Juana’s voice is businesslike. “I’m sorry I didn’t support you in there. But this one scares me more than the other e-mails. It mentions a specific girl, and it does seem to be directed at you and … your family.”
“I agree with you that it’s written in a peculiar way,” Sara says. She doesn’t tell Juana that the e-mail scared her too. “It’s the first threat that uses we instead of I. It’s as if it came from a group or an organization of some sort.”
Juana knits her eyebrows the way she does when she’s trying to read someone. “Look, I know you, Sara, and I know that regardless of Felipe’s orders—or mine, for that matter—you’re going to try to find out who and what’s behind this. Don’t. I agree with Felipe. From all kinds of angles, this is not a good idea. You are in danger, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. But also, Felipe is right. It’s not good for business to be pushing negative news right now. We’re finally doing well enough to hire a few more people. We’re working six days a week again. I want you to stand down, as they say in the armed forces. Stand down completely.”
“You don’t really mean that,” Sara says. “That’s not the Juana Martínez I know, who always says where there’s a bad smell, there’s a skunk, and it’s our job to find the skunks. There’s a skunk behind this e-mail. I want to find it.”
“This time I think we need to live with the smell,” Juana says, looking away.
“Juana.” Sara leans forward, waits for Juana to look at her. “When the cartel wars were raging and every newspaper reporter had been threatened, you were one of the few who kept on. Even after El Sol lost two reporters, you continued writing the truth. I remember reading your articles when I was in grade school. You’re the reason I decided to be a reporter. Your courage is why I’m here. You can’t want me to stop looking.”
“It’s different now,” Juana says quietly.
“How?”
“I told you already. This newspaper has to survive.” Then, as if regretting the tone of her words, Juana shakes her head. “Nothing I say is going to stop you, is it?”
“I can’t give up,” Sara says, thinking of Linda.
For a moment, Juana looks almost angry, but she says, “Keep me informed of everything. I mean everything.” She waits for Sara’s nod. “This is not a request. It is an order from your boss.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Here.” Juana picks up a business card and hands it to Sara. “Call this guy. He’s constructing a new mall near Zaragoza. I want you to do an article about why he’s doing it now—what signs he sees in the city and the economy that make him think a new mall will succeed. Go to the site where he plans to build it. Get some pictures.”
Sara holds the card in front of her for a few seconds. “Is this for the happy article Felipe wants me to do? I sent an idea to him a little while ago.”
“No, it’s a favor to someone who’s willing to spend a lot on advertising. This is a business, remember? We can’t do any good if we’re not in business. Do this one after you write the one for Felipe.”
“Okay.” Sara stands. “Juana, can you forward the e-mail with the threat to me? I want to study it a little more.”
Juana reluctantly hits a few keys on her computer. As Sara is leaving, she reminds her, “Sara, the e-mail mentions the reporter’s family. Your family.”
Sara swallows and says softly, “I know.”
* * *
Back at her desk, Sara thinks for a long time. Does she really want to pursue something that could affect Mami and Emiliano, the two people she loves the most? They took so many precautions after Sara received her first threat. Their address is not in any public records. All the bills go to Sara at work. Juana is the only person at El Sol who knows where she lives, and most nights, Emiliano walks to her office after school and they take a bus home together. She’s done all she can to protect herself and her family. She did all that so she could continue to investigate the disappearance of Linda and so many other girls. She owes it to them not to give up now. She will go slowly and carefully and stop if she senses any real danger. How can she “stand down,” as Juana says, when Linda may be alive?
She forwards the threatening e-mail to Ernesto, the head of El Sol’s two-person IT department, and asks him if there’s any way to figure out the identity of the sender. An hour later, Ernesto calls. “Just from a quick look, this e-mail was sent by someone who knows a lot about encryption. The server bounced the message around so no one can locate the sender. If it’s okay with you, I’ll send it to my friends.” His friends are the Jaqueros, a group of technology and computer experts he knows. The Jaqueros helped her with an article she did on a joint investigation between the FBI and the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. They had access to e-mails and texts betweeen cartel members and government officials that no one else could get.
Sara says what she always says when he offers to send something to the Jaqueros: “Okay, but don’t break any laws.”
He responds like he always does: “Who do you think we are?”
After Ernesto hangs up, Sara answers his question silently: You’re the people who will help me find my best friend.
This book is fortunate to have received the love and wisdom of two editors. Thank you, Arthur A. Levine, for bringing me on board some twelve years ago, for journeying with me through six wonderful books, and for encouraging and shaping the birth of this book. Thank you, Emily Seife, for helping Illegal become the book it was meant to be. Thank you, Faye Bender, my friend and tireless advocate of my work. I especially want to thank Charlotte Weiss and Jaqueline Llanas of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBar) for their patience and help in answering all my questions and for their work and sacrifice on behalf of our immigrants. Finally, thank you, Jill Syverson-Stork. Without you there would be no book.
Francisco X. Stork emigrated from Mexico at the age of nine with his mother and stepfather. He is the author of seven novels, including Disappeared, which received four starred reviews and was a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book; Marcelo in the Real World, which received five starred reviews and the Schneider Family Book Award; The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award from ALAN; The Memory of Light, which received four starred reviews; and Irises. He lives near Boston with his family. You can find him on the web at franciscostork.com and on Twitter at @StorkFrancisco.
ALSO BY FRANCISCO X. STORK
MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD
THE LAST SUMMER OF THE DEATH WARRIORS
IRISES
THE MEMORY OF LIGHT
DISAPPEARED
Copyright © 2020 by Francisco X. Stork
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
Cover art © 2020 by Shane Rebenschied
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
e-ISBN 978-1-338-31057-3
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