by Sam JD Hunt
“Santos, I like that,” I said, forcing my tone to be friendly, conversational.
The man smiled for the first time.
“Was it in New York City? When I was little my father would take me there to see Santa at Macy’s.”
“No, it was in my home country, Panama. I looked forward to Christmas every year—that glow in the children’s eyes, the love their parents showed them. I miss those simple years.”
“Did you have children, Santos?” I knew my technique was working—he didn’t bristle at me using his name.
“Two daughters—beautiful girls. They are both now gone,” he said, the dark sadness creeping into his eyes again.
“Listen, Santos, I can tell you are a decent man. Let me go—I just want to get on with my holiday. I won’t say anything.”
“Lies,” he said sadly. “I am so tired of lies.”
“Santos, Rex will kill you if you harm me.”
He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. “I have no intention of leaving this cabin tonight alive. But, my dear sweet child, neither will this murderous witch or your child-killing boyfriend.”
“Husband,” I corrected. The more human we became to him, the better.
“Yes, one of two from what I’ve learned. I have no intention of harming Nathaniel, either—this is between Layla, Renton, and I.”
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t. I need to lure him here. And once he is here, I will set you free and the three of us will go up in flames just like my daughter did on this night so many years ago.”
“That’s awful. Your daughter died in a fire?” Holy shit, he planned to burn Rex alive!
“She was murdered in a fire, by her and your husband,” he said, pointing at Layla. She was moving her head from side to side, from shoulder to shoulder.
“I’ve heard about that, Santos. Rex told me.” I struggled to stay calm. His daughter had to be one of the drug mule teenagers who burned to death that long-ago Christmas Eve. He was here, in Lake Tahoe, for vengeance.
“He spoke of it?” The man seemed surprised.
“Yes, it’s the reason he won’t celebrate Christmas. Rex told me they didn’t know anyone but the drug dealers were there.”
“More lies,” Santos said, but he didn’t seem to believe his own words.
“Ahhhh.” Layla was waking up.
Santos looked over at her. “None of this personal, Penny.”
“A lie we all tell ourselves. It’s all personal.”
“You’re a smart girl. My Gina was smart.”
“She’s the one who was the drug mule?”
He got angry and shook. “Don’t ever call her that!”
“I’m sorry.”
“The drug lords, they convinced them it was glamorous. They are the ones who made them addicts, and then, they made them slaves.”
“They promised her the world, and she believed it.” Santos nodded toward me.
“Yes. And if I were a better man, a better father, I could have saved her.”
“Saved her from what?”
“Death,” he said with finality.
Chapter Nine
“I got into a lot of trouble for sure when I was her age,” I said, trying to keep him talking. “One time when I was sixteen, I—”
“I didn’t say how old she was.”
My mind raced through the Taken Captive course that Rex taught—one technique was to get them to tell you things about themselves. Another was to let them get to you know as a person—it’s harder to harm someone you’ve connected with.
“How old was she?”
He looked at me, his tired eyes brimming with tears. “Eighteen.”
“So young,” I said, my voice in a near whisper.
“So much loss,” he added. He was softening; I could feel it.
“More deaths won’t bring her back.”
“I know. I hoped that punishing these two for her death would ease the pain, but I now know it won’t.”
“No, it won’t.” I was making progress. Layla groaned again, her hands straining against the ropes that tied her down.
“Rex is a good person, you know. He’s a doctor, and he’s saved countless—”
“He didn’t save my angel, now did he?”
“No, Santos, but Rex didn’t know the girls were in there. I swear it.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes, it haunts him.”
Santos rubbed his white beard and looked over at Layla. “Do you know her?”
I wanted to sell out Layla, to replace her for Rex. Blaming the whole thing on her, saying she was guilty, might save him. But I couldn’t do it.
“I do, yes. She was made to do terrible things in the past, but she’s changed now. Layla is one of the sweetest ladies—”
“You fucking liar.” Layla’s eyes were opened and she was staring at me.
“I was just telling Santos about how much you regret—”
“The fact that those young women died in that fire? Yes, I regret that.” She looked to Santos and their eyes locked. “And no, I didn’t know—no one did. But Penny here is trying to save me with lies. I’m not a lady, I’m not sweet, and I’ve killed dozens since that ugly Christmas Eve in Panama.”
