across someone named Gillian who was connected with this case?”

“Gillian?” Stein blinked at the name.

“Maybe someone connected to Hruseff? Or possibly another agent?”

“Gillian. No, I’m sorry. Where did that name happen to come up?”

“No matter.” Harold shrugged. “Just something this Curtis Kitchner seemed to have on his mind.”

“I see. Once again, I feel I haven’t been very helpful to you. Anyway, it’s been a pleasure meeting with you again, Mr. Bachman. Please keep me informed of what you find.”

She opened the door and they shook hands.

“I like your pin,” Harold said, noticing her lapel. “Looks Aztec.”

“Yes, it is,” Sabrina Stein said. “I actually got it while down there.”

Almost involuntarily she seemed to adjust it on her lapel-a turquoise and silver grasshopper.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The Amtrak express train rocked gently back and forth, speeding to New York City.

Harold sat in the quiet car and took a sip of his vodka.

Mexico is an excellent place to commit murder. He thought of what Sabrina Stein had said. Because you will surely get away with it.

He had no proof, nothing he could share with anyone. Nothing that would make someone think he was doing more than just grasping at straws.

Just that Hruseff was part of Stein’s DEA team back in El Paso. And that it was he who killed Curtis at the hotel. Curtis, who was looking into the deaths of Dean and Rita Bienvienes, who were in El Paso at the very same time, and who was sure he had found something. Something that led him to Lauritzia Velez.

Which may well have been that the Bienvienes were murdered in Culiacán by Eduardo Cano-and with the complicity of the U.S. government.

Why?

Look them up, Wendy Gould had begged him. Harold recalled her pretty but desperate face disappearing behind the closing elevator door.

They’re all connected. All of them.

That phrase kept on coming back.

All of them.

As soon as the train pulled out of Union Station in DC, Harold had googled the other agent who was with Hruseff at the hotel.

Alton Dokes. The agent Wendy claimed was framing her for her husband’s death.

He couldn’t find much of a history on him, only a ton of recent articles that quoted him as lead investigator on the manhunt for Wendy Gould. But he did find one linking him to an article from the San Antonio Express-News, from back in 2008, a year before the Bienvienes were killed.

As a DEA agent, Dokes had been implicated in the shooting of a seventeen-year-old Mexican crossing the border from Juárez. The boy ended up being a drug mule, and the shooting was ultimately ruled justifiable. Dokes was fully cleared.

“Sabrina Stein, Senior Agent in Charge of Operations out of the DEA’s El Paso office, commented, ‘We are glad this episode is behind us and a dedicated agent is able to resume his duties… ’ ”

Harold took a sip of his vodka. So Dokes was there too.

All of them.

He was sure Sabrina was hiding something. But what could he possibly prove? This wasn’t enough to cast even the slightest suspicion off of Wendy. Even if he handed what he had over to the authorities, he knew it wouldn’t go further than the person he told. That two government agents had been in the same place years ago at the same time two fellow agents were murdered in Mexico? That, years later, they’d both had some connection to a journalist who had been killed? A journalist who was looking into that very story.

Scratch any of us, Sabrina Stein had told him, you never know what you will find…

The train’s rattling brought him back from his thoughts.

You’re crazy to get involved, Harold told himself. Look what it’s already cost you. You made a vow. To protect your kids. You’re all they have now. This was over. He’d already seen what could happen. His wife’s desire to protect Lauritzia had cost them everything. They had nothing now, except themselves…

Harold finished his drink and gave the woman sitting across from him a pleasant smile. As he went to shut the lid on his laptop, he fixed on his screen saver, a photo of Roxanne. Her arms around Jamie and Taylor in their backyard, their sunny faces promising everything beautiful in life.

He could shut the computer a thousand times, but it wouldn’t shut it out.

Not completely.

There was one person who would know all this, Harold realized. Who might hold all the secrets.

Curtis had gone to see Lauritzia in the days before he died. It was time to know what he had told her.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I was down to my last few dollars. Hiding out in parking lots and business parks after dark, catching bites to eat at drive-thru windows. I realized that the first time I hit up an ATM, my location would be given away. Not to mention a photograph taken of how I looked.

But I was getting to the point where I really didn’t care.

I’d been in the same clothes for five days now. I also knew Jim and Cindy were probably up in Vermont by now, and there might well be a national APB out on the Explorer at this very moment. Every time I saw a flashing light, or a police car randomly drove by, my blood froze and I came to a standstill, sure that it was the one car that had closed in on me.

So far one hadn’t. But I knew I was on borrowed time.

Driving out of Stamford, I passed a tiny lodging on Route 172 in Pound Ridge, just across the New York border, called the Three Pony Inn. It looked quiet and empty. Just what I needed. I just said the hell with it and pulled in. I desperately needed a shower and to wash my clothes. And to sleep in a bed. The place was a family-run B and B, and the proprietors’ teenage son was manning the front desk when I came in, doing his math homework. I paid for a night at $109 with a Bon Voyage gift card I found in my wallet-one of Dave’s advertising accounts, which I knew to be completely untraceable. But my funds were running out.

The first thing I did in the small but cozy room was run the shower. It was amazing how just letting the warm spray stream down my body revived me with the feeling that I could get through this and that everything would somehow be okay.

I washed out my T-shirt and underwear and spread them on the towel bar to dry. I laughed to myself that if the police barged in right then, they’d have to arrest me in my towel-I didn’t have anything dry to wear. I looked at my face in the mirror. I hardly recognized what I saw. I put on the TV and curled up to the news, ecstatic to be in a bed for the first time in days and stretch my legs on the cool linens. There had been another massacre in a village in Syria. A New York City assemblyman was being sentenced on corruption charges. There was nothing on me. I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the news.

I woke around three in the afternoon and called to the front desk to ask if there was a computer I could use. I was told there was an Internet setup for guests in the sunroom off the main lobby. When my clothes dried I cautiously made my way down. A woman was at the desk now, and she asked genially if I wanted a cup of coffee and I gratefully said that I would. I sat at the desk in the sunroom, decorated with a patterned couch, English roll-leg chairs, and equestrian prints.

There was an old HP computer there, and the first thing I did after logging on with the hotel code was to check Google News to see if there was anything new on me. There wasn’t, but I did spot a headline on Curtis: HOTELSHOOT-OUTVICTIMHADTIESTOKNOWNDRUGTRAFFICKERS.

I clicked on the link.

FBI sources say that Curtis Kitchner, the journalist who was shot dead in his New York hotel room after a confrontation with a federal law enforcement agent, had maintained contacts and carried on conversations with drug traffickers familiar to law enforcement agencies, some high on the DEA’s most wanted list, leading investigators to speculate that was the reason he was under surveillance by federal authorities.

Investigators now seem certain it was not Mr. Kitchner who fired the shots that killed Agent Raymond Hruseff of the Department of Homeland Security, and are still searching for Wendy Stansi Gould of Pelham, New York, who was believed to be in the hotel room at the time. Ms. Stansi is also being sought in connection to the shooting death of her husband at their home in Pelham later that night, but her whereabouts remain unknown.

So here it is, I said to myself, the stream of misinformation that would make it seem as if Curtis was the bad guy and had instigated things and that Hruseff was merely doing his job. The article was from Reuters, without a byline. Otherwise I might have contacted the author to tell my side of the story.

I was growing more and more certain this all had something to do with the two rogue government agents covering up the murder of two DEA agents four years ago.

Hruseff and Dokes had both been at DEA in El Paso at the time of the Bienvienes killings. Four years later, in completely different jobs, they were both at the hotel with Curtis. It seemed certain they wanted something covered up. Something from their past, that Curtis had found out and had linked to Lauritzia Velez. Why else would he go to find her? Perhaps to find her father, who was connected to the Culiacán killings too.

