Ivon pulls into the customs booth on the Córdoba Bridge, where the INS officer tells her she is driving a stolen car and bring in K-9 dogs to search it. In the storage compartment, officers find a manila envelope with child pornography. Ivon recognizes one of the officers as J.W.; his badge reads, “Capt. J. Wilcox, Chief Detention Enforcement Officer” (276). 

J.W. and the other officer goad her about being a sex offender, and J.W. says they are going to watch Rubí’s video, which was in her backpack. He handcuffs Ivon and takes her inside, telling another officer that he is “sick to death of these perverts” (277). He instructs the officer to write “a Class A Medical Exclusion Certificate” (277) because Ivon is a lesbian, and “gays and lesbians are a threat to national security” (278) because they could spread HIV.

J.W. puts on Rubí’s tape, and they see her speaking with the medical examiner in front of human remains. J.W., not understanding the Spanish, fast-forwards to the end, where a heading reads “Doris Meets El Diablo.” A voice recites the information Ivon read on the tourist website, and half-naked girls beckon into the Sayonara Club. Finally, a young girl is abducted. She cries as she is raped and choked, and the next shot shows her lying dead in the sand. Text at the end of the video says it was made by Lone Ranger Productions.

Ivon cannot figure out how these images turned up on the tape and wonders if Rubí’s husband Walter, the cameraman, is involved. J.W. forces Ivon into a Border Patrol vehicle with two German Shepherds. When she tells him Walter Luna took the video, J.W. calls Junior and says they need to “teach [Walter] a “lesson” (283). He also tells Junior to wait to do “that nickel” because he has “someone here who wants to watch” (283). 

J.W. is angry when he hears there is going to be an inspection at the plant and calls the foreman to delay it, saying he will “comp you a show tomorrow night” (284). When he calls Irene a “cute little lucky penny” (284), Ivon remembers that he gave her pennies on the plane. She warns him that people are writing graffiti about the Border Patrol, but when he threatens to hurt Irene, she is silent. 

Ivon realizes they are headed toward Mount Cristo Rey and recalls how she just saw the statue of Jesus that morning. The graffiti in the bathroom—Poor Juárez, so far from Truth, so close to Jesus—comes to mind. 

J.W. realizes he is being followed and floors the gas. Ivon recognizes that they are on the abandoned grounds of the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), a copper refinery that is “close to Jesus.” Ivon thinks of how J.W. mentioned a show to the foreman and recalls the pornography website on the bottom of the Richy’s Diary newsletter. When she remembers he called Irene “a cute little lucky penny,” she realizes he is “running a porn site” (286) where women are murdered online.

Pete is still following Ivon. He watched her being detained at customs and led to the Border Patrol vehicle, and he realizes something is “very wrong” (287) when the driver does not bring her to the processing center.

He calls in for help and explains that he is following someone who took a U.S. citizen without following procedure and that a woman is in danger, but he is met with skepticism. He then calls for a helicopter to search the scene. He explains he was following a woman who had compromised his investigation and that now she is in trouble. He is told a helicopter will be sent and not to follow the vehicle until backup arrives. The woman on the phone is his supervisor, who warns him not to bypass her again, especially not when off duty. She also says she hopes he was not following Ivon in Mexico with his weapon; he tells her he was not and that it would be in his report.

He decides to ignore his supervisor’s orders and drive up anyway. He followed procedure and must act now because he has “been trained for this” (290). He drives toward ASARCO and recalls how Ortiz and Borunda were trespassing just as he was. He parks the car and grabs his Bowie knife and gun.

Irene is back in the red room, where she is now lying on the cot vomiting the color of rust. She realizes “that she was next” (291). She hears laughter outside the bus where people are smoking pot. She knows the woman’s name is Ariel and that the red room is a converted bus. She sees the ASARCO smokestacks and realizes she is in El Paso. She has a fever, and she shivers. Earlier, Ariel bathed her and told her she can swim in the river again, that her body will “float real easy when they’re finished” (292). Then Ariel laid her naked on the bed and took a picture between her legs.

Ariel comes in to give Irene something to wear; she also tells her it is her turn and gives her a pink pill to swallow, which Irene spits into the corner with all the others she refused to take. Outside, she hears the “William Tell Overture” and Junior yelling “Action!” in the megaphone. She thinks how Ivon “would do whatever it took to escape” and how “Ariel was so stoned it would be easy to take her by surprise” (293). She realizes that “[i]t was her only chance. Either that or her turn” (293).

J.W. drives Ivon to La Calavera, where she spent time with her cousin Mary when they were in high school; they used to hold séances in the cemetery. He drives up an incline toward the ASARCO plant, which “had become a ghost town, utterly dark and deserted” (295). They stop in front of a warehouse where people are clearly filming a movie. J.W. wants to know why a Juárez bus—the same graffiti-covered bus Ivon had seen with William—is there beside the trailers. Ivon hears a helicopter in the background.

Junior comes out of the warehouse, and J.W. asks him why the bus is there. He believes someone set them up. When Junior says he did not call anyone to take care of Walter Luna, J.W. goes into the warehouse with his phone. Junior waves at Ivon, and she realizes he is the medical examiner’s assistant. She also sees a hand sticking out of one of the trailers. 

A helicopter flies over the scene, and police yell for them to freeze. Ivon runs to the trailer and asks if Irene is in there; a woman yells for help, but it is not Irene. She goes to the second trailer, where there appears to be a dead body, then runs to the red bus. Bullets spray across the scene, and a man who sounds like Detective McCuts yells for her to get down.

Ariel runs out of the bus, clearly injured. Ivon punches her until she falls, calling for Irene to run to the cemetery. Pete approaches, and Ivon sees he was shot in the leg. She asks for his gun so she can look for Irene in the cemetery; at first he refuses because it is “against the rules” (300), but eventually he gives it to her. Ivon runs off.

Ivon runs through the dark cemetery looking for Irene and hears her calling for help. She also hears the dogs chasing her and realizes they are headed for Irene. Irene moans, and Ivon shoots one of the dogs as it approaches her. The other dog is guarding Irene, and Ivon shoots it when it turns to attack her. Irene’s leg is torn from the dogs’ attack, her breasts are covered in human bite marks, and she is deliriously singing. 

When Ivon asks how she is, Irene says, “I was lonely every day” (303). Ivon begins crying as she remembers that Irene was six years old when Ivon left for college; in the airport, she said, “‘I thought you were gonna help me with my homework. I’m gonna be lonely every day’” (303). She realizes that “[i]t was Irene’s voice she heard in that little boy’s at the bookstore” (303). 

A man and a woman arrive and call for help.