The photos surrounded the custom-made Dawson family coat of arms that his father had commissioned, a blue shield with vines, a knight’s helmet, and three birds. Sam had said that he, and consequently Dawson, descended from royalty in northern England. He chuckled to himself. Royalty? Are you kidding? Like much of what his father had said, Dawson believed there was little substance to it.
The photo that his father treasured most was of himself with the pro golfer Castellano. There were many others: his father shaking hands with Madsen when he’d first been elected to the Senate; a framed cover of Forbes magazine, which had called the Rancho la Peña project one of the best real estate development deals in the West; and a multitude of framed newspaper articles, the paper now browned.
Only now, Dawson admitted to himself, did he feel the pride for what his father had accomplished—if nothing else by the sheer force of will. His father had lived by the belief that if you said something often enough, it eventually became true. It was a practice that Dawson detested and long ago rejected. To his father, reality was something that had to catch up to him, not the other way around. Dawson looked at the photos and shook his head in wonder.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Dawson was startled, but the intruding voice was familiar. Anita Alvarez stood with her arms reaching out, inviting a hug.
His heart pounded as his eyes met hers. She was as beautiful as ever, and those eyes—those large dark eyes. Once again he felt like he was drifting into their mysterious depths. Long-buried emotions arose now like a wave.
He stepped into her open arms. She held him tightly, leaving him to inhale the scent of her hair and feel the rush of sensations coursing through his body, his skin tingling at her touch. He caught himself, drew a breath, and stepped back, holding her hand in his, not wanting the energy to stop. “I was just looking at the photos.” He forced himself to look again at the wall. “My father never shied away from publicity.”
“People loved him for that,” Anita said, turning to the photos. “He was always good for a story on a slow news day.”
Dawson motioned for her to sit and settled into the padded chair beside hers. “I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. I could have at least talked to him more often.”
“Don’t punish yourself. You were away. You were busy.”
Dawson looked at her. She knew him as well as anybody, including his mother.
“Sam was always so full of himself that it was hard to know what he really thought or felt.” He paused, lost in thought. “So much of what he said was bull. I guess I just got tired of it.”
“Sam was Sam,” she said. “He had a lot of friends.”
“He also made some enemies, obviously.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m fine, Anita. Thanks for asking.”
“Aren’t you going to offer a girl a drink?”
He jumped up. “Water? Or something stronger?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she said, pointing to the glass on the desk.
He went to the bar, poured a glass of tequila straight, and noticed his hands shaking slightly from his excitement. She’s here. Finally. He handed it to her, then circled the desk and settled back into the big chair, not wanting to be too obvious about his desire to be with her. Anita looked at her drink, and then at Dawson, their gaze holding for a long moment.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Too long.” He lifted his glass slightly.
Anita nodded, lifting her glass, and sipped. The momentary sparkle in her eyes slowly faded to an unfocused and distant sadness. “I was just thinking of the past and how we all went our separate ways. You went to Santa Fe. I went to Austin. Raoul went to war.”
“The Persian Gulf War,” Dawson said. “Raoul was just a kid.”
“I came back, but you kept going. L.A. Seattle. Then Iraq. And on to Afghanistan.”
“It seems so long ago.”
“You won the Pulitzer for an investigation into wartime corruption.”
Dawson felt embarrassed at the recognition that came with such an award. He considered himself just another journalist doing his job. He sensed that was hard for Anita to understand, doubly hard, since she had stayed in El Paso. “It’s not a big deal, really.”
“It’s the biggest prize in journalism, Kyle.”
“It guarantees nothing, Anita. Not today. Newspapers are dying. Now everybody thinks they’re an online journalist.”
She let the comment pass, looking at him intently.
He exhaled slowly. He didn’t want to talk about the news business, but journalism was what they now had in common, something they could talk about that didn’t involve dredging up the past. “The Herald is struggling, Anita. I’ve been lucky to survive the last couple rounds of staff cuts and buyouts. I don’t think I’ll make it through the next one.” He paused to look at her. “Television news is doing fine. Be happy for what you have.”
“That’s what everyone tells me.”
He stared at her. “They’re right.”
Anita’s eyes fell on his laptop, then narrowed. “Are you working on a story?”
“Ah, not really. Just trying to settle in a little.” He looked out to the putting green then back at her. “I plan to look into my father’s murder.”
“You may not like what you find.”
“Really? What do you know that I don’t?”
“I’ve been covering the drug wars for ten years. Nothing is what it seems. And none of it is good.”
“It can’t be worse than Iraq or Afghanistan.”
“It can’t? We’re on the U.S. border, and there’s been more killing here than there was in Iraq. But it isn’t news anymore unless someone like your father dies.”
Dawson scowled.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
He picked up the old baseball and tossed it distractedly.
“What’s with the baseball?”
He looked at the ball as if he’d just seen it for the first time. “Oh, uh, Florida. It was Florida. When we lived near Fort Myers, Sam took me to a spring training game. The Grapefruit League.” He smiled at the thought.
