I’m going to have to remember that, no matter how familiar this feels, there is no Danny and Sam anymore.
That was the past and there is no room for the past in the here and now.
Chapter Six
Danny
“By seeking and blundering,
we learn.”
-Goethe
* * *
I spend an hour and a half watching Sam blast rocks of various sizes to pieces. She takes ever more difficult shots without missing, until I have to admit that as long as she’s lucky enough to catch all of her targets out in the open at the same time, she has an excellent chance of taking them out.
She’s an amazing markswoman, but I’m not surprised.
Sam has always been excellent at everything she does. Whether it was surfing, school, tutoring kids, or loving me, she was the best of the best.
A part of me is torn up that the girl I love is now the best at shooting sniper rifles, holding people at a distance, and staring the world’s cruelest realities in the face without flinching, but I can’t give in to that kind of thinking.
That’s not how I’m going to win Sam’s cooperation, let alone another chance at getting close to her. I have to show her that I understand what she’s going through because I’ve walked every step through hell right beside her. We might not have been in the same time zone, but I was always with her. She was never more than a minute or two from my thoughts, even in the dark hours when I thought Caitlin might die and my baby niece along with her.
Besides, we’ll both have a better chance of getting this done right if we create a new plan. My plan had holes and hers does, too, but together we should be able to come up with something that ensures punishment is dispensed while we walk away unscathed.
After Sam has burned through a box of ammunition, she joins me in the shade beneath a thickly rooted tree on the hill overlooking the canyon and pulls water and a bunch of bananas from her backpack. We share the food and drink, watching the birds return to the canyon now that the gun has gone silent. I keep my peace and give her space, waiting until I can sense her relaxing into the drowsy heat before I speak.
“There are worse things than death.” I roll up my banana peel and toss it onto the dusty ground, keeping my eyes on the stunning scenery in front of us. “Both of us know that.”
“There are,” she agrees. “But dead men can’t accuse me of a crime.”
“Neither can men who have no idea you’re in the same country that they are. There are ways to make them suffer that will leave them in the dark. At least at first. I had a few thoughts about that while I was sitting here.”
She takes a breath and I brace myself for another prompt to mind my own business, but instead she says, “What did you have in mind?”
“Do you think the guy who sold you the gun could get drugs, too?”
“Yes,” she says, without hesitation. “He could, but why would we want them?”
“The drug laws here are even more intense than the gun laws.” I cross my legs at the ankles and study my boots. “All we’d have to do is plant a kilo of cocaine on someone you’d like to see spend a decade in a Costa Rican prison and make sure the cops know where to find him.”
She nods slowly. “Scott. I’ve been going back and forth on what to do with him. He didn’t want to join in, I could tell. But he did because he’ll do anything Todd tells him to do.”
My mouth fills with the sour taste that always accompanies thoughts of four men taking turns violating Sam.
My Sam. My best friend who is now a stranger to me, all because of what four frat fucks started and an ignorant L.A. jury finished.
“Or we can shoot him full of so much coke he overdoses and make it look like an accident,” I add in a harder voice. “If you want them dead, then they should be dead. They deserve it and it wouldn’t be a waste. A man who would do something like that doesn’t have anything worthwhile to bring to the world.”
She glances over at me, her expression gentling. “You’re a good man.”
“No, I’m not.” I fight the urge to take her hand and thread my fingers through hers the way I used to. “I’ve been daydreaming about killing them ever since I found out what happened. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. That and if I’d ever see you again.”
Her gaze drops to the dirt beneath us, where a giant beetle has found my banana peel and is crawling inside to investigate. “I wouldn’t have been any good for you. But I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was okay.”