Savage Hearts
“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 him 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.