“That must have been fun.”
“Yeah. Sam caught a foul ball with his hat one day.” He stared at the ball, then at Anita. “I’ve carried it around ever since. Through Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“A good-luck charm. God knows, we all need that now and then.”
He shrugged. “It kept me connected to home, I guess.” He tossed it lightly again. “One of the few things we did together.” He paused for a moment. “Now this. Just when Sam finally found the success he always wanted.”
Anita looked at her watch. “Oh my God. I have to go.”
“You’re welcome to stay.”
“Madsen’s eulogy leads the news tonight.” She swallowed the rest of her drink and put the glass on the desk and stood.
“Wait,” he said, his heart pounding. “How about dinner? Saturday.”
Anita thought for a moment. “I’ll be at my mother’s house in Juárez.”
“Juárez has restaurants.”
“I know that.” She scribbled on the back of her business card and handed it to him. “This is my cell number and her home number. Call me. I’ll give you directions.”
“If it’s the same place, I remember where it is.”
“It is.” She stood and walked to the door. “Saturday, then.”
He nodded, then watched the door close. Finally. After all this time. It had been years since he’d seen her, let alone talked with her. He missed her. And yes, he had treated her badly, abandoning her when he went away to college. He was good at going away. Anita hadn’t deserved that. He had convinced himself that it was for the best. Better to cut it off fast than drag out the hurt. What had happened between them was still there, buried under layers of time and distance, chewing away at his conscience. Maybe now I can put the beast to rest.
Chapter 1
2
Juárez, Mexico
An orange sun hovered over the city, blinding Dawson for a moment as he drove on the International Bridge. The muddy Rio Grande flowed quietly below, oblivious to the mayhem on its banks. He glanced to meet the wary eye and lethargic wave of a Mexican border guard whose leathery face was poised above an open-collared white shirt.
Dawson angled across Juárez, slowing when he came to a neighborhood with streets lined with high, white stucco walls and black wrought-iron fences. Behind them rose two- and three-story homes decorated with bas-relief facades and fronted with manicured gardens. He followed the house numbers, feeling like a nervous kid on his first date.
The last time he had driven down this street was a lifetime ago. He took a deep breath. Too late now to turn back. He didn’t want to. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he examined his gray-flecked hair, telling himself it was barely noticeable. Some women even found it attractive, giving a man some sort of dignity. Whatever.
Dawson gazed at the colonial-style house, formidable and solid, in stark contrast to the harsh reality of the rest of the city. He pushed the button in the stone pillar beside the gate. A buzzer sounded, disrupting the quiet of the evening. He glanced up to the small camera aimed at him. The gate clicked. He pushed it open, entering the sidewalk that circled a gurgling fountain of dark blue tiles. He caught a whiff of cool, moist air as he scaled the curving concrete steps to the door.
It opened as he approached, a maid beckoning him inside. “Buenos noches,” she said, and closed the door behind him. He followed her through a stone tile foyer and took a seat on a silken sofa in a living room with a sprawling Persian carpet.
Anita’s mother, Margarita Alvarez, entered. In her late fifties, she had aged since they last met, but her dark eyes were as intense as ever. She wore a crisp white blouse, with cuffs folded back on her forearms and tails falling over gray designer slacks. “Kyle. It’s so good to see you. It’s been such a long time. Anita will be down shortly.”
Dawson took her hand, but she withdrew it quickly.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” she said.
“A tragedy and a mystery.”
“Please sit,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”
“Why not?”
Margarita motioned to the maid, who stood beside a tall, built-in liquor cabinet. The maid opened the frosted glass and wooden doors and slid them to the side, revealing a well-stocked bar. He scanned the selection with envy. “What are you drinking these days?”
“Don Julio looks good to me at the moment. Neat.”
Margarita nodded to the maid. “I’ll have the same on ice.” She took a seat across from him on an ornate loveseat, slowly crossing her legs and smoothing her slacks. She seemed anxious, her eyes darting from him, to the maid, and back.
The maid dropped a couple of ice cubes in a glass for Margarita and poured two tumblers full. The glasses clinked on a polished, silver tray as the maid bent slightly, extending the tray to Dawson and then to Margarita, who lifted her glass into the air. “I suppose we should drink to your father’s memory.”
“Of course,” Dawson said with a nod, then took a swallow.
Margarita drank deeply and placed her nearly empty glass on the coffee table between them. “Anita tells me you’re now an investigative reporter in Washington.”
“Ever since I returned from Afghanistan.”
“How interesting.” She motioned to the maid for a refill.
“For the past six months, I’ve been covering the Madsen campaign.”
“And how do you like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s tedious and predictable.”
“I don’t doubt that, considering that you’ve been in war zones.” She shifted in her seat, recrossing her legs. “I’m quite supportive of Madsen. He has Mexican ties, you know. It is nice to finally have a man with strong Latino connections who has a chance to become the U.S. president.”
