For the longest time, I also thought those years left me beyond shock, beyond outrage.

I was wrong.

On a rainy night in September 2014, buses carrying undergraduate students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, came under automatic-weapons fire from masked gunmen—some alleged to be municipal police officers—at an intersection in the small town of Iguala, 120 miles southwest of Mexico City.

During the ensuing attack, which spanned multiple locations and several hours, three students were killed outright—the youngest, fifteen years old—while forty-three others were marched off their buses and herded into waiting police vehicles and disappeared.

They haven’t been seen alive since.

It was a particularly horrific crime in a conflict where horrors are endless. Despite worldwide condemnation, no one can say with any certainty why those buses were targeted. No one knows who ordered the attack or who, exactly, carried it out. There were investigations. There were clues and theories and even a few arrests, yet maddeningly few answers.

But years later, there remains plenty of outrage . . . as the families left behind continue to protest, continue to seek justice, and continue to question the official reports of what happened that night.

I guess they’ve become cynics, too.

They also continue to grieve. They’ll always grieve.

Eventually, the remains of three of the students were identified from bones allegedly recovered at a mass grave near the San Juan River in Cocula, about twelve miles southwest of Iguala. But even the facts surrounding that are in question, in doubt.

As of 2016, another 130 bodies have been found outside Iguala.

The only truth everyone can agree on is that the discovery of unnamed dead in unmarked graves is far too common.

The fates of the other forty students are still unknown . . .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Third time’s a charm, or so they say.

I want to thank the usual suspects: Sara Minnich and Carlie Webber, editor and agent, respectively. Also, everyone at Putnam who makes all this real, as well as Holly Frederick and her great crew, who have worked tirelessly to bring these Big Bend books to a screen near you.

The family: the Scotts and the Martins.

The friends: you know who you are.

The boss: Douglas W. Coleman, who continues to insist I’m the best part-time ASAC and full-time author he’s worked with.

The fellow authors, agents, and cops: far too many to count.

The accomplices: all of you who enjoy these stories and continue to support them.

Anyone and everyone else I’ve forgotten.

And always and forever: Delcia.

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Two final things: