"I want Jose cleared, too," she said.

Macken's eyes flickered to the phone. He licked his lips, nodded, and said, "Yes. Of course."

He held out one hand for the phone, extending the other to shake and close the deal.

Casey looked at him, not wanting to touch his hand. But she shook it, then surreptitiously wiped the cold sweat she'd picked up from his palm on her pants leg.

She dropped the phone into his other hand.

He smiled.

CHAPTER 73

SIX DAYS LATER, STACY WALKED INTO CASEY'S OFFICE, SHAKING her head in frustration. "There are two women outside, and I'm the one who has to tell them to go away?''

Casey looked up from her computer. Sharon slid another law book into place and turned away from the shelf to see Casey's reaction.

"Tell them tomorrow," Casey said. "We've still got to get this place back together."

Casey looked down at the budget spreadsheet in front of her and sighed. From the corner of her eye, she saw Stacy hadn't left, so she wasn't surprised to hear her speak.

"Well, they both have court appearances tomorrow, so I guess they're out of luck," Stacy said, sighing dramatically and turning from the doorway.

Casey kept her eyes on the numbers, mouthing them silently with her lips, but unable to really focus.

"All right," she said, looking up and directing her voice after Stacy. "Tell them to come around the back, though. I don't want to start an avalanche."

To Sharon she said, "Can you and Donna take these in the conference room? I can't do anything without Tina. Just do your best. Jose is on his way, and I'll get him to finish the books."

Sharon smiled, opened the back door, and showed the women through to the conference room. Casey tried to concentrate.

"Muchas gracias," one of the women said to her.

"Si, muchas gracias," the other said.

Casey looked up and nodded at their grateful eyes.

"De nada," she said.

"Speaking Spanish, now?" Jose said, striding through the door and closing it behind him.

"We're not supposed to be open until tomorrow, but they have court dates," she explained, sitting back in her chair.

"I knew you were a softie," Jose said, setting a folded newspaper down in front of her along with a tray of coffees from Starbucks. "We'll have to see about getting that fixed. You fixed everything else."

He pointed to a small article in the paper headlined FORMER COP CLEARED. Casey read the quotes from Ken Trent apologizing publicly for the department's sloppy murder investigation of Jose's aunt. Casey looked up, matching Jose's grin.

"Step one, anyway," she said.

"You weren't nervous, were you?" he asked.

"It's been almost a week," she said, knitting her brows.

"This stuff takes time," he said. "Big things you're putting into motion."

Stacy reappeared in the doorway.

"I know, the conference room," Casey said.

"Chase is on," Stacy said, breathless. "They're cutting in on GMA, live from Washington."

Stacy's eyes went to the TV on Casey's shelf.

"They didn't get mine hooked up yet," Casey said, scrambling around her desk and following Stacy into the old filling station front room.

Stacy raised a small TV from behind the counter and set it out for them to see. Sharon and Donna came in, crowding around Casey.

"Turn it up," Jose said.

Stacy reached for the button and shot him a look that said she knew to do that already. Chase sat between two other senators on the raised panel, with prodigious notes in front of him, and spoke into his microphone.

His hair was perfectly combed and his reading glasses were low on his nose. He had already begun when the audio switched on.

"-Have launched a full investigation, with the full cooperation of the Mexican government, into human rights abuses at the Kroft Labs facility in Nuevo Leon. This committee does not mean to suggest that the officers or board members of Royal Kroft Incorporated are in any way culpable for these horrible acts. Instead, we fully believe that these abuses were generated on a limited and local level. That said, Mexican federal authorities early this morning have raided the Kroft facility in Nuevo Leon and closed down the entire operation until it can be determined exactly who is responsible and they can be brought to justice.

"It is also the intention of this committee to diligently monitor the activity of pharmaceutical operations across the globe that wish to do business in the United States, to ensure that such abuses, wherever they exist, are brought to an immediate halt."

Chase looked up with a serious expression amid a flurry of camera flashes and an eruption of questions from the press. But before he answered, he led the men on the podium in a silent prayer.

The TV picture cut to Diane Sawyer, looking equally serious.

In her low, rich tone, the TV host said, "An American senator, leading the charge for human rights everywhere. That man has guts."

Casey puckered her lips and shook her head, turning away from the TV just as Jose's cell phone rang. He gave her a look and ducked back into her office.

"What's up?" Stacy asked.

Without replying, Casey followed Jose into her office, gently closing the door. Jose had one hand on the corner of her desk, as if to balance himself. He snapped his phone shut and looked up with a grim face.

"This is it," he said. "We're on."

CHAPTER 74

WHEN THEY PASSED THROUGH THE BORDER, CASEY PULLED over and they got out to make their call. The man put Isodora on the phone. Casey asked her what she had for breakfast, a random question the men couldn't have prerecorded. Then they waited for the text message with the video attached, showing Isodora outside their meeting place, answering the question. They had fed her cornflakes.

As they drove, Casey checked her rearview mirror, nodding at it after a while. "Company."

Jose glanced over his shoulder and said, "The black Suburban, I know. Also, up there."

He twisted his head and pointed up through the windshield. Casey leaned forward and bent her head back, just catching a glimpse of the small black helicopter.

"Can't blame them for making sure," Casey said.

Jose studied the side mirror outside his window and nodded his head. It took only twenty minutes to reach the hill overlooking the motel. They stopped the car and the Suburban shot on past, continuing without them. Jose rested his elbows on the roof of the Mercedes, dialing in his binoculars, scanning the motel and the surrounding area, taking long slow breaths. Behind the motel the sun had begun to sink toward a low line of dung-colored mountains wreathed in smog.

"Look good?" Casey asked, shading her eyes but not seeing anything.

"Perfect," he said with a nod, handing the binoculars over to Casey and studying the empty sky. "Helicopter's gone, too."

Casey looked through the binoculars. The star-shaped red neon sign for the Motel de Libertad blinked on and off along with the word VACANCY, letting people know that it was open for business despite its condition. In front of the long, low concrete building sat an old filling station with a grocery store add-on. In the adjacent lot, five sagging cows stood, flicking their ears at the clouds of bluebottle flies, in a wired-off mud lot riddled with hoofprints. Beside the pen stood a shack where chickens ran beneath a line of hanging laundry.

The unfinished motel building itself looked to have run out of money three-quarters of the way through. Concrete pilings in the ground projected clusters of rusty rebar. Beyond the foundation, the giant hole of an unfinished swimming pool gaped open with mud the color of coffee. Candy wrappers, plastic soda bottles, and broken concrete blocks littered the barren and rocky landscape. Out back, on the high ground, a rickety water tower stood with its back to the setting sun.