SHE TOWELED OFF AND DRESSED IN THE FRESH CLOTHES. A brand-new pair of running shoes had been set outside her door. She laced them up, light and comfortable. When she straightened, a quick spasm lanced from hip to hip. She steadied herself and stowed a few of the maxi pads in the sweatshirt pocket. She clutched the length of her wet hair and flipped it over her shoulder.
The buzzing of the fluorescents in the hallway made her uneasy. As she neared the lobby she heard the hushed tones of a television, melodramatic voices and affected music. She found Marta watching a telenovela on the small set on her desk. Her mother used to watch telenovelas, when there was time, with Luz curled up against her. Mamá would explain the plot as it unfolded, predicting what came next with a chuckle. What does it say about me that I enjoy this garbage? Laughing to herself, not caring that she did enjoy watching. Luz’s grandmother would pass through the room and say something. After she’d left, her mother would screw her face into a grotesque imitation and mimic Abuela’s tone, and little Luz would giggle.
Marta noticed Luz and punched the power button on the television. She jumped to her feet and took Luz in, saying, “You look beautiful.”
The old woman in the taxi had said that to Luz, as well. Luz saw the woman’s head snap back, and she put the vision away like replacing some kind of file, and the ease of this shocked her more than the vision itself.
Luz thanked Marta for her help, then followed her into a dim, square room full of cubicles. Garza was in an office partitioned from the room by a glass wall. He waved them in. Steam tendriled from a coffee mug atop the heap of papers on his desk. There was a large map of northeastern Mexico bolted to the wall. Luz sat across from the desk and Marta took the other chair, producing a small notepad and pen. Garza poured a glass of water from a pitcher atop the cabinet and handed it to Luz. She drank it all in one go.
“You are very tired,” Garza said, “very distressed, so I am sorry. I will not keep you long, Luz. But you need to help me understand why we found you where we did.”
Luz merely looked at him.
“To begin,” Garza said, bumping his shoulders, “tell me what you know about the destroyed barn.”
Luz clutched the drinking glass in her lap. “Cicatriz,” she said. “He was there.”
Garza folded his hands on his desk. “And how do you know this?”
“The cuts,” she said, and pointed to her lips.
Marta’s pen scratched. Garza drummed his fingers on the desk. “What did you see?”
“They took my friend,” Luz said. Any calm she had felt a moment before now fractured. She was here, and where was Felipo? The ache in her abdomen pulsed. “You have to do something.”
Garza’s mouth opened and closed. He sipped his coffee. “I am truly sorry for whatever you have endured. Tell me what happened, and we will do what we can for your friend.”
Luz wiped her eyes. “It was bad luck,” she said, “running into the fire. I was trying to get home. Felipo was helping me.”
She started with the car ride, the cross fire, and her abduction.
“Cicatriz and his men ripped off what we assume was a cartel supply truck,” Garza offered, “six days ago, south of here, in the manner you have described.”
Luz swallowed and continued. The dark and the heat, fleeing into the desert.
“You,” Garza interjected, “were at his headquarters.” He gestured to the map on the wall. “Can you point it out to me?”
Luz shook her head. “I was blindfolded. Somewhere near San Cristóbal, Felipo’s village.” She told Garza how Felipo and her grandmother cared for her, saved her. “You have to help him. Please.”
Garza’s expression was difficult to read. “You saw them take your friend?”
“They had him when I ran. They were chasing me.”
“You didn’t see them take him, though. Put him in the Jeep and drive away.”
“No.”
“Forgive me, Luz, but my position has made me a harsher man than I once was.” Garza’s jaw muscles flexed. “How do you know that he has been taken?”
She stared back, under the full weight of his meaning: “You found his body?”
“No. Be that as it may, Luz. ‘One who owes nothing fears nothing.’ What would Cicatriz want with your friend if he owed nothing?”
“He owed nothing,” Luz said. “He owed nothing aside from helping me.” She left out Felipo’s familial connection to Cicatriz because it didn’t matter, it shouldn’t. Rage punched like a hatchet through the cramp in her gut. “But it isn’t true,” she said.
Garza cocked his head, and Luz didn’t realize she had spoken in English until Garza replied in English himself: “What isn’t true?”
“‘El que nada debe nada teme.’ It is a lie.” She closed her eyes. The list tabulated. Those others in the taxi. Felipo’s mother and father. Jonah’s brother. Jonah’s parents, señora McBee. Mamá. And the life, the future, lost to Luz forever. What did any of us owe? She opened her eyes and glared at Garza. “Tell me what I owed. I was on my way home. What did I owe?”
Something sparked in the pools of Garza’s eyes, and Luz sensed his need to push back. It only made her angrier. Garza’s eyes flicked to Marta and now back to Luz, and he returned to Spanish: “Apologies, Luz.” He got up and came around the desk. “I have become an insensitive man. Another glass of water?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should rest, then.”
“What are you going to do for Felipo?”
Garza pursed his lips. “It is a terrible thing, Luz, but events like this occur all the time. Every single day. I know that doesn’t help any, but it is true. We will scout San Cristóbal and the surrounding area. We will do what we can in order to find Cicatriz, as well as your friend.” He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “You, however, must return home. You have been through too much.”
Luz stood and turned for the door. Garza said, “Ah, I nearly forgot.”
He opened a drawer, removed a photograph, and handed it to Luz. It was of a man with salt-and-pepper hair, and somewhere in the space between her eyes and the photo Luz watched him fall beyond the rim of the cliff and vanish, silent as the void.
Garza straightened his tie. “Along with Cicatriz, this man is a former CDG member turned renegade. He, however, is also a former federale, and I care to have a few words with him. Do you recognize him, did you see him at the farm?”
Luz looked at the photo. The eyes. She saw him smile and she saw him die. She lifted her face to Garza. “No,” she said.