Author Note

Like many of my novels, the idea for this story was sparked by a legal matter. In the midnineties, I was assigned to a case where a teenage girl left her high school during the lunch break and went to a nearby Jack in the Box restaurant. Like others in the car, she ordered a hamburger. After taking only a couple of bites, she opened the bun to discover the middle of the burger bloody rare and elected to toss the remaining sandwich aside, eating her fries instead.

A short time later, she fell violently ill—a victim of E. coli O157:H7.

Over the course of the deadly outbreak linked to Jack in the Box restaurants (and their parent corporation, Foodmaker, Inc.), many others became dangerously ill, and several young children died. During the time I was immersed in reviewing and cataloguing the massive amounts of evidence in this litigation, I developed a new appreciation for those charged with maintaining food safety.

One of those is my own husband, who has been in senior management in meat companies over the past two decades.

I knew I wanted to highlight this issue in a novel, and Where Rivers Part was born, so to speak. I will never forget sitting across a deposition table in San Diego and watching Foodmaker, Inc.’s quality control director tear up as he was questioned about his role. I saw the agony on his face as attorneys more than hinted he was a guilty party in the horrific event.

That prompted the question many novelists ask when starting a new story: What if?

While this story features what I learned while working on the Jack in the Box litigation, much of it is purely my imagination at work.

For instance, it is extremely rare for bottled water to contain deadly pathogens. Bottled water is highly regulated. The quality control processes include ultraviolet light disinfection as well as microfiltration and ozone disinfection. I chose to use a water company simply because it fit with the water theme I wanted to create in the book.

What I found particularly intriguing was how San Antonio fit surprisingly into the water theme. While this beautiful city is located in an arid environment, underneath is the Edwards Aquifer, a unique groundwater system and one of the most prolific artesian aquifers in the world, serving the diverse needs of almost two million users in south central Texas—and such an amazing picture of Jesus, who is often referred to in the Bible as our Living Water.

I’ve certainly found Jesus to be what satisfies the arid places in my life.