Hortensia O’Brien was not a woman easily impressed. Born and brought up in a two-room apartment in Ciudad Juarez, her success—her honor-strewn education, her illustrious career, her long and happy marriage to the distractingly handsome and gallant Colin O’Brien—had been hard-earned, and she held her employees and hangers-on to rather stringent standards. But this night, Danny’s house crowned its scrub-scattered hill like a glittering luxury yacht plying a star-sparkled sea. Convivial party-goers practically shone through the huge windows, the pool glowed a vivid teal, and the tinkling music all but pulled people down the stairs, enchanted by the promise of jazz and cocktails and beautiful people. Hortensia O’Brien’s face as she doffed her Chanel coat in Danny’s foyer rivaled that of any of
