Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Those phones were his only way to reach back into Ojinaga to find out who still lived, who did not. Who he could trust, and who would still call him padrino . . . El Patrón. They were his lifeline to Gualterio, even Martino, if he thought he could risk that. His sobrina would soon decide to take them from him, as the one named Danny would have already done, had she not stopped him.
Por el momento, she still believed Juan Abrego. It was easy not to lie when one didn’t know the truth.
His money and valuables and the fake documents still in his Gucci bag had been enough to get him this far, but like the phones, they would not serve him much longer. He would never leave here with them, and worse, he was enfermo, dying. What was the point of running if there was nowhere go?
How long did he truly have to decide who he could trust?
Or who had betrayed him?
Gualterio? His own son, Martino?
Fox Uno had not been ready to die outside Santa Elena, and Juan Abrego was not ready to die here, either, in this place.
Juan Abrego reached into his boot and pulled out one of the small plastic-wrapped slips of black plastic he had hidden there. It was no bigger than his thumbnail.
He popped open the back of one of the phones and slipped it in, like Martino had once shown him. He wondered if his son remembered that now.
In another week, if he could survive that long, he needed to be someone and somewhere else.
It reminded him how he had not been able to hold back a laugh when he and Zita finally waded through the sluggish current of the river, moments after throwing the Ruger into it: stinking water no deeper than his ankles. Warm on his bare skin, like a woman’s touch. But there had been no one there to question their false papers . . . su nombre . . . anyway.
Just la luna above, shining like plata, like the gun he had tossed away.
Zita had asked: Why are you laughing, Papa? And he had hugged her and whispered: Because the world is such a funny place, little one.
And that is why he had laughed: at the foolishness of it all.
All these men, all these years, hunting for Fox Uno . . . para él . . . across México, but there had been no one at all to watch when the most wanted and feared cartel leader in history crossed the border for the first time into Los Estados Unidos.
No one to watch, or remember, what appeared to be a young nieta holding her viejo abuelo’s weakened hand against the slight current of the mighty Río Bravo.
EIGHTEEN
My uncle is at my apartment now, along with a girl he claims is his daughter. They crossed over the border earlier. How long ago, I don’t know,” Amé said.