by Lili Valente
Her lips twitch. “Are you calling me normal?”
“Never,” I say, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “You’re the best. See you soon.”
“Soon,” she echoes, squeezing my hand one last time before I turn and start down the path leading to the infinity pool.
There are smaller, private pools sprinkled throughout the resort, but my gut says a bunch of fraternity boys will want to be where the people are. They’ll want to see and be seen, and maybe pick up a girl or two to take out tonight.
I set up a dummy social media account months ago and I’m friends with half the SBE brothers. I know that they’re pre-gaming at Guava Bar at a neighboring resort and then heading out to the club that just opened in the closest village. If Sam wasn’t so insistent on me avoiding contact with the douchebags, I could probably lure them out the back door of the dance club with an offer to share a bowl and have them in my trunk a few minutes later.
But I know she wants to keep me safe, so I’m willing to play things her way.
For now.
At least until I hear the new plan she cooked up while I was out teaching people how to hang a tent from the side of a rock face. She said she wanted to wait until we had the room numbers before she fleshed out the details since those were necessary for what she had in mind.
Hopefully, before the sun starts to set, I’ll have what we need. I can’t imagine frat boys will wait much more than an hour between drinks, not when they’re on vacation and pounding beers is basically the sole reason for joining a frat in the first place.
I pause in the shade near the towel return, scanning the pool deck as I finish my drink. The frat boys are, as I suspected, easy to find.
About twenty pasty, recently graduated college kids with the beginnings of scorched shoulders are loudly holding court at the opposite end of the pool. Someone brought out speakers they’ve attached to one of their iPhones and they are thoughtlessly subjecting the rest of the guests to Bob Marley played loud enough to be heard over the waterfall feature streaming from the second floor of the resort.
I spot J.D. and Jeremy near the speakers, their nearly identical dark brown haircuts damp from the pool, laughing with a much bigger guy I don’t recognize. Todd has his back turned to me, but I’ve looked at his picture enough in the past year to memorize the exact fall of his stupid, Justin Bieber circa 2010 haircut from any angle. He’s in the pool, his arms draped back across the concrete behind him and a half-empty beer in one hand, talking to two girls in barely-there bikinis who have no idea the man they’re flirting with is a monster.
A part of me wants to wait until the women move away from Todd and warn them to stay the hell away from him, but I can’t afford to attract attention and there’s no guarantee they’d believe me. I’m four inches taller and a good fifty pounds heavier than Todd. On the surface, I’m probably more imposing and most people don’t stop to look below the surface, a fact I’m grateful for as I grab a towel from the attendant—who doesn’t even bother to write down the room number I mumble beneath my breath—and aim myself toward the other side of the pool.
I find a free lounge chair close enough to pick out the details of various conversations, but hopefully not close enough to get on anyone’s radar, and settle in. I spread out my towel, strip off my tee shirt, and stretch out on the chair with my phone in my lap and my head tilted down. I open a book in my Kindle app and pretend to be reading, but I’m really just swiping my thumb every few seconds and waiting for one of these bastards to order more beer.
While I wait, I try to zone out and not think too much about anything else I’m overhearing. If I listen too closely to these fucks going about their lives like they deserve to be free and soaking in a pool at a seven hundred dollar per night resort, I might lose control and strangle them right here.
It was clear from my first glimpse of the SBE brothers at the airport that none of Sam’s attackers are plagued by guilt over what they did. But seeing them in their element, acting like the world exists only to facilitate their pleasure, talking to the staff waiting on them like shit and leaving their empty cups littered across the pool deck instead of taking the five steps to the trash can, makes me sick to my stomach.
The coldest part of me wants to kill them all, wipe out the entire frat before any of these arrogant, careless, greedy trust fund babies can pass on their worthless genes to another generation.
But that’s the difference between someone like Todd and someone like me.
I don’t give my monster free reign.
My monster will only be allowed out of its cage for one night and only one life will be lost. His.
I glance up in time to see Todd lifting his hand to the waitress on the other side of the pool and to hear him insult the size of her ass when it takes her longer than he would prefer for her to make her way through the crowd. The two girls laugh at his joke and cast nasty looks at the other woman as she squats down beside the water to take Todd’s order, eyeing her perfectly healthy-sized backside like it’s an offense to their sense of decency.
I decide right then that they deserve Todd Winslow, after all.
“I’ll take another Corona and bring two mai tais for my friends.” Todd flicks his empty can in the waitress’s direction while she tries to write down his order and clean up his mess at the same time. “And make sure the drinks are cold this time. I’m not paying ten dollars for hot beer.”
“Thank you, sir,” the waitress says in a resigned voice that makes it clear she’s used to dealing with assholes like this on a daily basis. “Room number?”
“The Rosa Blanca suite,” Todd says with a sigh. “Third time.”
“Of course. Be right back.” The waitress stands and hurries away toward the bar.
Todd rolls his eyes, making his audience of two giggle. One girl shakes her head and insists that laziness is the reason people from third world countries lag behind the rest of the world.
