can a frustrated single mom and failed big city journalist save her family and salvage her career by returning to a town run by a gang of bungling thugs?


“The Resurrection of Puerto Cielo” is a novella published in serial form, 43 posts.




40


She stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. The night was so still, so strangely quiet, even the roof dogs were silent. After the bewildering chaos of the rally disaster and then the flood, Espy should be exhausted, but her mind wouldn’t slow down.

She stared up at the face in the moon.

As a little girl, Sam had taken her finger and traced the lady in the moon’s smile. He’d told her that the moon was happy because she had all the cheese she could eat.

But that was a childhood fairy tale. And fairy tales wouldn’t save Puerto Cielo from the criminals and corruption that plagued the town.

Tomorrow was the election.

Would anyone show up?

***

On another balcony, Ricky looked out at the glimmering reflection of the full moon on the sparkling Gulf. Thanks to the good people of Puerto Cielo, people who had every reason to despise him, he and his family were safe, lodged in a beach front hotel.

Brought up to trust only blood, Ricky had done everything to please his father. When Ricardo Ruiz died, Ricky kept on with the only life he’d ever known. He became a mob boss.

He became a man who was always alone.

Moonlight glistened on the tear sliding down the solitary man’s cheek. His heart had stopped when he heard his daughter’s cherubic voice entrance every soul in the church. An angel singing. His angel. An angel now in a wheelchair because he couldn’t let go of a business that had first killed his father, and then his own wife.

For the first time in his life, Ricky Ruiz prayed.

Something had to change.

***