The tears spilled from Santo’s eyes. “The letter from your brother, his guilt, I just assumed that the Americans knew and burned it down anyway.”
“Luther was haunted by demons—they took his life.” Layla glanced to me. “These people, Rex and his whatever they are, they tried to save him.”
“If I let you go, you will kill me,” Santos said as he looked around the room.
“I’m done killing,” Layla answered.
“I have nothing to live for anyway. The one thing I had left was eaten by coyotes the other day.”
“A dog?” I asked.
The tears flowed down his leathery skin. “Yes, a little Pomeranian, she—”
“A white one?” I suspected I’d found Snowball’s home.
“Yes,” Santos answered.
“We have her! She’s fine. There was no collar, but I bet it’s her.”
Santos stood up and pulled a large knife from his pocket and walked to me. “I thought they got her. They’d been howling, and then I found her collar in the snow.”
“Was there any blood?” Layla asked, her focus on the knife in Santos’ right hand.
“No, but I thought they’d probably carried her off.”
“Those guys would have had her right there, an animal,” I glanced at Layla and she nodded. “I mean a precious soul like your dog. What is her name?”
“Puff,” he said. “I hope you’re right. I have so little left.”
He brought the knife down on the rope that bound my right hand. He cut me free, and I just sat there, unable to move for some reason. He freed Layla, who I half expected to attack the man, but she didn’t.
“Kill me,” he said to her.
“No, we are square,” she said.
There was a crash at the door and I leapt to my feet as it flew open. Rex stood in the doorway, his gun pointed at Santos.
“Stop, he let us go,” I yelled at Rex.
“Move, Penny,” he said as I walked toward him.
“He isn’t going to hurt anybody,” I argued. “His daughter was one of the girls lost in the fire that night. This is Santos—he sent Luther’s confession to Layla.”
Rex’s gun was still fixed on Santos, but as I turned, I gasped.
“Don’t!” I screamed. Santos held the knife to his own throat.
“Listen, old man, that’s not a nice way to go,” Layla said, looking to Rex.
My eye caught Nate on the other side of the cabin, with his own weapon aimed at the man through the window.
Santos pressed the knife in, a trickle of blood flowing, when I heard her.
“Woof!”
From Rex’s jacket she emerged as she always did, in a puff of white fur. “Woof!” she yelped again, jumping from R
ex and running to Santos.
“Puff,” he said through his tears, dropping the knife and falling to the ground to hold his dog—the one thing he had left to live for.
Chapter Ten
“Well, I guess we roll out,” Rex said once we were back in our cabin.
“Do you think he’ll harm himself? Or others who were there that night, for that matter?” I asked, worried about Santos.
“I hope not. He was thrilled to see that dog, that’s for sure.”
“You miss her,” I teased.
“Eh, she’s a dog,” he said with a shrug.
“A little?” Nate asked from behind him.
“Maybe.”
“What do you think they will do for Christmas Eve?” I asked. “Layla and Santos, I mean.”
“I don’t know, why?”
“Let’s stay one more night—maybe invite them over?
Nate looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You want to invite wild-girl and Santa Claus the Vengeant to some sort of holiday celebration?”
I laughed a little at the ridiculousness of it. “I do,” I said. “That is if King Rex can handle a little Christmas?”
“I’m festive as fuck,” Rex said. “Invite them—and he can bring the dog if he wants.”
“I knew you missed her,” I said as I wrapped my arms around them.
We were an odd gathering that night, but I’ll never forget that Christmas Eve. Santos had already left when I went to his cabin to invite him—a note on the door said that he was going home—I assumed he meant Panama and prayed he wouldn’t harm himself.
Layla, to my surprise, seemed touched when I invited her. I even behaved when she showed up hours later with a bloody carcass of something that I was supposed to magically turn into dinner. They ate the mystery meat while I stuck to a can of baked beans from the pantry.
Late that night we sat around our firepit, passing around a flask.
“Don’t you get lonely out here?” I asked her.
Layla looked up at the stars. “I do, but when I came here last year it wasn’t to be alone. Cara was with me—we were in love. For nearly a year, it was glorious.”
“What happened to her?” Nate asked. “Too isolated out here?”
