CHAPTER 24
CARLOS
Three Years Ago
July 11
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
The sky was a patchy blue. Outside, shadows came and went, while inside, the interior light held an even brightness throughout the studio. Perfect for mixing colors. I added cerulean blue and emerald green to my palette and mixed the two colors with a touch of titanium white to soften the tone. I inhaled deeply. Pigment fumes, a pungent blend of octane, damp earth, and magnolia flowers, filled my sinuses. The odor sent a rush through my head.
Painter’s high, I thought, smirking.
The color wasn’t exactly right, so I added a fingernail size of cerulean blue. A satisfied warmth moved over me as I watched the color blend into the hue I’d set out to achieve.
Slender hands curved around my waist, glided up my ribs to my chest. Long, delicate fingers undid a button, and then another. They dived under the edge of my shirt and caressed my skin. My heart pounded under those wandering fingers. Blood pulsed to my center and my breath left in an abbreviated rush. I groaned.
Lips pressed between my shoulder blades. The heat of her breath warm through my shirt. I turned in her arms and looked down into a set of eyes that matched the color on my palette.
“Aimee.”
“Kiss me,” she asked, and I did.
She finished unbuttoning my shirt and I unzipped her dress. Clothes fell to the floor and we followed. I rolled onto my back, pulling her on top. She kissed her way down my chest, tracing the hairline past my navel. My head fell back and eyes closed. God, her mouth feels so damn good.
That was all I could think, all I could feel. And I wanted to watch.
Lifting my head, I opened my eyes. Aimee was gone and I was no longer in the studio at our house.
Instead, I looked up into the barrel of a gun held by my eldest brother. I watched his mouth move and I barely made out the words.
Get up!
Get up or Aimee’s next.
My face felt like a pile of bricks had landed on it. Nausea roiled in my gut like a skiff bobbing on rough waves. Beneath me, the surface rose and fell. I gripped a thick rope hanging nearby and tried to pull myself up. Pain shot through my shoulder and down my arm. I yelled, dropping to my knees. White sneakers faded in and out in my line of vision. Hands hauled me up. Lips pressed to my ear. “Swim.” And then I was flying, and next, sinking. A coldness like I’d never known before seeped into my bones, forcing my legs to kick. One arm flailed. I had to get to Aimee. I had to get home.
I want to go home.
I woke with a start, gasping.
A dream. It’s just a dream.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat there, head buried in my hands. My fingers clawed my scalp as I waited for my pounding heart to slow. I massaged my temples to coax the headache that rarely left, only eased, to go away. It burned, as did the long, thin scar on my hip.
My hand skimmed over that scar, and the last image I’d seen in my dream seared in my head like the thick tissue on my hip. Bullets whizzing past, their long, bubbly wake widening and dissipating in the ocean’s rise and fall. Searing pain in my side as one of those bullets hit their mark.
Fingers slid down my sweat-damp back. Chills raised the hair on my arms and legs.
“Same dream?” Natalya asked in a groggy voice.
“Yeah.” I pushed to my feet, knees cracking, to go to the bathroom as much as to get away from her touch. My heart still raced and my body was damp out of fear for another woman’s life. A woman I had once loved as desperately as the air I breathed.
I popped two aspirin and drank them down directly from the faucet. I caught Natalya’s reflection in the mirror as I swiped the water from my mouth. She leaned against the door frame, arms crossed.
“That bottle was half-full when I got here two weeks ago.” She nodded at the container.
I glanced inside before spinning on the lid. Fifteen pills left. I needed to go shopping today. Then I remembered Julian and I were mountain-biking in the hills. I’d have to swing by the store on the way back.
“Have you seen a doctor yet?”
I turned around and shook my head.
“Carlos.” She dragged out my name, coming into the bathroom, and glared up at me. “They’re getting worse. And at the rate you’re going”—she shook the bottle, and the few aspirin remaining rattled inside—“you’ll have an ulcer to match that ache in your head.”
I trapped her in my arms and buried my face in the curve of her neck. “It’s not my forehead that aches right now.” I kissed her bed-warm skin, hoping to distract her. Hoping to distract me and all my aches, because my brain really was on fire. That damn dream got more vivid each time and my headaches were always intense in the hours following.
