by Andrew Gross
So I try and do it quickly, and replace the image with one I like a whole lot better. Like him prancing around after the Giants won the Super Bowl. Or snoozing on the beach in Anguilla while I built a sand castle on his belly. Or the morning that we climbed Masada at sunrise and, reaching into his pocket, he said to me …
“Wendy, I know we’ve both tried this once before, but hell, I think we’re both a little smarter the second time around …”
But today there were only the usual bills and catalogues, and back inside, I went to toss them onto the kitchen island when I noticed something else.
A plain white envelope, sandwiched between a West Elm and a Brookstone catalogue. Stark, handwritten on the front. Addressed to me. No return address.
It was the postal stamp that caught my eye.
Navolato. Mexico.
My heartbeat stopped as if it hit a wall. Oh my God …
I ripped it open eagerly, searching for the letter inside. But there was none.
Only a single photograph. The kind you might take in a booth at a CVS or somewhere. Except this one was taken outside.
It had a beautiful blue sky and dark hills in the background. There was a tree I couldn’t identify, but that I knew had to be a jacaranda.
And in the foreground, as alive as if she were standing before me, was Lauritzia. My heart nearly exploded with joy.
And for the first time I saw that beautiful smile.
And there was someone next to her. A man. Older. His leathery, rough face in a hard, proud smile. His eyes somehow reflected both joy and sadness at the same time.
I knew exactly who he was and how he was with her.
I always knew.
And she was holding something up to the camera—the gold necklace that Roxanne had given her. She held up the little charm at the bottom, held it up as if for me to see.
The butterfly.
For the second chances in life. We all deserve them.
And I started to laugh, partly from joy and partly from sorrow. I started to laugh and shout and then cry, unable to hold it back, my cheeks slick with tears.
Second chances. Hers was to go back home again one day. With her father.
Mine was to regain the trust of my kids.
We’d both found them, I said. We did.
I sat down at the counter and stared at her dark eyes and that beautiful smile that could finally, unrestrainedly shine.
Then I ran to the phone and called Harold.
Acknowledgments
My books always seem to start out as simply a story line and then grow into something far more personal. In this one, the transformation came about through the character of Lauritzia Velez, and the divulging of her tragic past. Lauritzia was loosely based on a newspaper editorial I came across about the travails of Edmond Demiraj, an Albanian immigrant who agreed to testify against a ruthless Albanian killer, who then suffered a bloody and terrible revenge enacted against him and his family. Cast aside by the U.S. government and denied asylum, the case went before the U.S. Supreme Court, where rightly, during the actual writing of this book, the wrong was righted, and Demiraj was finally granted asylum in the United States. I’ve taken some liberties with his personal story and adapting it into Lauritzia’s. But to me it became an anthem of not only the innocent victims of narco-terror, but of the horrors of a worldwide criminal enterprise that is out of control.
Several published works were truly helpful in writing this book, and I name them with appreciation: To Die in Mexico, Dispatches from Inside the Drug War by John Gibler (City Lights Books, 2011); Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family by Charles Bowden (Simon & Schuster, 2003); “The Kingpins” by William Finnegan, published in The New Yorker Magazine, July 2, 2012; and “Narco Americano” by T. J. English, published in Playboy magazine. All the writings graphically portray the tragedies of drug violence in Mexico and our own country’s ambivalent policies that have not curtailed the problem.
I’d also like to thank my dedicated team at William Morrow: Henry Ferris, Lynn Grady, Danielle Barrett, Cole Hager, and Liate Stehlik, along with Julia Wisdom in the U.K., not only for their wisdom in improving what is between the covers, but for their commitment and energies in advancing this, and all my books, to market. And to Roy Grossman for his perception in the early drafts. And to Simon Lipskar and Joe Volpe at Writers House for continuing to make me feel like the most important person in the room.
And to my wife, Lynn, who daily makes me feel like the most important person in the room, though I am usually the only one in it.
About the Author
Before turning to full-time writing, Andrew Gross was an executive in the sportswear business. Andrew has written seven novels, five of which were Top Ten bestsellers in the UK. He has also co-authored five New York Times Number One bestsellers with James Patterson. He currently lives in New York with his wife Lynn and their three children.
Novels by Andrew Gross
15 Seconds
Killing Hour
Reckless
Don’t Look Twice
The Dark Tide
The Blue Zone
By Andrew Gross and James Patterson
Judge and Jury
Lifeguard
3rd Degree
The Jester
2nd Chance
Buy the ebook here
Buy the ebook here
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
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Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
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New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