Like most idiots, she doesn’t realize that the U.S. is practically a third world country, the divide between the haves and have-nots has grown so vast. And if the rich keeping getting tax breaks and the U.S. continues to be the only developed country that doesn’t ensure its citizens have health care, soon we’ll be slipping even further behind the rest of the world. After all, there are already counties in the American South with lower life expectancies than Bangladesh. I know. I used to live in one of them.
Ignoring the chatter of the entitled and clueless, I grit my teeth and turn back to my phone, making a note that Todd is in the Rosa Blanca suite though I know I won’t forget.
I won’t forget a moment of this afternoon.
There’s something intimate about knowing you’re going to kill someone, something that makes me hyper aware of Todd’s every movement, his every breath. My commitment to destroying him makes me feel weirdly connected to the man and I hate him for that, too. I don’t want to feel connected to the person who nearly destroyed the woman I love. I just want him to be gone.
By the time I finally get room numbers for J.D. and Jeremy—rooms 2012 and 2015 respectively—I’m sick to my stomach. I would blame the smoothie, but food poisoning takes longer to take effect.
The knot in my gut is all thanks to the Sigma Beta Epsilon brothers.
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I grab my shirt and towel and start back toward the towel desk. I’m nearly to the far side of the pool when a prickling feeling between my shoulder blades makes me pause and glance back over my shoulder to find Todd Winslow watching me walk away.
My sunglasses are completely reflective. There’s no way he can see my eyes, but for some reason I can’t shake the feeling that he’s staring right at me.
I pause, glancing at the clock set into the bricks beside the tours and activities desk on the other side of the pool, then check my phone, pretending there was some valid reason for looking back aside from the fact that my lizard brain sensed I’d attracted a predator’s attention. As I turn again, I risk a glance Todd’s way to find h
im once again focused on the two increasingly wasted girls he’s been flirting with for the past hour.
A part of me insists the moment of eye contact was just a coincidence, but another part of me thinks Todd is as aware of me as I am of him.
I toss my used towel into the bin but leave my tee shirt off, hoping the cool air coming off the water will help relieve the nausea making my stomach pulse beneath my ribs. By the time I get back to Sam, I’m feeling better and have convinced myself that I don’t have to say anything to her about that one uncomfortable moment.
Todd was so wrapped up in himself he hadn’t noticed me the entire time I was eavesdropping on his conversation. It must have been the sudden movement that caught his eye. He would have glanced up no matter who got up from their lounge chair and walked away. The look meant nothing. He didn’t recognize me; he isn’t suspicious.
Everything is fine, or as fine as it can be considering the circumstances.
As I hug Sam close and whisper, “I’ve got everything we need,” I believe it. I believe because it’s what I want to believe and because I’ve mistaken Todd’s lack of guilt for a belief in his own innocence.
Those two things can look the same from the outside, but they aren’t.
A man who believes he’s innocent isn’t looking over his shoulder. A man who knows he’s guilty, but doesn’t give a shit, sleeps with one eye open, determined that someone else will always pay the price for his sins.
Later I would look back and understand the distinction, but right now I’m still innocent enough to walk down to the beach with my arm around Sam, thinking no mistakes have been made.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.”
-Goethe
* * *
Hiring a prostitute is a lot easier than buying a gun or a kilo of cocaine.
And neither of those were a real strain, considering I have virtually no experience with the criminal element.
I wanted to meet with the woman we tracked down through a dating app—my Spanish is better than Danny’s and I didn’t want her to be freaked out by meeting someone as large as Danny in a dark alley. But he said she was more likely to remember the details of being hired by a woman than a man and I had to admit he was right.
So I prepped him in advance and kept my phone in my lap while he went to the meeting, just in case he needed help answering any of the woman’s questions. Turns out, her English was probably better than my Spanish and she and Danny had all the details of the “surprise” for his buddies worked out in ten minutes.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Danny will meet her near the market, pay half her fee, and drop her off at The Seasons. From there, she’ll call up to J.D.’s and Jeremy’s rooms and guide them to the location of the private party, allegedly organized by their friend “Todd”, the name Danny gave her when they met. She assumes she’ll be meeting Todd and a couple of other prostitutes at the small house we’ve rented for the night, where they’ll party and she’ll receive the other half of her fee.
Instead, Danny and I will be waiting with masks on just inside the door.
I’m in charge of knocking the woman out with a choke hold and then dosing her with enough ketamine to keep her knocked out for an hour or so; Danny’s in charge of knocking the men out, administering their dose of the knockout drug, and getting them into the trunk of the rental car.
From there, our paths will diverge. Danny will take J.D. and Jeremy out to the pit he’s dug in the jungle, and I’ll take Rosa back to her apartment, where I’ll leave her with the other half of her money.
“That’s it,” Danny says, leaning forward to write down the number of Rosa’s apartment building. “Fourteen twenty-three.”
We’ve been following Rosa—or whatever her real name is—for over three hours. From the alley where she met with Danny, to a swanky hotel where she went upstairs with a man twice her age, to the market where she bought milk, fresh fruit, and tampons, and now to this crumbling apartment building near the southern edge of Liberia.
