"Hot damn, let me see that." He seized it back and squinted for a long moment, lifting the page even closer to the light. "You're right." He held it for a second more, then turned to me. "This is finally the thing I needed. Now I'm damned well going to find out what she was doing down there."
"How do you think you can do that?" I just looked at him, my mind not quite taking in what he'd just said.
"The airlines." He almost grinned. "If they can keep track of everybody's damned frequent-flyer miles for years and years, they undoubtedly got flight manifests stored away somewhere too. So my first step is to find out where she flew from."
"But we don't know which—"
"Doesn't matter." He squinted again at the passport. "Now we know for sure she showed up at the airport in Guatemala City on that date there. I know somebody downtown, smooth black guy named John Williams, the FBI's best computer nerd, who could bend a rule for me and do a little B&E in cyberspace. He owes me a couple. So, if she was on a manifest for a scheduled flight into Guatemala City that day, he'll find it. Then we'll know where she left from, who else was on the plane." He tapped the passport confidently with his forefinger. "Maybe she was traveling with some scumbag I ought to look up and get to know better."
"Well, good luck."
In a way I was wondering if we weren't both now grasping for a miracle: me half-hoping for a baby through some New Age process of "centering," Lou trying to reclaim Sarah from her mental abyss with his gruff love. But then again, miracles have been known to happen.
[Chapter Seven]
"Quetzal Manor could have the makings of a great documentary," I was explaining to David Roth. "I just need some more information-gathering first, to get a better feeling for what Alex Goddard is up to. So going back up there will be two birds with one stone. I'll learn more about him, and he might even be able to tell me why I haven't been able to get pregnant."