I scooped up Natalya and carried her to bed. We fell onto the sheets. I could tell from the way she kissed me she was in the mood to talk. I wasn’t. It was three-fucking-a.m. and my head hurt like a mother.
She gently nudged my shoulders and kissed my nose. I sighed and flopped to my back, arms spread wide as I stared at the ceiling fan overhead. Bad idea. The room spun like a merry-go-round and my innards hitched a ride, spinning along with it. I draped my forearm over my brow and breathed through the sourness in my mouth.
“Why won’t you see a doctor?”
“We’ve been over this before, Nat.” I didn’t want anyone prodding my head and administering tests. One surprised hypnosis experiment had left a jackhammer without an “Off ” switch drilling my brain. I had no intention to be a willing—or unwilling—participant in any further psychotherapy sessions.
Natalya flopped on her back. “I could kill Thomas.”
“You and me both.” I lifted my arm to look at her. She tugged a sheet over her breasts and buried her fingers in her hair.
“I can help you find a doctor who makes house calls. You can be examined here and I’ll stay by your side. Just in case, you know?”
“No. I don’t want to be examined.” I got out of bed and paced to the slider door. It was pitch-black outside and the only thing I saw was my reflection, my face ragged and worn with deep tension lines, a train track across my forehead.
“Don’t tell the doctor what’s really wrong. Make up an excuse, like you have chronic migraines or something.”
“I do have chronic migraines.”
“Which means you need prescription medication so you stop popping aspirin like jelly beans.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Maybe it’s stress that’s causing the headaches. Have you considered antidepressants or anxiety meds?”
“No drugs,” I said, slicing the air between us. “They’re too addictive.”
She gave me a look. While aspirin itself isn’t addictive, we both knew my reliance on those pills to manage the pain was pretty close to an addiction.
Natalya lifted her gaze toward the ceiling. She was frustrated with me and I didn’t blame her. I was frustrated with me. She let her hands fall into her lap. “I understand why you don’t travel, and I get why you don’t want to see a doctor. What I can’t figure out is why you insist on living with the pain when you can do something about it. Think of your sons.”
“I am.” I stomped to my bureau where my laptop was charging. “I think of them and their future with a father who can’t remember them every goddamn second of the day. Someone who may always have to be on the run with them.”
“You don’t know that, Carlos. It’s been several years and no one has come after you. I don’t think anyone from that cartel knows who you are, let alone that James is still alive.”
“Not yet.” Phil was still in prison and still believed me dead. What will happen when he discovers the truth? Because instinct told me one day he would.
Natalya sighed, exasperated. “Tell me how I can help. I want to help you.”
Marry me. Adopt my sons. Run far away with them so James or anyone in the Donato family can’t find them.
“Look, I’m tired. I don’t want to talk about this right now.” I yanked out the charge cord and grabbed the laptop.
“Where are you going?”
I turned in the doorway at the note of panic in her voice. She’d risen to her knees, white-knuckling the sheet with both hands. For a splinter of a moment I wanted to drop the laptop and dive back into bed with her. Reassure both of us that everything would be fine. But those were promises I couldn’t keep.
“I’m going downstairs. To write.”
She sat back onto her heels, but she still gripped the sheet. “I don’t like arguing. Please don’t leave. Come back to bed.” She patted the pillow beside her.
“Go to sleep. I’m just going to the kitchen.” I pulled the door closed behind me, leaving it open a crack. I walked past Marcus’s room, then Julian’s.
“Dad?”
I backtracked to his room and poked in my head. His Captain America night-light cast a soft blue glow, chasing shadows into the corner.
“Is it morning yet?” Julian sat up in the middle of his bed and rubbed his eyes.
“Almost. We have a few more hours before sunrise.”
He flopped back onto the pillows. “I’m going to ride down the mountain faster than you.”
“I’m sure you will. Get some sleep.”
He yawned. “Good night, papá.”
I bounded down the stairs to the kitchen and fired up my laptop. While I waited, I sorted through yesterday’s mail, adding the latest magazines to the pile along the far wall. The newspaper didn’t have any articles I thought would be of interest to me later, so I dropped it in the recycling container.
