“Nora Cole didn’t die that night.”

Part 4 — Resurrecting Nora

The drive to the remote, dust-choked border town outside San Antonio took Iris six grueling hours.

Oscar Miller had given her the coordinates of a small adobe safehouse tucked behind an abandoned limestone quarry. The rain had cleared, leaving a vast black Texas sky that felt heavy enough to touch.

Iris stepped out of her sedan, one hand resting on the folder of financial-fraud records, walked to the weathered wooden door, and knocked three times.

The door opened.

Standing in the dim light of a single kerosene lamp was a woman in her late thirties. A long silver scar ran from her temple down to her jaw, and her eyes held the deep, unshakable weariness of someone who had been living among the dead.