“You mean a kidnapping?” Kidnappings were serious business in Mexico, a daily occurrence, the reason people like Jesus often had a bodyguard or two with him in public. Even I was a target simply because I was a foreigner, which was the reason I never took gypsy cabs. There were, I’d been told, roughly two thousand kidnappings a year. This was a conservative figure, as many were never reported because the police weren’t trusted not to be involved. “You think someone would follow him all the way here just to kidnap him?”

Nitro shrugged. “A few hours work for a potential big payoff, why not?”

“What about Lucinda then?”

“What about her?”

“If they took Miguel,” I said, pushing a branch out of my way, “what happened to her?”

“Who’s to say she wasn’t the target? She might come from a wealthier family than Miguel. Unfortunately for him, wrong place, wrong time. Or maybe they took her too. Or maybe they offed her. No witnesses—”

Nitro came to an abrupt halt. I looked past him and saw the pond ahead and to the left.

Nitro put his finger to his lips, and we continued forward in silence. Twenty yards on he mumbled something and began moving more quickly. I stuck behind him, searching for what he’d seen.

I saw the body a moment later.

5

We entered the glade where Miguel and Lucinda had made camp. A dozen dolls, maybe two dozen, swayed from branches in the wind and rain, their glass eyes and evocative smiles all too lifelike. Two backpacks, one green and one orange, and two sleeping bags, both rolled up, sat on the grassy ground at the base of a cedar. Next to these items were a scattering of clothing: shorts, a T-shirt, boxers, a dress, a lacy bra, silk panties.

In the middle of the clearing lay Miguel—at least I assumed it was Miguel. He was facedown, naked, his back shredded with what appeared to be stab wounds. Red-brown blood covered his bare skin, from the nape of his neck to his buttocks.

My pulse quickened at the ghastly sight. My legs turned rubbery, as if they no longer wanted to support my weight. I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn’t know what was appropriate.

He was dead, Miguel was dead, nothing now but offal and decay.

Nitro knelt next to the body, which was thick with flies. I hadn’t noticed their maddening buzzing until right then, though now it seemed to fill the air, loud and angry. Same with the smell. I hadn’t detected it before. But it hit me like a truck, a maggoty stench.

“Eleven,” Nitro said, examining the cuts. “Someone stabbed him eleven times. Looks like they used a serrated knife.”

Nitro rolled the body onto its back.

“Fuck me,” I said softly. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The morbidity, the wrongness, transfixed me.