"I'll prosecute him myself," Casey said, breathing short, shallow breaths of excitement.

"You're a defense lawyer."

"I used to be a prosecutor," she snapped.

"Now all you have to do is get elected."

"No, listen. I'm talking about a civil court," she said. "Remember that accident back there? Did you see the lawyer giving that lady his card?"

"I saw the body and the blood," he said.

"The woman they loaded into the ambulance had a lawyer working her before she even knew her husband was dead," she said. "I saw him get out of his car and swoop down on her like a vulture. He'll be looking to file a wrongful death suit."

"I thought 'ambulance chaser' was a joke," Jose said.

"It's big money," she said, ticking off the reasons. "Loss of a lifetime of earnings for the family, pain and suffering for the survivor. That's where you get your multimillion-dollar damages."

"What's that got to do with this?"

"We sue Chase for wrongful death," she said.

"With no proof at all?"

"That's the beauty. All you need is a reasonable belief," Casey said. "Civil court is a whole different ball game."

"You can subpoena people?" Jose asked.

"Same as a criminal case. I can get even a halfway-decent judge to order the cooperation of anyone we say we need to prove our case."

"And if they just won't talk?" Jose asked.

"They can go to jail for contempt," Casey said.

"Didn't OJ get sued by the family?" Jose asked, pulling into the parking lot of the coffee shop. "But wasn't it after he got off?"

Casey's stomach went tight.

"Can you do it before?" Jose asked, shutting off the engine.

Casey sat silent for a moment, tugging on her lip, nodding.

"Why not?" she said.

"So this isn't exactly textbook," Jose said slowly, a touch of irony creeping into his voice.

Casey sat, thinking. She'd been here before, out on a limb, doing things others hadn't and making waves. Her stomach soured. It hadn't always turned out well.

Still, she said, "But there's no reason we couldn't do it."

"If you're going to invent some new legal strategy," Jose said, "maybe you should save it for some Latin King drug dealer. We're talking about a US senator. This isn't going to be done quietly. They'll bring everything at you."

"But if I do it," Casey said, tightening her face and turning to him, "if I try Chase for Elijandro's death in civil court and I can get all the evidence out, then Cruz will be wishing he took the case."

Jose nodded. He reached out and covered her clenched hand. Softly, he said, "I don't want them making a fool out of you."

"So I let him go?" Casey said, raising her voice, stiffening her back with indignation. "Is that it? He's a US senator, so he's above the law? Bullshit. Not if I can help it. It's unconventional, but there isn't a goddamn reason why I can't do it. Trust me. This I know."

Jose patted her hand, studying her, then gripped it tight and offered a small smile of collaboration.

"Okay, I'd ask you to dinner tonight," he said, "but I think I'm going to head out to Chase's ranch to speak some Spanish, talk to the help."

"And I've got to get Isodora," Casey said, grinning at him, relieved and bubbling again, ready to act. "Jessica said if we get DNA from her and the baby, your lab guy can use it to show that the blood on the bullet is Elijandro's. And she'll need to sign an application to the surrogate court so we can get this suit started."

"What does she need to apply for?"

"When you have a wrongful death," Casey said, talking fast, slipping comfortably into the familiar territory of the law, "the court has to assign an administrator to sue on behalf of whoever died. It's a formality, but it's got to be done so I can get things going. Besides, I've got an idea on how I can use this to get her back into the country."

"But she's where? Sharon said Higueras? Higueras, where?"

"Outside Monterrey. A ways outside in the middle of nowhere."

"With no phone number," Jose said.

"At a church," Casey said. "In a town where the only information Sharon came up with on the Internet was a blurb on the name of the newest mayor, Ignacio de Jesus Gonzalez Gonzalez. That's it."

"Can't be too many churches in a town where the mayor has the same last name twice."

"I'm going to check the flights into Monterrey."

"Whoa. You're not going down there?" Jose said. "It's not like just dropping into the barrio, five blocks over and you're sitting at a Starbucks. You're talking rural Mexico. Federales, road bandits, gangs, maybe even soldiers out there with all those rebel problems. You don't just tour the countryside."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she said.

"You know the only thing they found from the last woman I knew who drove around the countryside in Mexico?" Jose asked. "Her shoe."

"Maybe she liked it so much she decided to stay," Casey said.

"With her blood in it."

"Is this your way of offering to go?" she asked.

"I'm telling you not to."

"Well, I am," Casey said, swinging open the door and climbing out of his truck, breathless with excitement. "That's the next step. I've got the right lawsuit, now I need the client."

"Send someone," Jose said. "I don't want to, but I'll do it."

"I'm going," she said. "I sent her there, and now I'm going to find her and bring her back. You're welcome to join me."

She shut the door and started for her car.

Jose rolled his window down and said, "Okay, book me a ticket, will you?"

Casey tossed her briefcase into the front seat, smiled, and said, "Yes. I'll see you tomorrow. Good luck at the ranch. And Jose?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

CHAPTER 35

JOSe NESTLED THE BIG WHITE TRUCK INTO THE SAME SPOT HE'D used before, in the trees under the shadow of the bridge embankment. This time he walked out onto the bridge to study his spot, assuring himself that no passerby could detect the truck coming from the other direction. Below, the water slipped silently past, a river of murk unwilling to give back a reflection of the brilliant night sky above. Trees rose up from the river's edge, casting a black pall about them thicker than tar. Satisfied, Jose started off, scuffing his boots along on the gravel shoulder until he saw the glow of oncoming headlights and dropped down into the ditch and beyond that into the dusty scrub.

The car sped past, washing away the sound of the night things all around him, then ebbing away until the chorus of bugs and rodents and frogs rang clearly again, like the piercing sound of an alarm. He took to the roadside and made it to the service entrance of the ranch without pause. To avoid the cameras he ducked back into the brush, glad for his GPS in the confusing tangle of twigs and vines, and coming out well down the drive, where he crunched away at the gravel until ominous shapes of the barns washed by a single halogen light on a pole in the yard sent his blood pumping a bit faster. Between the buildings and beyond, small lights winked at him through the trees. He stood for a time in the shadow of the biggest barn, out of the white light, his nose overwhelmed with the smell of manure and rotted and fermenting feed grain. Inside, animals of some kind shifted in their stalls, issuing an occasional grunt. On a grassy knoll above the barns rested an old farmhouse with light shining from a single downstairs window.

Jose moved cautiously away from the barns and through the gap in the trees, following a dirt path that opened into the clearing where row upon row of sagging shacks rested like corn stubble, truncated, broken, and listing. From the chinks between the wallboards and the occasional open door or window, a gauzy yellow light permeated the migrant camp.