“His wife is Mexican.”
“A distant cousin of mine.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Margarita smiled.
“Madsen’s the new darling of the conservative right. Ironic, isn’t it? A conservative with Latino influences.”
“Not if you know Latinos. But let’s not talk politics. You’re divorced, Anita says, with two children.”
This was more than polite queries. Dawson worried about where she was heading with this. “They live in Santa Fe with their mother.”
“I suffer, you know, because Anita has never married. It is unbearably quiet here. She has no children, and I have no grandchildren. Her career is, well, everything to her. And she is all I have now.”
Christ. Here we go again. “Journalism can consume your life,” he said, now fully aware of where the conversation was going.
“Have you forgotten why I have no grandchildren to bring me pleasure in my later years?”
“I have not forgotten.” His pulse quickened and his face warmed. Stay calm. “I hoped that we had moved beyond that.”
“Because of you, because of that stupid doctor, that—how do you say?—quack, Anita can never have children.”
“It was a mistake. I’ve admitted that. We can’t undo the past.”
“Why in the name of Jesus did you have to do that? Why did you sneak around behind our backs?” Margarita lifted her glass and drank deeply.
He exhaled slowly as his stomach knotted. She was worse than he had expected. After twenty-five years, she was as bitter as ever. And it didn’t help that she was drinking heavily. Anita hadn’t warned him. She hadn’t had the opportunity.
Margarita was right. He’d found an abortion clinic without their knowledge or permission. Things were different then. Abortions in Juárez were fast and cheap, and the bloody procedure put her in the hospital, where she underwent an hysterectomy. He had plans back then, vague at best, but none included having a child at the age of eighteen. And Anita had paid dearly for his fear of fatherhood. “I’m sorry, Margarita. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Once upon a time, there was such a thing as honor. The least you could have done is marry her. Instead, you—”
“Mama! That’s over!” Anita barked as she entered the room, her arms crossed. “We promised not to talk about it!” She strode to the bar, picked up the bottle of tequila, which was nearly empty, and scowled at her mother. She turned to Dawson. “We really should be going.”
He stood and nodded. “Good night, Margarita.”
* * *
Anita shifted in her seat in the car, furious at her mother. She had hesitated to accept Kyle’s dinner date, but had agreed thinking that an evening out between old friends was harmless. They had few secrets to hide from one another, so why not? Yet, what had happened so many years ago still loomed between them. She wanted to put the memory of that time to rest. But could she? She still had feelings for Kyle, feelings that she had tried to push aside, but they came back, again and again.
It was her mother who insisted on dredging up the past, not her. Anita stared at the road ahead. Margarita’s drinking was a large part of the problem. It had become increasingly worse in the past year, so much so that Anita could count on her being drunk almost every day. And, Margarita refused to talk about it or stop. Anita had simply resigned herself to it, preferring to have a rocky relationship with her mother to none at all.
“I’m sorry about my mother. She just can’t get over the abortion.”
Dawson sat stoically behind the wheel. “What about you?”
Anita looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “What choice did I have?” she snapped. The words did not come out the way she wanted.
Dawson glanced at her with alarm.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Maybe this dinner was a bad idea, she told herself. Even after all this time, it was impossible to forget. The resentment and the hurt she had felt had hardened. “I mean, I prefer to focus on my work. That’s my life now.”
“Okay,” Dawson said.
Anita knew that what happened to her had been personal for Margarita as well. I’m her only child. Margarita had the righteous indignation of a woman mourning for her daughter. It was only natural for her mother to want grandchildren to dote on, spoil, and fuss over. Now she had nothing except a large stone and tile house, silent as a tomb. Margarita grew more lost with each passing day, the loneliness and resentment magnified by the alcohol. Am I over it? Anita wondered. Just needing to ask the question was her answer. No, she was not.
Their lives had more parallels than she cared to admit. Like Kyle, she had buried herself in her work. For him, it had led to the loss of his marriage and the distancing of his children. He should have stayed and married me. We’d both be better off.
Now she was driving across Juárez with her former lover, who, like her, was adrift, wondering if the broken pieces of their past could be put back together.
Chapter 13
Juárez, Mexico
Dawson wheeled into the graveled parking lot of the 150-year-old converted adobe hacienda that was the Tia Flora restaurant, one of Juárez’s best, and parked between a Lexus and a Porsche SUV.
The evening was warm and still, a fine dust from the nearby dirt road hanging in the air. The sky was light, the sun having dropped below the horizon a half hour earlier. As the gravel crunched underfoot, he paused. Washington, D.C., felt far away, a place where he was living a life he could not have imagined when he was a young sports reporter in El Paso.
“You okay?” Anita asked.
He nodded and took a breath. “Yeah.” He’d been at this business for more than twenty years now, and at only forty-one, it was too soon for him to feel old. But he did.
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