Which was also connected to a person whose name had yet to come up in anything I had read or anyone I had talked to: Gillian.

I knew that until I uncovered who that was, all I had was just supposition. They’d sink their teeth into me the second they had me in cuffs. I had nothing, nothing except suspicion in the face of overwhelming evidence that I’d shot Hruseff in panic and killed Dave to cover up what I’d done…

Hell, I couldn’t even convince Harold.

Before closing the computer, I went back one more time to that article Curtis had written about the Culiacán ambush. Maybe if I just read it one last time, I might see what it was Curtis knew. I had to be missing something.

I looked at that shooting from every aspect I could find online. The newspaper coverage. The Dallas Morning News did a series of articles on it, first casting suspicion on the Bienvienes. Then the DEA’s own internal investigation that cleared them fully, which was published eight months later. I looked at whatever I could find on Eduardo Cano and why his trial never took place.

It all still led nowhere.

I even found an article in the Greenwich Time about Sam Orthwein, one of the college students killed in the ambush, and another in the Denver Post: LOCALUNIVERSITYMOURNSTHREEOFITSOWN.

In frustration, having read through everything else I could find on the subject, I clicked on it.

The article began, “They were three about to embark on the road where life would take them in just a couple of months, but where it led in the hills of central Mexico was to a tragic end for three promising University of Denver students, as well as grief and heartbreak for their families and friends who loved them.”

I looked at pictures of Sam, Ned Taylor, and Ned’s girlfriend, Ana Lasser.

I’d already read about Sam; he was described in Curtis’s article. Ned Taylor came from Reston, Virginia. He was a soccer player and a sociology major. Ana Lasser was pretty, with shoulder-length blond hair, high cheekbones dotted with a few freckles. The article said she was a photography major at Denver. It said some of her photographs were currently part of an exhibition at the Arts Center. There was even a link to them. A follow-up note said the collection had been expanded to include some of her final shots, taken moments before her death.

I clicked on them, not even sure why.

I scrolled through Ana Lasser’s photographs of old-woman fruit vendors in their stalls by the road-sharp-cheeked, sun-hardened faces. I saw Culiacán, with its white stucco houses and church towers. I looked in the deep-set eyes of a young boy in a narrow doorway staring back at the camera. I realized this would have been just moments before the shooting. Was he one of them? One of those child killers enlisted by the cartels who a second later would have pulled out an automatic weapon like a toy and sprayed death on them? Or was he just staring back at Ana, the killers scrambling in doorways and on rooftops, knowing what, seconds later, was about to take place? His look held a kind of fascination for me.

“Ana Lasser,” I read in the bio accompanying her photographs, “who was tragically shot and killed along with two other DU students in Culiacán, Mexico, moments after taking these shots, was a senior at DU majoring in photography. She came from…”

Suddenly it was like the off switch in my body turned on.

I stared at the words that followed, my brain sorting through what it meant. My eyes doubling in size.

“She came from Gillian, Colorado…”

I read it again, the truth slamming me in the face that I’d been looking at it all wrong.

This is for Gillian, asshole…

All wrong.

Suddenly the whole thing seemed to just fall into place. What Curtis had to have known that led him to Lauritzia. What she had to have known.

And more important, what Hruseff would have killed for in order to keep secret.

You have no idea what you’ve stepped into, he’d said as he raised his gun at me.

Now I did. Now I did know.

That that ambush was somehow not related to the Bienvienes at all. But to this girl…

Ana. Lasser.

“A photography major… from Gillian, Colorado…”

I read it again and again, unable to lift my eyes. This murdered girl, this seemingly random victim, who, I now knew, hadn’t stumbled into tragedy after all. But was at the very heart of it.

Who, I now realized, was Gillian.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I pulled out the throwaway phone from my bag and rushed outside. My hands shook, not from the late-October chill but from the sudden realization that Ana Lasser was Gillian. That the Bienvieneses hadn’t been the intended targets of that ambush at all.

She was.

I hid myself against the far side of the Explorer and pressed the number I had already loaded in. I was just praying he hadn’t already called the police on me.

It started ringing. The receptionist answered. “Harold Bachman,” I said, as soon as I heard her voice.

“Who should I say is calling?”

Who should I say? My name was on every newscast in the country. “Wendy” was all I came up with. “Just tell him it’s incredibly urgent. Please.”

My head spun in circles while I waited for him to come on the line. I tried to figure out just what this meant. The world had shifted. Curtis had to have found this out as well. That was why he had to find Lauritzia. To see if she knew too. Or maybe to get to her father.

In any case, he was trying to find out who the real target was that day.

This is for Gillian, asshole.

“Hello.” Harold Bachman’s voice came on. He didn’t sound so excited to hear from me.

“Please, don’t hang up!” I begged, desperation resonating in my tone. “I’ve found out something I need to show you. I know you said not to contact you again. I understand. I just don’t have anyone else to turn to, Mr. Bachman. Please, just hear me out…”

I was sure he was about to cut me off. I was already on the verge of tears.

Instead, he said something that lifted the weight off my shoulders and almost knocked me off my feet.

“I have something too.”

I stood there, dumbfounded, grasping the phone with two hands. “You said you never wanted to hear from me again…”

“I looked them up. Like you said-Hruseff. Dokes. You knew about him as well, didn’t you?”

Even in my elation, my eyes were filling with tears. “Yes.”

“I’ve been down in DC. I went to see Sabrina Stein. Do you know who she is?”

“She was head of the El Paso DEA office. Hruseff and Dokes both worked for her,” I said.

“That’s right. I know they’re covering something up, Wendy.”

“I know that too. And I think I know what that is.”

“Look, this isn’t a good place to talk,” Bachman said. “Are you local?”

“I could probably be there in about half an hour.”

“Not here. You can’t come anywhere around here. Somewhere public. Crowded.” He paused a second. “Do you know the Stamford Town Center mall?”

“I know it.” I’d been there from time to time.

“There’s a Starbucks and a bunch of fast-food places on the main floor. I sometimes take the kids. There are lots of tables and usually a crowd.”

“I can get there.”

“Grab yourself a coffee and take a seat outside.”

The patter of my heart wouldn’t stop. “This isn’t a trap, is it? Promise me you’re not going to lure me there into a bunch of cops…”

“Not unless they’re there for me, Wendy. I give you my word.”

Then my heart began to soar, with the spontaneous, grateful exhilaration of someone who felt the weight of grief and wrongful accusation tumbling off her shoulders.

“It’s just after five,” Bachman said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Thirty minutes later, I parked the Explorer on the second level of the mall’s garage and went inside.

I was sure there were security cameras everywhere. But there was also no reason for anyone to think I’d be here, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be looking for someone who looked how I looked now. The mall was pretty busy, going on six on a Wednesday afternoon. Teenagers milling around after school. Families already out for the evening, heading to P.F. Chang’s or the California Pizza Kitchen or the movies.

I went down the escalator and found the Starbucks on the first floor.

There was an amphitheater-style seating area with dozens of people on the steps. I ordered a latte and took a seat at an open table.

My heart wouldn’t sit still. I hadn’t been out in public this way since Grand Central, and I knew what had happened there. I looked at the crowd milling around me. I averted my face as a female security guard went by, talking into a radio. I wondered if she knew who I was or was just making her rounds.

Then I heard her laugh into the radio and my nerves subsided.

It was 5:45, and the later it got, the more I worried I became that Bachman wasn’t coming. Or that this was some kind of trap.

It wasn’t until I saw him at the top of the escalator that my fears began to subside.