Once the laptop was ready, I opened my Cloud account and uploaded the twenty or so pictures I took yesterday—photos of the boys and Natalya at Julian’s fútbol game—then I added them to the folder where I was storing this month’s images. I had files for everything—photos, journal entries, financial statements, legal documents, and other important instructions. I even wrote notes about what I did on a daily basis, whom I loved (Natalya and my sons), whom I trusted (Natalya) and whom I did not (Thomas and Imelda). Everything was in meticulous order. Because that hypnosis session Thomas forcibly subjected me to? It hadn’t just brought on the headaches. It woke the Jekyll to my Hyde. My other self was fighting his way to the surface, and I knew, without a doubt, I didn’t have much time left.
“Slow down.”
Julian hunched low over the handlebars and leaned into the turn. I coasted behind, picking up speed. The loop through the foothills was mostly paved and we’d ridden it many times. For an eight-year-old, Julian was fearless on his bike.
I moved up alongside him. “Ease up. Stay in control.”
He tackled another turn, putting slight pressure on the brake.
“Looking good.”
Air howled through our helmets. Sunlight glared overhead and heat steamed our backs. Sweat dripped off my chin. We’d started early, and though it was still morning, the day was already hot, dry, and dusty. Good thing we only had another couple of kilometers, all downhill. We’d ridden hard. This father-son time with Julian was great, and I wouldn’t change it, but damn. For the life of me, I couldn’t pedal out of last night’s nightmare. It was as though I’d been there. The throbbing, mind-numbing pain in my skull left me reeling with nausea, and that gun in my face scared the shit out of me.
I motioned for a water break and we slowed to a stop on the side of the road.
Julian gulped down his water and let out a long, well-earned sigh. “Can we take the trail?” he asked, referring to the dirt path that paralleled the road in some spots. It was narrow and littered with divots and overgrown vegetation.
“Think you can handle it?” We’d already ridden more than five kilometers, some of that uphill on dirt and cobblestone roads.
He pointed at himself with both hands. “Hello . . . I’m the fastest halfback on my team.”
“That you are.” His athleticism and competitive drive always amazed me. I washed back a couple of aspirin and a sudden wave of dizziness overcame me. I stumbled to the side, almost dropping the bike.
“Ten out of ten.” Julian rated my lack of finesse.
“Ha-ha.” I shook my head to clear the fog and checked my watch. We’d make it back to the car in less than twenty minutes.
He bounced his bike’s front tire. “Ready?”
“Yep. Take it slow, though.” The fog wouldn’t lift in my head and the last thing I wanted to do was crash and burn in the bushes. Julian wouldn’t let me hear the end of it should that happen.
After glancing both ways, Julian crossed the road and about twenty or so meters downhill, he disappeared over the embankment onto the trailhead.
I returned the water bottle to the holder, got on my bike, and crossed the road. Then I was sitting on a boulder with my head between my knees.
What. The. Fuck?
Pain sliced through me when I lifted my head. I moaned. My skull felt like a watermelon split open on hot pavement.
I looked around. The bike lay in the road beside me and Julian was nowhere in sight.
“Julian?” I hollered, standing. “Julian!”
Where was he?
I turned a 360 in the middle of the road while drowning in mounting panic. “Julian!” I yelled again. Then I remembered the car. Julian and I had an agreement that we’d meet at the car should we get separated.
I jumped on the bike and raced down the hill, eating up the kilometers. The Jeep was parked in a dirt lot at the base of the road and Julian was crouched against the rear passenger tire. Thank God. I hopped off the bike before stopping and ran toward him. The bike crashed into the car’s bumper and I skidded the last few yards.
“Julian!” I knelt before him. “Are you hurt?”
He lifted his head. Tears streaked his dirty face like tire tracks in mud. “You know my name?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I know your name.”
“But you didn’t back there. You took off right after you yelled at me.”
Every nerve ending inside me went ice-cold. I stopped breathing and stared hard at him for what seemed like an eternity. Then I sucked in a big gulp of air and gripped his shoulders as terror gripped me. “What did I say?” He hiccuped a sob. “What did I say?” I yelled.
“You asked who I was and when I said I’m Julian and that I was your son, you said . . . you said . . .” He was full-on bawling, unable to get out the words.
My fingers dug into his triceps. “I said what?”
“You said you didn’t have a son.”