She was waiting for the school bus to take her to La Casa one day when she caught a glimpse of those trees across the soccer field. It was late fall now. The trees were bare. Luna could see their trunks easily from the school parking lot, the way the fence sliced right through them, the way they’d grown around it. In the spring, she and her friends gossiped in their cool, deep shade. In the fall, they had leaf fights beneath their graceful branches. Looking up at those trees, no one would ever guess there was sharp metal buried inside.
Luna wondered if life wasn’t like that—if people didn’t all have, deep within them, some wound they could not heal, one they could only accept and grow beyond. For all their trauma, those trees had flourished.
If they could do it, then maybe so could her family. Maybe so could she.
Acknowledgments
A book is a team effort, and I consider myself the luckiest of writers to have such a wonderful and supportive team behind me. On the research end, I’d like to thank Westchester County Police Captain Christopher Calabrese and Lieutenant James Palanzo for walking me through the finer points of police investigations. (And yes, as promised, I’ve named the police dog in the book after the Westchester County Police dog, Daisy.)
Thanks, as always, to Gene West, fire investigator, FBI consultant, and storyteller extraordinaire, for his endlessly inventive sense of plot and character. And also to thriller author J. H. Bográn for his eleventh-hour help on some finer points with the Spanish language and culture of Latin America.
My deepest gratitude to my agent, Stephany Evans, for being both a cheerleader and a voice of reason in everything I do. Also thanks to my early reader, Rosemary Ahern, for her many insightful suggestions.
A shout out to Steven Zacharias and the folks at Kensington Books who have put their hearts into this series, from great covers and design work to wonderful marketing. In particular I’d like to thank my editor, Michaela Hamilton, for her editing savvy and attention to detail. My special thanks to her assistant, Norma Perez-Hernandez, for her early enthusiasm for the series and for her tireless work translating all those permission requests! I’m forever grateful.
Thank you always to my husband, Thomas Dunne, my children, Kevin and Erica, and my stepfather, Bill Hayes, for living through all the ups and downs of this crazy writing life. You make it all worthwhile.
Most of all, my gratitude to the men and women whose real-life experiences inspire and inform these stories. I hope to offer a window, however small, into the courage and determination they show every day.
About the Author
Photo by Thomas Dunne
Suzanne Chazin is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Land of Careful Shadows and three other mystery novels: The Fourth Angel, Flashover, and Fireplay. Her essays and articles have appeared in American Health, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, Money, the New York Times, People, and Reader’s Digest. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthology Bronx Noir.
Suzanne was drawn to writing her Jimmy Vega novels after working on an outreach project with immigrants near her home in suburban New York. The more she learned about the lives of the undocumented, the more touched she became by their courage and quiet determination. Because the people Suzanne interviewed couldn’t share their stories publicly, she decided to tell them in novel form. Thanks to a grant from the Purchase College Writers Center, she was able to launch the series. Suzanne is currently working on a third book in the series and hopes her novels will raise greater awareness about the issues the undocumented face in the United States.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Suzanne Chazin
The poem “Tiny Feet,” by Gabriela Mistral, is reproduced courtesy of the Franciscan Fund of Sister Gabriela Mistral of the Franciscan Order of Chile. The English translation of the poem is reprinted courtesy of Mary Gallwey.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2015944278
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3635-3
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: November 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-636-0
eISBN-10: 1-61773-636-8
Kensington Electronic Edition: November 2015
A Blossom of Bright Light Page 32