He took it down, avoiding direct eye contact with me, looking randomly around. Finally our eyes met and he gave me the slightest smile of recognition. For a paranoid moment it rippled through me that this was only a scheme and that in seconds the police and the FBI were going to be all around me. But he stepped up to my table, took one last glance at the crowd, and sat down. He was in a gray suit with his tie loosened. His eyes were hooded but honest and his face pallid and drawn, his expression exhausted.

I grinned. “You look like you could use a coffee even more than me.”

“Don’t drink it any more. Reflux,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Too much acid.”

“In that case I’m pretty sure dragging you into this mess isn’t helping any either,” I said with a hesitant smile. “Mr. Bachman, I appreciate you being here more than you know. I know you’re taking a big risk.”

“You might put it that way. Anyway, if anything happens, I’m just your lawyer and you were coming to me in order to turn yourself in-”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to be my lawyer…”

“I’m not sure that I do. But something changed.”

“You went to DC?”

He nodded. “I looked them up. Hruseff and Alton Dokes. I saw they were both there. At the DEA. In El Paso. At the same time as the Bienvieneses were killed. I wanted to hear what Sabrina Stein had to say. And to find out why Eduardo Cano wasn’t ever tried.”

“And what did you find?”

“That I think she’s lying. Or at the minimum, covering something up.”

“Which would be…? ”

He adjusted his wire-rim glasses. Bachman had bushy, gray-flecked eyebrows that made him resemble a professor. Right now I couldn’t have cared less if he looked like Joe the Plumber. “That the government may have had a hand in the Bienvienes murders. And might even have deliberately let Eduardo Cano get away.”

“What if it wasn’t the Bienvieneses’ murders?”

He blinked and furrowed his brow at me. “I’m not sure I understand?”

“I mean, they were killed. But what if they weren’t the intended target that day? What if it was someone else?”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

I looked at him closely. “Why are you even doing this for me? You said you couldn’t get involved.”

He shrugged and took in a long breath. “It isn’t just for you… Don’t take that the wrong way. I believed you when you first came to me. I just couldn’t…” He took off his glasses and rubbed his brow. “They took my wife’s life. For no other reason than because she was a good person, who acted from the heart. We all know who was behind this. I want him brought to justice. I want to know why. If she stepped into the middle of some kind of drug retaliation… or, God forbid, some kind of government cover-up…”

I reached over and took hold of Harold Bachman’s arm. “I’m not sure that’s what it was.”

“Not sure it was what?”

“A drug retaliation. I’m not a hundred percent sure that it was even connected to the drug trade at all. Or to anything I might have been thinking a day ago.”

“Ms. Gould, I’m here… I’m breaking every vow I made to myself. And to my kids.” His eyes locked on me. “What did you find?”

“You remember I asked you if you had ever heard anyone connected to this with the name Gillian?”

He nodded.

My eyes lit up with vindication. “Well, I know who it was.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Javier Perez had worked security at the Stamford Town Center mall for two years now after dropping out of Southern Connecticut State University. Weekdays, he did the ten-to-six shift; two nights a week he was a gate guard at this ritzy residential community in Greenwich. What he really wanted to do was take the test for the Stamford police academy. He wanted to wear a real badge, not this useless steel-plated one. He wanted to trade in the radio holstered to his side for a gun. He had an uncle who worked on the force who he was pretty sure could get him in.

Driving around in a cart, keeping an eye out for shoplifters or teens huddled in a corner smoking weed, pretending he was some big-time authority figure, just didn’t cut it anymore.

Javier was making the rounds in the garage, checking the plates of those who were parked in the handicapped spaces or had pulled into unauthorized spots. The only reason he’d even slap a ticket on their windshield was that if his boss came around and found he hadn’t, Javier knew he could kiss that recommendation to the Stamford PD good-bye.

He wound the cart up to the second floor, stopping for a couple of sweet-looking mamas who walked by him in the crosswalk; he nodded with an admiring smile. Then his eye went to a black Mercedes 550 parked in a space blocked off with yellow lines.

Probably some hedge-fund honcho’s wife who thought the world owed her special treatment, just run into Saks to pick up some outfit that probably cost as much as his car.

Javier stopped and shook his head at the hundred-thousand-dollar car parked smack in the yellow lines. It was time to take out his ticket pad.

But somehow his eye was drawn to the vehicle parked next to it. A big, blue GMC Explorer. He recalled that an APB had been tacked onto the bulletin board in the office for a dark blue Explorer. A 2004. With Vermont plates. Didn’t say why they were looking for it. Just that they were.

This one had Connecticut plates.

At least one of them, Javier noted, checking the front. The front plate was suspiciously missing. And he knew his cars: the squared-off grill and rear lights were particular to how Explorers were made six or seven years ago.

Something about this sucker didn’t seem right.

A tingling danced across Javier’s skin, not far from what he imagined he’d be feeling when he stood in that starched blue uniform one day when they presented him his badge. He took his radio and called Victor in the office.

“Hey, bro, you know that APB we received yesterday…”

Javier was thinking that application to the Stamford police academy might’ve just moved to the top of the pile.

CHAPTER FIFTY

I told Harold what I’d found. That Gillian was never a person. It never had been.

It was a town. The hometown in Colorado of Ana Lasser, the girl who had been killed in the second car along with the two other University of Denver students.

I told him how I was looking through the photos she had taken just before she was killed when I just happened on it.

“Hruseff told Curtis just before he shot him, ‘This is for Gillian.’ It was never about the Bienvienes. They were the ones who just happened in. It was always about this girl. Ana. On spring break with her friends. They were in similar cars. Maybe that was it.”

“But Curtis went to see Lauritzia in the hospital,” Harold said, cocking his head, “and Lauritzia doesn’t have anything to do with that girl. And you were sure that’s what got him killed.”

“No. Something to do with this girl Ana Lasser got him killed. I think the reason he needed to see Lauritzia was to confirm this. Her father carried out the hit. He needed to know if Ana was the intended target. Or the Bienvienes. That’s why he needed to die.”

My eyes went wide and fixed on Harold. “Eduardo Cano wanted to get back at Oscar Velez, and he wiped out his entire family. But not just for revenge. What if it was also to keep him silent? To keep him from ever divulging what he knew? That this was never, ever about those DEA agents. That they just happened in, just as randomly and tragically as we thought the three students had. But because they were DEA agents everyone assumed they were the targets. But they never were. It was always about this girl…”

“Why?” Harold said, shaking his head. He was a lawyer, clearly a person who operated in logic, and this wasn’t making sense.

“I don’t that know yet. I-”

My gaze was suddenly drawn to the sight of two uniformed police officers coming down the escalator.

“Maybe she photographed something?” Harold postulated. “Maybe she saw something at the hit she should never have seen and got it on film?”

“I don’t know…” I kept watching the police. “That ambush was set up in advance. No one had a clue she’d be taking photos. Anyway, it’s not her family that was being targeted in revenge. It was Oscar Velez’s. To keep him from telling the truth to the feds. About what he knows…

“I’ve been approaching this all wrong,” I said. It was like some Mensa puzzle that was making my brain ache. “I’ve been focused on the Bienvienes and Lauritzia, when it’s about this girl. Eduardo Cano has been trying to kill Lauritzia, not because of her but because of her father. Maybe it’s the same thing here. Hruseff said, ‘This is for Gillian, asshole,’ when he shot Curtis, not ‘This is for Ana.’ Because it’s not about her literally, but where she’s from. Gillian. It’s about what’s there. She was just the person who was killed.”

Harold nodded. “It never made sense to me that Eduardo Cano was let go simply because of holes in Oscar Velez’s testimony. The man murdered five U.S. citizens. He knew something no one wanted to come out.” He gave me the look of a man who was no longer fighting the truth. “Okay, I think there’s someone you ought to meet.”