“No, she was fine with that. She drove the forty minutes to town a few days a week to work, so it wasn’t my freaky lifestyle that broke us up.”
“Did you relapse?” Nate asked. He knew well the trials of being a drug addict.
“No, I just pushed her away. She got too close, loved me too much. I could bear the thought of her leaving me, so—”
“So you hurt yourself before she could hurt you,” Rex said. “I know that game well.”
Layla nodded. “Yes. I guess that’s why people like us can’t have nice things.”
“I got past it,” Rex said, with a gesture toward Nate and I.
“You should talk to her. Where is she now?” I asked.
“Cara went back to Vegas. She said she couldn’t stand Tahoe without our love to keep her warm—how cheesy is that?”
“It’s beautiful.” I looked at Nate and then Rex, grateful that they were next to me on that cold Christmas Eve.
Late that night, long after the fire was burned to embers and Layla was gone, the three of us clung to each other. Before our eyes closed that cold winter night, each of us said the words that had become our vow. “We are three, I love you both. Merry Christmas.”
New Year’s Eve
“Did you get your spa day, Penny?”
“Oh my goodness, look at you!” I squealed as I hugged her.
“I can clean up,” Layla said, holding up her hand to show me her glittery manicure.
“I’m so glad you came. Come over here, there’s someone I want you to see.” She seemed nervous as I took her arm and steered her across the ballroom.
“This isn’t really my scene.”
“I know, but hey, you get to eat food you didn’t skin at least,” I blurted out.
To my relief she laughed. “Nah, I’d ruin my nails and shit.”
I took a deep breath as we rounded the corner, praying my gamble would pay off.
“Cara,” Layla said almost as if the word were a prayer.
In golden silk stood a stunning woman with long chestnut hair, and her eyes were locked onto Layla’s.
It was easy for me to find Cara. All I had to do was nag Rex until he made a few phone calls. In his circles, talk of Layla in the woods and her lover was a frequent topic of conversation and the guys even followed Cara on Instagram. She was working as a massage therapist at one of the big hotels in Vegas. When I sent her a message about Layla, she answered in seconds. Please, if you can get her here, if she would just talk to me, Cara had begged more than once when I suggested a reunion.
“You look beautiful,” Layla said as she took Cara in her arms.
I walked away with Nate and Rex at my side to mingle with my father’s guests, as he expected, but throughout the night my eyes drifted to Layla and Cara. They were inseparable that night and have been ever since.
After ringing in the New Year, we escaped up to our penthouse suite to be alone.
“Oh hey, I forgot to tell you,” Rex said as he popped open a bottle of champagne. “I had my buddy in Panama City check on Santos.”
“Please tell me didn’t kill himself?” In a bizarre way, I felt like I’d bonded with him that day. I understood his sense of loss, of wanting to make sense of it.
“No, he did go back. I guess he’s applied for a permit to run a dog rescue there.”
“Hm, maybe he’s found a calling.”
“I hope so.” He poured us each a glass of champagne and we held them up.
“To three,” Rex toasted.
“To three,” we each repeated.
“May we never spend a Christmas apart,” I added.
“So next year, Vienna?” Nate looked to Rex with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I promise, I’ll take you both to Vienna.”
Our hands joined and we looked down at the rings on our fingers. “We are three, I love you both,” we each repeated, the vow like the rings a symbol of our forever love.
The End
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
- Robert Burns
Also by Sam JD Hunt
Taken by Two
Torn from Two
Santino the Eternal
Gay for Pay
Deeper: Capture of the Virgin Bride
Deep: A Captive Tale
The Hunt for Eros
Dagger: American Fighter Pilot
Roulette: Love Is A Losing Game
Blackjack: Wicked Game
Poker: Foolish Games
Coming Soon: Sam’s Town & Cockpit Confidential
About the Author
Sam JD Hunt resides in Las Vegas with her husband, the inspiration for the young Thomas Hunt character, as well as her two children.
When not writing, Hunt enjoys travel, community involvement, spending time with friends and family, and hiking. She spends her days writing and trying to answer the age-old question: is it too late for coffee or too early for wine?
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SJDHunt
Instagram: @sjd_hunt
Amazon: www.amazon.com/author/samhunt
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sam-j-d-hunt
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/SJD_Hunt
Twitter: @SJD_Hunt
www.sjdhunt.com
