She had been an architect.

The battles dragged on for two agonizing years, through motions and depositions and forensic disputes and plea negotiations, but every attempt my parents made to spin the story crashed against the same unyielding mountain of physical evidence.

And near the end, Don Ernesto took the stand.

He described, quietly, what he had seen that night: the luxury SUV pulling into the dark alley, a man leaving an unconscious woman on the cold pavement, a woman recording it on her phone.

“The thing that stuck with me the most,” he told the jury, softly, “was that the woman holding the camera was laughing.” My mother put her head in her hands and wept.