“Thank you,” I said, and grasped his arm.

Just as quickly my gaze became diverted by the sight of two more policemen. They seemed to be making their way through the crowd, checking faces against some kind of sheet.

A knot tightened in my stomach. “Shit.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I don’t like how this is feeling,” I said to Harold, drawing his eye to the cops, my heart starting to race. “I think I ought to get out of here.”

Maybe the people at the inn where I was staying had somehow recognized me. I was going over what I may have left in my room-some toiletries and whatever extra clothes I had.

I realized I wasn’t going back to get them.

Harold said, “I want you to talk with Lauritzia. But I’m going to need some time to make sure I’m covered with my kids. Can you meet me in the garage in my office? In about an hour?”

I nodded. The cops seemed headed our way. “Stand up and give me a hug,” I said.

Harold looked at me curiously.

“Just give me a hug. Like you know me and we’re saying good-bye. These officers are looking for someone. There’s no reason they should be here for me, but…”

We stood up and Harold awkwardly put his arms around me and gave me a squeeze. I looked at them over his shoulder. I knew my newly clipped blond hair and sunglasses would conceal me. And even if they were somehow on my trail, there was absolutely no reason to think I’d be at the mall.

But somehow they were on to me.

“I’ll leave first,” I said, pulling away. “Here’s my number. If you see them come after me, I’d really appreciate a heads-up.”

He glanced at them with concern and nodded.

“You are my lawyer, right?” I said, holding on his gaze with a reluctant smile.

“I guess I am. Now. If it comes to that.”

“Good.” I gave him an upbeat look. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I made my way to the exit without even a look behind. I found the fire staircase next to the elevators and headed to the second floor. Before the door fully closed I glanced around. The officers seemed to have moved on. No one was coming my way. I let out a sigh of relief, and my nerves began to calm.

I went up to the second floor and headed down the first row in the garage to where I’d left the Explorer, two aisles over. I took out the electronic key and was about to press the Unlock button.

I stopped.

I saw the Explorer-and realized in an instant just why all the police were at the mall. There were three or four of them-maybe a detective or two as well-hell, for all I knew they could’ve been the FBI!-huddled around it.

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

It took about one more second for my throat to go dry and for me to become completely encased in sweat. I turned around, pretending I’d arrived at a completely different car two rows over, and I held there like a plank, not knowing what to do. Jim and Cindy’s car must have been on alert. I’d been discovered.

I was sure I was about to hear a command to stop, to get down on the ground, the authorities rushing over me. The next thirty seconds went by as slowly as any in my life. I stood in front of some strange sedan, glancing back to see if they knew I was there.

Somehow they didn’t. But there wasn’t any doubt that I had to get out of there. I had to get to Harold. I was close to finding out what I needed to know, what I needed to save myself, and if I waited there too long, if they had my car, the entire mall might be put on lockdown. The detectives were on their radios. All the exits were probably covered.

How the hell are you going to get out of here, Wendy?

I drew in a deep breath and made my way back in the direction of the mall. My legs were so rubbery, they would barely move. I didn’t look behind. I just kept on walking, waiting to be ordered to stop.

As I neared the elevator suddenly a policeman stepped out of the stairwell. My heart beat so loudly I thought it would give me away. It took everything I had to hold it together. I just looked him in the face, praying, and nodded. “Hello.”

“Ma’am.” He nodded back and passed me by without stopping.

I exhaled.

I was about to go into the staircase when the elevator doors opened and a mother and her ten- or eleven-year-old daughter stepped out, so I ducked inside. The doors closed and I almost fainted with relief. I pushed the button for 3, not knowing what I would do there, also knowing that there was probably a security camera trained on me now, and at some point, when no one had come back to the Explorer, they would review it and know it was me.

The elevator opened on the third floor. I didn’t see any police around. I did see a security cart driving up the ramp, so I went the other way, out to the atrium balcony, and peered over the railing into the mall. I thought that maybe I could get out through one of the restaurants. The Capital Grille. Mitchell’s Fish Market. P.F. Chang’s. They all had both mall entrances and ones that led to the outside. A couple of cops stood in front of the entrance to P.F. Chang’s, eyeing whoever was going in.

You can’t risk it. My chest filled up with fear. But in a few more minutes, the entire mall might be locked down.

I went back into the garage and headed down a row of cars, trying to think of my best way out. Steal a car? I didn’t know how. Hijack one? A couple of women passed me, deep in conversation. “Then you know what she did?” A young mother dragged her whining five- or six-year-old daughter, who was carrying on about some toy. Another woman was carrying a bunch of bags from Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. Not knowing what else to do, I followed her from a distance. Arriving at her car, a tan Acura SUV, she reached into her purse and took out her key. She opened the rear hatch and loaded in her bags.

I don’t even know what made me watch her. She had a kindly face-I was so desperate and mixed up, I thought about just jumping in next to her and begging her to drive me out. But instead of getting in her car, the woman fumbled around in her bag and brought out her parking ticket.

I suddenly knew what to do.

She headed over to the payment machine at the top of the ramp, five or six cars away.

I hurried over to her car. I saw her trying to figure out the machine, and as she inserted her credit card I pulled open the rear driver’s side door, completely hidden from her view, and threw myself in. I climbed over the backseat and fell into the cargo bay, wedging myself tightly against the seat back, hoping it hid me from view. I pulled her shopping bags around me and curled into a ball.

This just might work.

I pressed my face into the carpet, praying when she came back she wouldn’t need to get into the cargo area again. Thank God, she didn’t. The wait was agonizing, but I finally heard the lock beep again, and the woman opened the driver’s door and climbed in.

My heart was going crazy. I lay there, making myself as tiny as I could, eyes closed, begging her to start the fucking car and get us out of there. I heard her arrange her bag for a minute, barely four feet away. Finally I heard the ignition and the car started up. The engine rattled-almost the same vibration as my pulse. I couldn’t tell which was shaking more.

We started to back out. Suddenly I heard the woman grunt, “Shit,” and hit the brakes. I was thrown against the backseat. She went, “C’mon, buddy,” and I felt as if she was looking directly over me out the rear window.

I was afraid to even breathe.

Finally the car went forward. We drove down the incline and turned sharply, coming to another stop, seeming to inch along, then turned sharply again. I heard the radio go on. “New York Minute” by Don Henley. I was sure we were approaching the ticket counter on the ground floor.

Then we stopped.

“Grrrr, what is this now?” The woman let out a frustrated sigh.

What if the police were searching all vehicles? The windows were tinted. I was pretty sure no one could easily see in. Unless they were specifically looking for me. I crunched into a ball. My limbs started to physically shake. I was on the verge of finding out what I needed. What could prove my innocence. Please don’t let them take me in now.

We inched along to the ticket booth. I pulled the shopping bags tighter around me. I raised up slightly and saw the rate sign on the cashier’s booth, the window above me. I tensed, prepared for someone to ask to open the hatch and peer in.

To my elation, all I heard was the woman ask, “Insert it in here?” I realized she was putting in the parking ticket. The next couple of seconds I just lay there with my eyes closed, sure that someone was about to pull open the hatch.

But no one did. Instead, I heard the attendant say in an accent, “Have a nice day!”

We pulled out of the garage. It was at least thirty seconds before I allowed myself to actually believe we were free. I rolled over and blew out a triumphant gasp of air.

Now, how the hell would I get out of here?

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Back in his office, Harold called Roxanne’s mom, who’d been staying with him since the disaster, helping out with the kids. He told her he had a business thing and wouldn’t be back that night until late, and that he’d call in from the road and say good night to the kids. Then he got on the computer and put in the name of the college student Wendy had told him about.

