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worries me.”

    ❖

    Luisa cranked up the air conditioner and stripped down to her tank top after she finished lugging the last of six oversized boxes up the four flights of stairs to her apartment overlooking Republic Square, the home of the Monument to the Revolution. Her heart pounded in her chest and her head swam as she struggled to readjust to the thin air of her nation’s capital.
    “I’ve been out of the country too long.”
    She had been staying with her parents since she got out of the army. Texas was much too flat to compete with Mexico City’s altitude.
    “I should have organized a moving party,” she said breathlessly as she surveyed the hours of work that needed to be done before she could pronounce her new surroundings livable. Except her family lived in Dallas now, and her friends were split between Juárez, where she had grown up, and Guadalajara, where she used to serve. For the first time in her life, she was on her own. “Looks like I have to get used to my own company for a while.”
    The thought of spending the coming days and, possibly, weeks alone made her think of Finn traveling the world by herself and detailing her adventures for readers eager to live vicariously through her.
    Luisa located the Porky Pig figurine Finn had given her in Dallas and set it on the coffee table. Seeing the toy reminded her of Finn and the brief time they had spent together that afternoon. It also made her long for more. Was Finn enjoying her latest outing, she wondered, or was she itching for something more exciting than free drinks and poolside party games?
    Luisa was tempted to call her, but reaching out this soon could be considered a sign of desperation, loneliness, or both. So far, only one of those adjectives applied. She didn’t want to go for two. So she busied herself putting her apartment in order and hoped her life would follow suit.
    She wasn’t used to being without a support system. She always had her parents, extended family, or friends around to talk her through a crisis or to celebrate her latest achievement. But things were different now. Now she had enemies on both sides of the law gunning for her. All because she had dared to try to change the status quo.
    Drug kingpins, commonly referred to as narcos in Mexico, routinely paid off local, state, and federal officials, as well as journalists and ordinary citizens, to curry favor or facilitate their efforts to conduct their illegal trade. Some recipients of the bribes weren’t given a choice as to whether to take the substantial sums they were offered. Their lives, as well as the lives of their friends and family members, were threatened if they tried to hold out.
    Luisa’s commanding officer, however, had been all too willing to receive the weekly payoffs. He had taken the envelopes with a smile on his face and purchased all sorts of expensive toys with his ill-gotten gains. A fancy car, an expensive house, and a luxurious watch, for starters. Three things he wouldn’t have been able to afford if he wasn’t on the take.
    When she had reported what she knew, her CO had painted a much different picture for the investigators following up on her claims. He had admitted receiving the bribes, but he had lowballed the amount and said he had only accepted the money in order to protect his wife and children from harm. He had offered to pay restitution by making a donation to charity for the same amount he had received. The few thousand pesos he had given to a local orphanage probably didn’t amount to one week’s payout, let alone a year’s worth of cash-filled envelopes.
    Somehow, though, he had survived the scandal unscathed and Luisa’s reputation was the one that had wound up tarnished. Some of her colleagues called her a turncoat to her face. Others called her a rat behind her back.
    “You would have done the same thing if the narcos had come to you,” they said. “Maybe you already have and you’re trying to get a bigger piece of the