Soledad's Sister
 The novel starts in a cloudy August night when a casket bearing the corpse of one who is identified as Aurora V. Cabahug arrives in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Jeddah. Mysteriously identified by Jeddah authorities as having died from drowning, she is one of 600 Filipino overseas workers who return as corpses to NAIA every year. The corpse, however, is not the real Aurora Cabahug but of her older sister, Soledad. The real Aurora Cabahug, called Rory, has in fact never set foot beyond the small town of Paez and is a singer in the Flame Tree, a KTV nightclub frequented by cops, the town’s vice-mayor and Koreans. Rory learns of her sister's death and she claims the body with the help of a local police officer, Walter G. Zamora. Along the way, their vehicle along with the casket is stolen by notorious carnapper known as Boy Alambre. In the end, Soledad's casket, is discovered by Boy Alambre. He pushes the casket into a murky river, but in an ironic twist of fate, the thief is taken along and drowns with the corpse. Soledad remains as faceless as she was when she came home. In a series of flashbacks and narrations, we learn of the stories in each of the main characters’ lives. Their mysteries are not fully unraveled however, left to the past or to events that have yet to be told.