Ana Lasser.

Immediately the article from the Denver Post came up. Harold quickly went over it, finding the link to the photography exhibit Wendy had mentioned. He clicked on it, and looked at the black-and-white photos there, the studies of the villagers, their brown, smiling faces. He shook his head in resignation-such a shame that the life of a girl with such talent and promise had been cut short like that.

But that wasn’t what he was looking for.

He scrolled down, bypassing pages of articles connected to the Culiacán ambush, until he came across something from what appeared to be the local newspaper where Ana Lasser was from.

The Alamosa County Courier.

STAND – OUT LOCAL STUDENT AMONG FIVE KILLED IN MEXICAN AMBUSH

Harold clicked on the link and read how Lasser, an honors graduate of William Payne High School and the former photography editor on the school newspaper, “was listed among the victims of what appeared to be a drug-motivated shooting in a remote Mexican town.” The article described how she was traveling by car through the Sinaloa region on spring break with two other University of Denver students, one of them, Ned Taylor, described as her boyfriend.

There was no mention of the Bienvienes or any details on the shooting. The article said that she was survived by her brothers Ryan and Beau, both still at the high school. And her parents, Robert and Blair Lasser, of Gillian.

Harold pulled himself away from the screen. If Ana Lasser had indeed been the target of this shooting, it surely wasn’t because she was dealing dime bags of marijuana out of her college dorm room. It was clearly intended as a message to someone important, a devastating payback. Just as the vendetta against Lauritzia’s family had been a payback.

And if it was, it only made sense that the person it was most likely aimed at would have been her father.

Harold checked the name again. Robert Lasser.

With time, Harold knew he could find out virtually anything he needed to about the man. Background checks, LexisNexis, D and B reports, private investigation services-the firm had the means. He knew he could uncover every bad check the guy had ever written. Every traffic ticket he’d received. Every phone call he’d made in the past few months; whether his business was healthy or in trouble. Whether he’d been screwing his secretary.

But that would take time and leave a trail of money, and Harold knew it was vital for him to be 100 percent confidential about why he would be looking into him.

The last thing he could do was risk having it coming out that he was the person behind the search. If it got back to the wrong people, he’d be putting everyone in jeopardy, including Jamie and Taylor. He’d already seen what these people do when they feel threatened.

He checked his watch. He still had about a half hour until Wendy was supposed to meet him. Since the police never went after her, he assumed she’d gotten out of the mall safely.

He punched Robert Lasser, Gillian, Colorado, into Google Search.

Dozens of hits came back-most having to do with the death of his daughter, almost four years ago, which had been picked up by newspapers around the country. Harold kept scrolling down. There were two other Robert Lassers who were on the web-a financial advisor in the Twin Cities and a personal liabilities lawyer in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Then an item caught his eye. Harold stopped on it.

LOCAL BUSINESSMAN MAKES GENEROUS GIFT TO SAVE PUBLIC PARK

Gillian businessman Robert P. Lasser has donated seventy-five thousand dollars to the town’s landmark preservation board to preserve Francis A. Dellinger Park, to fend off interest from an out-of-state real estate development group that had submitted plans to buy the park from the cash-strapped town and convert it into a business park. Lasser, a longtime resident of Gillian and president of Apache Sales and Marketing, and whose daughter, Ana, was tragically killed in Mexico three years ago, the victim of a drug-related shooting, said he donated the money “to preserve the integrity of our town and because it was one of his daughter’s favorite spots to photograph…”

Nice gesture, Harold remarked to himself. He exited out of the article and typed in Apache Sales and Marketing. The company had a website. It said, “The finest in TV’s and home consumer brands…” It looked like some kind of consumer distribution company. Harold noticed they had warehouses in Colorado, Kansas, and Texas. It appeared they distributed products to Indian reservations. The home page was decorated with the logos of several recognizable brands: Sony. Panasonic. Samsung. HP. Norelco.

Colt.

Then he saw a promotional tagline that hit him like a blunt instrument to the face: Direct sales solutions in the U.S. and Mexico.

He also noticed an official-looking crest with a U.S. Government “Approved Vendor” logo on the bottom of the page.

Did Apache sell to the U.S. government? Maybe to military bases? Were Indian reservations still on government land? He’d have to check that. Then there was that “in the U.S. and Mexico.” He’d have to check that too.

But the connection to the Culiacán murders had just narrowed a little.

He jotted all this down, then glanced at his watch and saw the time. He picked up his phone and punched in a number only he knew. On the third ring, a woman’s voice answered.

“I’m going to be coming up,” he said. “I’m bringing someone. Someone needs to talk with you.”

“Okay,” Lauritzia said haltingly. “If you think it’s wise.

“Just trust me on this. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

We made a right turn out of the garage onto what had to be Summer Street and pulled up at a light.

I raised myself up and peered out the window at the tops of buildings in downtown Stamford. Somehow I had to get to Harold’s office in half an hour-and that was in the completely opposite direction.

And every second it was becoming farther.

We continued through the light, and I recognized the library and an Italian restaurant Dave and I used to eat at sometimes. Then we drove for a while down a long straightaway in the direction of Long Ridge Road without stopping. What began to throb in my mind like some silent alarm was what if the woman was heading back home and upon arriving went to take out her bags-she was about to get the scare of her life! In seconds she’d be on the phone to 911. Who even knew where she lived? I could be out in the middle of backcountry Stamford or New Canaan with no way to get back.

I’d be dead meat for the first cop who came on the scene.

The next time we stopped, I lifted my head and saw we had merged onto Long Ridge Road. Long Ridge was a highly trafficked, commercial boulevard, fast-food places and big box stores on both sides. Suddenly I heard the woman get on her phone. It connected over the speaker.

A man’s voice answered. “Hey…”

“Hey, hon,” the woman said brightly. “Just wondering what time you’d be home for dinner?”

I lowered myself back into the rear.

“Not sure… should be finishing up here no later than six. Maybe around seven.”

“I’ve got some sauce in the fridge. We could do a pasta. I could also pick up a pork chop and maybe do a baked potato?”

“Pork chop sounds good.”

“Okay… I’m passing the Stop and Shop in a second anyway. I’ve got to pick up some stuff for the kids.”

I figured that was my way out, as soon as she parked at the supermarket and went in. I’d just have to work out a way back downtown.

“I was at the mall,” the woman said. “I picked up a few things for the house. Frames for those pictures of the kids. Then I went into Williams-Sonoma. I was looking at those Japanese knives we were talking about-”

“Okay…” I heard her husband sigh, beginning to lose interest. If I wasn’t so damn scared, I might have laughed out loud-it sounded a lot like Dave and me.

“Anyway, I’m pulling in now. See you home.”

“Love you.”

The SUV turned to the right. I rolled against the shopping bags, knocking one over, a bubble-wrapped vase or something tumbling out. Did she hear? When she parked at the store, would she come around and check the back to make sure everything was all right?

I raised myself to see where we were and, to my alarm, saw that it wasn’t the Stop & Shop after all, but an Exxon station.

A wave of panic sheared through me-not knowing which side of the vehicle the gas tank was on, I envisioned the woman getting out and standing virtually inches from me as she filled up the tank. Her eyes becoming twice their size at what she saw curled up inside her car…

She pulled up at a tank. The driver’s door opened and the woman stepped out and went around the car, passing right above me. I held my breath. Thank God, the windows were tinted and I had her shopping bags pulled all around me. She crossed to the other side of the vehicle and went over to a pump.

Through the darkened glass I watched her put in her credit card and unscrew the fuel cap. My heart stood still as I realized what would happen if she merely looked up and let her eyes wander inside her car.

I froze.

Suddenly she put the pump on automatic and headed away. I lifted myself just enough to watch her go around the car and inside the market.

This is my chance.

I pushed aside the bags and rolled myself over the backseat. I opened the door on the gas tank side, away from the market, and slid out, shutting the door behind me. Immediately I was face-to-face with a man at the pump directly across from me. Inside I froze, but on the outside I got my wits together just enough to give him an innocent smile; to him it would just seem like anyone climbing out of the backseat. I doubted if he’d even still be there when the woman came back.

Hastily, I hurried away from the car, expecting any second to hear a shout from behind me. Hey, you, what are you doing? Stop!

But I didn’t. Ahead of me, there was a Bed, Bath & Beyond and a Burger King across the street. I hurried to Burger King and ran around the corner, out of sight. For the first time, I exhaled in relief. I checked the time. I was two miles away from where I had to meet Harold and had no way to get there. I had only ten minutes. I did the only thing I could think of.

I called Harold on his cell.

“Yes,” he answered hesitantly. I could hear he didn’t want to take the call. “You made it out okay?”

“Little wrinkle,” I said with a chuckle. “But doing better now.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

In the makeshift Homeland Security-FBI Command Center at Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, Alton Dokes looked through a series of photos that had just come in.

The first was of a navy GMC Explorer parked at the Town Center mall in Stamford, Connecticut. It had New York license plates that had been stolen off of a 2008 Honda Civic in Bridgeport four days before. The Explorer matched the one that had been reported missing from a private home in Vermont yesterday morning.

A home directly across from one owned by David and Wendy Gould.

The next photo was of that same vehicle going through the ticketing gate at the Town Center mall in Stamford an hour earlier.

Dokes focused on the driver behind the wheel and smiled. Her shortened and newly dyed hair, the partially hidden face. Gotcha, darling. He chuckled to himself.

But what was she doing here?

A team of agents was already on their way. As well as additional surveillance photos requested from office buildings surrounding the mall. It was just a stroke of luck as it turned out, his luck actually, that she had managed to avoid being captured there.

He had to hand it to the gal-she had shown herself a remarkably difficult target to kill.

Still, one thing did concern him as he leafed through the photos. One of the suspect as she made her way through the mall, another of her sitting at a table having coffee in the first-floor atrium. She was huddled in conversation with a man. A man whose face might not be known to most, but it was to him. Someone connected to her in ways beyond what she likely knew.

Dokes paused on the photo. He knew what had to be done. His own survival depended on it. The survival of a host of people depended on it. That was what they did-warriors. They did the work that had to be done. The work that no one ever saw, through the muddy troughs of what ended up as history and what would never be fully known.

But that wasn’t the only reason he would make sure she never got to tell her tale.

He had spent too many years getting his hands dirty in holes like El Paso and Mexicali to see it all washed away now. And Harold Bachman… he had gotten his nose in it. He’d been asking about Gillian in DC. Hadn’t he learned?

He was another one to deal with.

One of the young agents came over, Holmes, who had been the trigger man at Grand Central, and asked, “You want me to get this out to the press?” He pointed to the close-up taken of Wendy Gould driving into the garage. “We can have her face across the country in minutes.”

Dokes looked at the grainy security photograph of her behind the wheel. You’ve been more trouble than you’re worth, he said to himself, but that’s about to come to an end.

“Thanks,” he said, picking up his cell phone, motioning for the agent to leave. “I’ll handle it from here.”

The number appeared on the screen. KVC Consulting.

On the fourth ring a woman answered. “Sabrina Stein.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

We drove for an hour and turned off Route 15 in Hamden. We wound through the quiet streets of small apartment buildings and attached houses until we were near New Haven. A sign pointed straight ahead to Quinnipiac University.

Harold pulled in front of a five-story redbrick apartment building that had probably looked modern back in the sixties. He turned off the car. It was dark and cold. A few flurries were blowing around. We both agreed that someone must have recognized the Explorer-which meant the police now knew I’d taken it. Along with Jim and Cindy, who I figured could now put in a room with just about everyone else I knew who now assumed that whatever was being said about me had to be true.

“Wait here,” Harold said, opening the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He got out and went around the back of the apartment building. My anticipation started to rise. I finally was about to come face-to-face with the one person who might be able to corroborate my story. Who could take me a step closer to the truth-a truth that several people had now died for. On the street, a young couple passed by the car walking their dog.

A short while later Harold came back and waved me out of the car. I crossed the street and he took me through the rear entrance, facing the parking lot, and down the narrow lobby hallway to the elevator.

“No one knows about this place,” he said. We stepped inside and he pressed the button for the fourth floor. “Not the government. Though they’ve tried to. Not any of my colleagues. Just me and you. And just so you also know, while I value everything you’ve told me, Wendy, I value the person you’re about to meet a whole lot more.”

“I understand.” I nodded. “Though it’s not like there’s much of anyone I could possibly tell these days,” I said with a smile.

“Just so you understand,” Harold said as he closed the door.

The elevator was tiny and cramped, a diamond-shaped window on the door, and it slowly clattered up to the fourth floor, where Harold pushed open the door and we went down a dark hallway. He stopped and knocked on Apartment 4C.

The door opened slightly. A woman peeked out. Adrenaline started to surge in me. She unlatched the chain.

I stared into the pretty, dark-complexioned face of Lauritzia Velez. “Please come in,” she said, looking at me haltingly, opening the door.

Harold gave her a hug. “Lauritzia…”

She squeezed him back, appreciatively and gratefully, and led us into the small, sparsely furnished apartment. She was tiny, dressed in jeans and an orange sweater tied over a white tee. Her face was almond-shaped and pretty, just like in the photo, with narrow cheekbones and shy, mysterious eyes that in another time, if things were different, might have sparkled with joy.

“It’s still a mess,” she said to me apologetically. “I’ve only been here a couple of weeks.”

“It’s nice,” I said, looking at the modern IKEA-style furnishings, bookshelves stacked with what looked like textbooks.

“The furniture came with it,” she said. “Mr. Bachman has been very generous to me.”

“Lauritzia, this is Wendy Gould,” Harold said.

“I know who you are,” Lauritzia said to me with trusting eyes. “Mr. Bachman explained…”

“And I know who you are,” I said. “I have for a while.”

“In a minute, maybe you can tell me how. In the meantime, can I get you some tea? A glass of water?”

“A cup of tea would be terrific.” It had been a week since I’d had one. A week from hell.

“I’m good,” Harold said, shaking his head slightly.

The water took a couple of minutes to boil, and I spent it looking around the living room. It was neat and barely looked lived in. I picked up a photo of what I took to be her and her brother and sisters, the girls dressed in light-blue dresses and beaming with joy, at what I figured was a family wedding. A sadness came over me. The happy faces of those who I knew were dead now. Knowing the tragic fate that awaited them all.

It was hard to look at. That was how it would be to look at my husband now…

I put it down.

“I keep it out because there are days that it somehow fills me with hope,” Lauritzia said, bringing a tray to the small, round dining table. “And then there are days I cannot look at it. Because it makes me ashamed to be alive.”

“I know exactly how you feel, Lauritzia,” I said. “And how does it make you feel today?”

“I kept it out,” she said with a shrug, and shifted a stack of books from the table. “So I guess hopeful. Please sit down.”

The tea was hot and steamy and just what I needed. “Thank you.”

“Mr. Bachman told me what has happened. I don’t read the newspapers much or listen to the news. He said you came to him a few days ago to find me. How did you know about me?”

I dug into my bag and took out Curtis’s phone. I scrolled to the last photo and pushed it across to her.

