But it’s just the fear taking over.
I think we both know where we’re going.
The air is so sweet when we’re finally let out of the hatch, I inhale it like water. It’s hot, and humid, and clean.
Only one man appears at the top of the hatch when it opens. He has no gun, just a frown. Like we’re putting him out. Or hell, maybe he didn’t even know we were here until ten minutes ago when someone called him up and said, “Oh, hey. Don’t forget about the stowaways down in your secret hidey hole.”
But he helps Yvette out, then me, and leads us up to the deck.
There’s another man waiting on the dock. And when we disembark, he points to the shore, smiling and urging us forward.
It’s the middle of the night again. So it’s hard to tell where we are until we’re on land, in a beat-up old car, heading into town.
There is a sign that says, Bienvenido a la Isla Holbox.
I think Yvette starts to cry.
It’s been so long since we talked, we don’t do it now. Just stay silent as we pass through the town and head across the island to the opposite shore.
“Oh,” Yvette says. Her first word in… days? I don’t even know how long we were on that fishing boat so my internal clock is all fucked up. It feels like lunchtime, but the sun is just barely up over the horizon to the east, so it’s obviously not.
She’s looking out the window as we pull into a long driveway that leads to a house.
“Oh,” she says again. Like she’s figured something out.
“Oh,” I say, coming to the same conclusion.
“He’s here,” she says. “This is his house and he’s here.”
I think I smile. It just feels so weird after all that’s happened, it takes me a minute to realize it.
The car stops and the driver gets out. He opens the driver’s side passenger door for Yvette and she gets out, facing into the wind as it blows her long, blonde hair away from her face.
I get out my side and join them to take in the house.
It’s big, but not massive. Contemporary Spanish style with a stucco exterior and red-tiled roof. It, and the dense shrubs on either side of two groupings of massive palm trees, block the ocean view from here. But there’s no mistaking that’s what’s on the other side.
The blue ocean, the white sands, the perfect paradise.
The driver says a long string of words in Spanish, which nether of us understand. But he points to the house and we get it.
Then he leaves.
Yvette takes my hand and smiles. She’s filthy dirty. We both smell like fish. But this smile turns her instantly beautiful.
“We should go in,” she says. And she can’t contain the excitement in her voice.
We know what happened. Sort of.
Logan smuggled us out of the country and brought us here.
Just like we planned.
We walk forward, find the front door open, and walk inside.
There’s a breeze blowing through the open patio doors on the back side of the house and there it is.
Paradise.
“Logan?” I call.
No answer.
“Logan?” I yell louder. “Where are you?”
Silence.
“There’s an envelope,” Yvette says, walking into the large open kitchen where the patio doors are.
And yup. Sitting on the long dining room table there is, in fact, a very thick yellow envelope.
“What’s in it?” I ask.
She picks it up, opens the flap, and peeks inside. She frowns. Then dumps the contents out on the table.
Two passports slide out.
That’s my first clue that we don’t, in fact, have any idea of what’s happening here.
Because there should be three passports. Not two.
The second thing that comes out is a stack of photographs held together by a thick rubber band.
“What the fuck?” Yvette says. Then she holds them up for me to see and says it again. “What the fuck is this?”
I know what it is. I can see what it is.
It just doesn’t make sense.
Suddenly… none of this makes sense.
Because that top photograph is a picture of Yvette.
Tied up in a tarp, only her head visible.
Her neck slit and bloody. Her eyes black and closed.
And she is dead.
Except she’s not dead. She’s standing here right in front of me.
I take the stack of photos from her hand and look at the next one.
Me.
Bloody, bruised, and dead as well.
“What the fuck?” Yvette says, for the third time.
“Oh, shit,” I say. Because there’s a letter too.
A letter from Logan.
And suddenly everything makes sense.
She hands it to me, shaking her head. “I don’t want to read it.”
So I read it instead.
Dear cookies…
I’m sorry for the long trip. I’m sorry for the drugs. It was a shitty move, I know that. But it was the only move I had left. If I had my way I’d have put you on a yacht. I’d have given you a stateroom with an ocean view. I’d have a private chef, and there would’ve been snorkeling, and sightseeing, and dolphin-watching as we made our way to paradise.