“This is good.” I study the entrance as Danny and I walk by, the hoods of our sweatshirts pulled up against the cool wind. The temperature dropped suddenly tonight and though it’s still in the high sixties, it feels cool after eighty-degree days. “There’s a lobby with a sofa in front of the mailboxes. She should be safe there until she wakes up, with two locked doors between her and the street.”
“Are you going to be able to carry her in?” Danny asks. “Even if you park close, there are ten steps up to the lobby.”
I make a scoffing noise. “She’s about as big around as my thigh. I think I’ll manage.”
“She is tiny.” He puts his arm around my waist with a sigh. “I feel bad for her. I know there’s nothing we can do, but…”
“I know.” I lean into him as we turn the corner, starting back toward the well-lit streets of the Centro where we parked the car. “I would say that maybe being drugged will give her a wake-up call that it’s time to find other work, but it’s not like prostitution is any woman’s first choice. I’m sure she doesn’t feel like she has other options or she wouldn’t be selling herself.”
“Is this fucked up?” Danny asks, his voice low. “Feeling bad for a prostitute when we’re planning to kill a man?”
I consider the question, a faint niggle of guilt tugging at the back of my mind. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t think right and wrong are as simple as some people would have you believe.”
“Sounds like something my sister would say.”
“I wish I knew her better,” I say. “I remember what you said last summer, about her and Gabe still stealing things. Do you know why?”
He shrugs. “We’ve never talked about it, but I think it’s their way of feeling like they’re giving back. They both have a Robin Hood complex, always looking out for the underdog.”
“Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor?”
“Something like that,” he says, before continuing in a wry tone. “But it’s part entertainment, too. I think they get off on the rush of breaking the law and not getting caught.”
I blink, surprised. “Wow…that’s… I don’t know. I’d rather go surfing.”
“Me too,” he says with a laugh. “Or mountain-biking or cliff camping. That’s my idea of a rush.”
His smile fades as he shoves his hoodie off his head with one big hand. “I never thought I’d be like them. Not that I judge them or think I’m better than they are or anything. I just…didn’t see myself going that way.”
My throat tightens, but I don’t pull away. I’m learning not to run, even when being close scares me. “Do you think you’ll resent me someday? When it’s all over and you’ve had time to regret everything we’re doing?”
“Never,” he answers immediately.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” His fingers curl into my shoulder. “I’ve always known the world isn’t fair, but this goes so far beyond unfair. They’re criminals, and criminals shouldn’t be able to hurt people and walk away without a mark on them. That’s what I believe and I’m not going to regret standing up for it. Or for you.”
We both fall quiet, Danny holding me close to his side as he scans the street, watchful for potential threats. I wonder if he’s thinking about that night in Auckland, when we were almost mugged.
No matter how dangerous it was, I’m glad I fought back. I never want to be a victim again.
But I don’t want to be one of the bad guys, either.
“Should we call Rosa and cancel?” I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face Danny in the dim light of the flickering street lamp at the end of the block.
“No! Why?” His brow furrows. “I’m just talking, Sam. I’m not second-guessing the plan. It’s solid. Way better than mine. This way, J.D. and Jeremy never see our faces and the only person who can connect us to them is a prostitute who isn�
��t going to want to talk to the police.”
“I know, but what if I hurt her?” I ask. “What if she has a bad reaction to the drug? Or what if she slips out of the chokehold and I have to fight her? I could end up breaking her nose or—”
“You’re not going to break her nose,” Danny says. “You know what you’re doing and the ketamine will keep her out. And she’s not going to expect you to be grabbing her from behind. She’ll be out before she has a chance to fight back.”
“But there is a chance something will go wrong and she’ll pay the price for it,” I insist. “That’s the reality. I’m justifying hurting this woman because someone hurt me. I’m sure that kid who tried to mug us last summer was doing the same thing. Someone hurt him and so he decided to hurt us and take what he needed to survive.”
Danny shakes his head. “It’s not the same thing, Sam.”
“It’s close enough. Maybe too close.” I close my eyes, pinching the aching places at the backs of my lids together with my finger and thumb. “I don’t know. I don’t know where to draw the line anymore.”
“And that’s okay. That’s why I’m here,” he says, fingers circling my wrist, tugging my hand away from my eye sockets and giving it a gentle shake. “Look at me.”
I open my eyes and look up into his shadowed face.
“This isn’t going to be easy. Breaking the rules never is,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean some of them don’t need to be broken. J.D. and Jeremy need to be taught a lesson. And Todd has to die. If he lives, you know he’s going to hurt someone else, a hell of a lot worse than you’ll hurt Rosa. He’ll probably hurt a lot of people.”
“I know.” I nod, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“There’s only one reason to change the plan,” Danny says. “And that’s if you think you’re going to be exchanging one thing that will eat you alive for another. That’s what Caitlin said to me when I first started talking about revenge. She didn’t tell me not to, just not to get caught, and not to do it if I couldn’t walk away from it after and find a way to be happy.”