As she stared at it, she brightened slightly, her face coming alive in a hesitant smile.

I explained, “I went to see Curtis’s mother. In Boston. I found her number in there. She told me what he was looking into at the end… about what happened at the Westchester airport. I looked into it, and when I read about you, I knew it was you in the photo. I had no idea who you were, of course, but I traced it back to your trial. I know why he was trying to find you, Lauritzia. Why he needed to see you. It was the last photo he took. Just before he died. You said you know who I am, right?”

“Yes. Mr. Bachman has explained to me.”

“Then you also know that I was with him when he was killed.”

This time she stopped, and nodded slightly, averting her eyes.

“So you know that finding out why is the only way I can get to the truth behind what happened.”

“The truth…” Lauritzia seemed to be measuring me. “To prove why he died?”

“To prove my innocence, Lauritzia.” I cupped my hands around the mug. “I had no business being up there. I can’t take that back. But I didn’t kill those people. Though I suspect that’s something you probably already know. You’ve been living with this kind of sentence over you for a long time.”

She nodded again, this time putting her hand along her face and rubbing her cheek. “I was very sad to hear what happened to him. I knew it was not how they said. He was a nice man. I could feel that as soon as he came into my room at the hospital. I could see he only wanted the truth, not to hurt anyone. I told him he shouldn’t get involved in this. That this wasn’t his fight. I told him what would happen. How it would end. But he wanted to know…

“As soon as I heard what happened, I knew it was not as they said. You are right-I have lived with that sort of knowledge a long time. Just as I knew, as soon as I looked in his eyes and spoke with him, that he would have the same fate. The truth you call it… The truth for you is how you get yourself out of this, Ms. Wendy, but truth only deepens the darkness for me.”

“The person who killed him”-I put down my mug and looked at her-“was a government agent, Lauritzia. He said, ‘This is for Gillian,’ and then he shot him. Point-blank. There was nothing I could do. I believe he was trying to stop Curtis from ever divulging what he knew. I now know the person he was referring to. It wasn’t so much a person as a place. And I know what happened down there, in Culiacán…”

A paleness crept across Lauritzia. She brushed the hair from her eyes and looked away.

“Lauritzia,” Harold said, reaching across the table, “I brought Wendy here because there are things she needs to know… things you might know. Things you’ve never told me, but I think it is safe to tell her if there are. She’s been harmed in all this, just like the two of us have been harmed. You more than anyone. It’s not just that she’s trying to clear herself… It’s that she’s lost people close to her too. Just like us. People who she loved. And those people deserve a voice too. To make it clear who bears the guilt. Who did these terrible things and what’s behind them. Just like your brother and sisters should have a voice. So it’s okay-”

“My brother and sisters do have a voice. The problem is not giving them a voice but finding anyone who will listen. Who will do anything…”

I reached across to her and touched her arm. “I want to be that person, Lauritzia.”

She stood up, away from my grasp, holding back tears. “What can you possibly do? When I look at you I see the same thing I saw in Curtis. The killing will just continue. No matter what you want to do about it. No matter who you think you can tell.” She looked at Harold, fear coming from her. “Now, even you cannot back out of it!”

She went over to the window. The blinds were down and she peeked through them, to see the street below; as if she could see far beyond it. To a different world maybe. To her home. My heart ached for her, with what she’d been through. When she turned around, all she did was nod. “I know what you want to know. You want to know what Curtis told me, sí? In the hospital?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

Her voice grew resigned, but I heard something else in it. Sadness. And her face contained a kind of sadness too. As if she was talking to people who were now alive, who would soon become ghosts. As they all had become ghosts for her. She sat back down, put her hands on the table, and nodded. “I know exactly what you’ve come to hear.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

He said he knew why Eduardo Cano wanted me dead. That it wasn’t just revenge, revenge for what my father had done. For his betrayal. But for what he knew. What he had to protect against my father saying. It was why my father was driven from his family and agreed to testify against him.”

I pressed. “It was that the Bienvieneses weren’t the actual targets of that shooting, wasn’t it? In Culiacán.”

“The Bienvienes?”

“The government agents, in the first car. It was the girl. In the car behind them. Ana Lasser. She was the target. Yes?”

Lauritzia’s face remained still for a moment, in a last defense. Then she simply looked at me and nodded. “Sí.”

Suddenly it all made sense to me. Things I hadn’t realized before. “That’s why there was a year’s gap between the first and second killings. Your brother was killed a year before the others. That one was a warning. But then it turned into something different. The rest was a punishment. Your father talked.”

Lauritzia put her hands in front of her face, and tears came into her eyes. “I am not saying my father is a good man… I know what he has done, and he will have to answer in his own way to God. The choices in life are different for us down there. He started as a worker in a kitchen. My mother died when I was four; it was a struggle just to keep us fed. My sisters had to work at an early age. I lived with my aunts and uncles. One of them knew someone who was part of la familia. One day my father came home with money. He no longer worked in the kitchen. Who here can judge him? Soon we were all living together again in a house. He never wanted it for any of us. He always kept it separate from us. He sent us to school. He pushed us, in the other direction…”

“Lauritzia, no one’s judging him,” I said. “We just want-”

“I am not saying the murder of three American students is somehow more forgivable than the murder of two government agents… but he knew, when it came out that the two federales were killed in that first car, that the nortes would never rest until they found out who had done this. Everything changed for him then. It was to save us that he did this thing. He was able to put Eduardo Cano in a U.S. prison. The Untouchable One. If he was put away, it would have only been my father who had to suffer. Then they let him go, and my family’s life turned to hell.”

She stood up. This time there was something deeper and more resolute carved into her face. Not fear; it seemed almost freeing. As if she was finally letting go everything she had been holding back and that had been boxed inside her for such a long time.

“Yes, that girl who was in the second car was the one they were sent to kill. My father confessed this to me the day he left. In tears. He confessed this to all of us. An innocent girl, just like me. He intended to salvage some honor in doing what he did. But all it ended up bringing him was hell.”

“Why did Cano want this girl dead?” I asked. “What had she done?”

“The same thing I had done!” Lauritzia said in tears. “Or my brother had done. Or any of my sisters. Nothing! Only that the sins of the father are passed to the son. To the children. This is what Curtis told me. That my father had stepped into a web of lies and secrets… With a spider far more venomous than the one he already knew. Why is it that Eduardo Cano never went to trial? Why do you think he was able to disappear, and leave your country, after murdering five of your own citizens?”

Harold said, “Lauritzia, you said it was because of what he knew. What Eduardo Cano needed to protect.”

“No, not Cano.” She turned and looked away.

“Then who? Your father was already in the custody of the U.S government. Who did he need to protect?”

“Do you not see it? Do you believe the Mexican government speaks with one voice? When they promise to rid the world of these savages? When the federales come around and take pictures of the dead and count the bullet casings and ask for names, but nothing is ever looked into? Nothing is ever done. Does any government ever speak with one voice? Does yours, Mr. Bachman?”

He shook his head. “Lauritzia, I don’t understand.”

“It was about the guns! That is what Curtis told me.”

“Guns?”

“What do you think it is that backs up their terror? They rain death upon us, but where does it come from? We sell you the drugs, you sell us the guns. In Mexico it is a crime to even sell one. They come from you. It is in your newspapers. It is on your TV. But no one intervenes. The sins of the father are passed to the son. Find Eduardo Cano-ask him! Or ask this girl’s father what they have done. They can tell you what was behind it, not me.”

Harold turned to me. “Lauritzia’s father was in the hands of the FBI and U.S. Justice Department. But Cano was trying to protect himself from him telling someone else. Who?”

I saw that he formed the answer in his eyes.

