by Andrew Gross
And you know, I might just say yes.
I mean, he is kind of cute—in a lawyerly sort of way.
And in a strange way, like I tried to tell Amy, we’re all we have.
I’m back in the house, of course. But I have it up for sale. That’s one decision I’ve made.
From time to time, when I hear someone drive up to the top of the drive, I have this urge to run to the door, sure that it’s Dave coming back from the train. Or from playing golf . . .
With his crooked, Woody Harrelson smile.
But it’s always only the UPS guy dropping off a package. Or the mailman.
Which is who it was today.
It always hurts a little to walk up there, to the mailbox. Knowing it was there I saw Dave roll out of the car . . .
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
ANDREW GROSS is the author of the New York Times and international bestsellers 15 Seconds, Eyes Wide Open, The Blue Zone, The Dark Tide, Don’t Look Twice, and Reckless. He is also the coauthor of five number one bestsellers with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury and Lifeguard. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, Lynn.
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ALSO BY ANDREW GROSS
15 Seconds
Eyes Wide Open
Reckless
Don’t Look Twice
The Dark Tide
The Blue Zone
Novels by Andrew Gross and James Patterson
Judge & Jury
Lifeguard
3rd Degree
The Jester
2nd Chance
CREDITS
Cover design by Mary Schuck
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NO WAY BACK. Copyright © 2013 by Andrew Gross. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-165598-2
EPub Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780062196361
13 14 15 16 17 DIX/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Epigraph
Prologue
Wendy
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Lauritzia
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Wendy
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Roxanne
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Cano
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Gillian
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Andrew Gross
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher