Taylor was also up all night. She texted me at midnight, at two-thirty, and at four in the morning. I always texted right back, telling her I had no update. It was grueling. I wanted to offer my wife hope. But I was losing hope by the hour. Just as the sun was popping up on a new day, I spotted the familiar police truck from yesterday drive down the isolated dirt road and pull up to the security gate. Raul got out. I had texted him the previous night to let him know I was staying at the orphanage overnight should anything come up on his end. Why was he here now? He had my phone number. If he had news, he could have just called.
I felt a surge of anxiety push through me. I hurried down the gravel drive to meet him outside the gate. The lines in his face told me he was not here to deliver a positive update. We exchanged a very quick greeting.
“I need you to come with me, Alex,” he said.
“Why?”
Raul pressed his lips firmly together. “We got a call about an explosion this morning. When we arrived at the scene a few minutes ago, we discovered a vehicle on fire matching the description you gave me yesterday.”
“A gray minivan?”
“Yes. And there’s a body inside.”
That news hit me like a full punch to the chest. “Is it Joe?”
“We don’t know yet. I need to see if you can make an ID.”
I rode with him in silence, feeling a desperation I’d experienced only once in my life—at Olivia’s birth—settling on me. That nauseated feeling of being caught in the middle of extreme opposite emotions. I was about to experience total devastation or unbridled relief. There was no room for anything in between. As we passed by a rickety old shack, I spotted an older couple standing outside. Raul told me the call about the explosion came from the woman, who said it had startled her and her husband awake. We pulled off the desolate road. From the passenger seat, I could see two police vehicles on the scene, along with an ambulance and a fire truck. The minivan was no longer on fire, but it was still heavily smoking. Several firefighters were examining the wreckage. Although completely burned, the vehicle definitely looked like the same kind of minivan the three men had used yesterday to grab Joe.
After getting out, I followed Raul around the other vehicles. On the opposite side of the burned vehicle, I noticed a medic zipping up a black body bag. The sight of it stole my breath. Someone was clearly dead. But was it Joe? I kept praying this was all somehow a bad coincidence. That this was a different minivan, and whoever was in that body bag was not my father-in-law.
A young officer walked over to Raul, glanced at me, and then the two officers had a conversation in Spanish I couldn’t understand. My eyes drifted back over to the vehicle, searching desperately for anything that might not match up with what I saw yesterday. But it was too hard to tell. Nothing was left of the minivan except the metal frame. The younger officer gave Raul a small black bag and walked away.
Raul turned to face me. “The body is burned badly, Alex, especially in the upper region around the shoulders, neck, and head. I don’t mean to be overly graphic, but we won’t be able to determine anything by facial recognition. But it is a male about five-foot-ten with a slender build. Does that match up with your father-in-law?”
I swallowed, nodded.
“Two items were recovered,” Raul said. “A small belt buckle and a ring.”
Raul started to open the bag. I thought about how Joe always wore a black golf belt with a little silver buckle with the Titleist logo on it. Was he wearing it today? I couldn’t remember, but my heart was pounding so fast.
Raul gently poured the contents of the bag into the palm of his left hand. A charred belt buckle and a ring. I immediately recognized the word Titleist on the buckle. And it looked like Joe’s gold wedding ring. Still, I didn’t want to believe it. This couldn’t be happening. I reached down with a shaky hand, picked up the ring, and looked inside to see if there was an inscription.
I felt my heart collapse.
Joe and Carol. Always, Forever.
SEVEN
I could barely focus on the highway as I drove across the border and made my way back to the Holiday Inn. Taylor had already called and texted me three times since I’d been at the scene of the explosion. I hadn’t responded yet. I had to get to her as fast as possible. There was no way I was going to tell her what had just happened over the phone. Twice I had to pull over on the side of the highway to try to catch my breath and calm down. But it barely worked. The closer I got to the hotel, the faster my heart raced. I worried I might have a full-on panic attack. But I had to hold it together for Taylor.