Lauritzia started to weep. I moved over and brought her face to my chest and put my arm around her. I let her cry. She deserved to cry. Forever, if that’s what it took.

The sins of the father are passed to the son.

Find Eduardo Cano-ask him! Or ask the girl’s father.

“I looked into Ana Lasser’s father,” Harold said. “He has a trading company that does business across the border in Mexico… electronic equipment. Samsung. Sony. All very legit. But he also sells firearms. Colt. Remington. It’s right there on his website.”

I stared back at him. “He was selling illegal guns to the cartels?”

“I don’t know. But there’s more. There’s something else there… a seal. From the U.S. government. He’s an approved vendor to the United States of America.”

My pulse started to accelerate. “That’s what they were protecting. They’re selling arms illegally to the Mexican cartels…”

“Yes, but there’s got to be something more. This has all come out. You’ve heard of this program, on the news. What’s it called, Fast and Furious. The government was selling arms to cartels, hoping to be able to trace them back when they were used in crimes and then have them as evidence. That’s all public. They’ve testified before Congress. It has to be something deeper than that.”

“He could have been trafficking himself by bringing something back,” I said. “Receiving product in return for arms. What if he went around the cartels and they killed his daughter?”

“I don’t know,” Harold said. He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

Lauritzia pulled away from me and dabbed her eyes.

“I can turn myself in,” I said to Harold. “You find someone to represent me. I can show them: Hruseff and Dokes are somehow both tied in. And maybe that woman you went to see, Sabrina Stein. We can show them how Ana Lasser was the actual target of the hit. This will all come out.”

“What will come out?” Harold shook his head cynically. “That this whole thing is just an elaborate scheme to cover up a secret government arms sale? And tell them what? That Dokes and Hruseff once worked together? Years ago? That Hruseff said to Curtis, ‘This is for Gillian,’ before he killed him? And that you traced it back to mean the victim’s hometown? Tell them how Curtis followed it all back to that ambush in Culiacán? Do you have any documentation? His notes?”

“His computer was taken from the hotel room. By Dokes. I’m sure.”

“You think any of this overrides the fact that you shot that agent? Or that it’s any stronger than the evidence that you killed your husband? Assuming we can even protect you from Dokes. Or that you even made it to trial. Are you planning on asking Lauritzia to testify in your behalf? And as to what? Hearsay, that her father may have told her? Which doesn’t actually prove a thing. Are you going to put me on the stand? That I thought Sabrina Stein might have been holding something back? Well, I can’t do it, Wendy. I’m already putting my family at risk as it is. I can’t go into hiding like Lauritzia’s father. What we need to know is what was behind this? Lauritzia, you say it was the guns. What guns? Guns to whom? How did it connect illicitly to the U.S. government? Do we have anything tying anything to this Lasser except the name of his hometown? What are they trying to hide, and who would have a motive to do so? And why?”

“There’s only one way to find those things out.” I let out a resolute breath. “Lauritzia said ask Cano-or ask the girl’s father. So that’s what I’ll do.”

Harold looked at me, incredulous.

“What choice do I have? You said yourself, if I turn myself in or if I’m caught, I’ll be convicted. I’ll be painted like some lunatic. I’m as good as Lauritzia. Put me back out on that street, and I’m dead.”

“You’re talking about the Zeta drug cartel, Wendy. These men are hardened killers. You don’t have a fucking clue what they have to hide. You think he’s just going to open up to you?”

“Then I’ll have to find a way.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find one! He’s lost a daughter. We’ve both lost someone we loved to Eduardo Cano. Grief is just as strong a motive as survival. Lauritzia knows that. And so do you. You brought me here.”

“You can’t just go out there alone! If you’re wrong about any of this, you’ll never be heard from again.”

“She won’t go out there alone,” came Lauritzia’s voice, and we both turned, surprised.

She looked at us both with resolve. “She won’t be going alone. I will go too.”

“Lauritzia, that’s crazy. These people want to kill you…”

“Tell me what is my life worth here? Hiding… haunted by these ghosts.”

“I’m sorry.” Harold shook his head. “But not after what’s happened. I can’t allow that. Not now…”

She came across the table and placed her hand on his shoulder. “There is no person on this earth who has given more to me than you and your wife. You have given up everything because of me. And it is precisely because of that that I have to do this. I can’t live in hiding for the rest of my life. Not if there’s a chance that this can end. Even if it only ends for Wendy. Or for you.”

“Lauritzia, you’ll be risking everything we fought for.”

“No, we fought for the end of Eduardo Cano, and that did not come. I am risking nothing now. What do I have?” She took Harold’s hands and cupped them in her own. “There is a saying where I am from.” She spoke in Spanish, then translated: “ ‘In life you have many keys, but only one opens the lock to your own story.’ ” Lauritzia turned to me. “You are right. You and me, we are the same. It is clear, your key is out there. But I have run and hid and cried and mourned, let myself feel anger and without hope, and what do I have? I need the truth too. I think it was fate that you came to find me. I think my key is out there too.”

“Your key…” Harold pushed back his chair, like a helpless father no longer able to control his rebelling child. “What do you think you’re going to find there?”

Whatever tears had burned in Lauritzia’s eyes a moment earlier had dried, and in their place now there seemed to glisten a new understanding. A new resolve. “Eduardo Cano.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Outside, the beat-up Toyota Corolla pulled to a stop about thirty feet behind the white Mercedes and cut the engine on the other side of the street.

Inside, a man with dark eyes and a narrow, pockmarked face watched as Harold went into the building. It took everything he had not to do it then. But he waited. A few minutes later Harold came back out and waved in the direction of his car. Then the woman went in too.

The man in the Toyota turned off the car lights.

He knew why the two were here and where they had gone. It made him feel good that he had finally found her. He would wait. He realized he’d learned nothing in his line of work if not patience. Ahead of him, a couple were walking their dog and crossed to his side of the street. There would be the right time to strike, and this wasn’t it. But that time was almost upon them.

La cuota-it had to be paid. His. Hers. It was all of their fates. No one escaped it. It was all he knew.

He shifted the Spanish newspaper next to him on the passenger seat and checked on his gun. If he needed it, this was where the answer was.

The streetlights lit up with the blowing snowflakes. The couple who were walking their dog came back, this time on his side of the street. The man in the car placed his hand over his face as they passed by. Another car drove by, the tires crunching on the freshly spread sand. He hated the cold here. It was time to go back home. To the mountains and the endless stretching blue sky. The friendly jacaranda trees. Maybe when this was all done.

He had long covered over the line between virtue and wrong. It was a footprint washed away in the sand, the tide of his deeds making it invisible. His face and hands bore the marks of his trade-knife scars and fingers broken many times. Swollen like grotesque, disfigured things. He was a sicario, a killer. He had killed so many men-women, children too-he could no longer remember the faces or even bring them back in his dreams. He knew on the Day of the Dead they would all come back to him. Wearing their masks of life, they would dance around him, drag him off to hell, for there was no doubt that that’s what his fate would be. He wondered, in that moment, when it was his time-when he saw the spark from the barrel aimed at him, because he knew that’s how it would end for him-would it matter, that he knew he had wronged so many? That he attempted to right it?

This once.

To pay down his cuota.

The people with their dog were well past now, and he removed his hand from his face. The lamplight shone on him, exposing his pain for all to see, revealing one of the many tattoos etched on his neck.

The numbers 12 and 26 with a flower separating them. As if they were numbers from a death camp. But in this case they simply stood for letters of the alphabet.

Letters that had made him who he was. That had brought the dance of masks that haunted him in his sleep. Both his penance and his curse.

12. 26. The twelfth letter and the last.

L and Z.

Los Zetas.