CHAPTER 2
CARLOS
Five and a Half Years Ago
December 1
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
He lurked outside Casa del sol’s beach bar, that guy who came with Aimee. Ian, that was his name. Camera slung over his shoulder, he looked at me every so often. Why was he still here? He should have left with her.
Imelda Rodriguez, the hotel’s owner and the woman who posed as my sister, told me Aimee had flown home the day before, a few hours after I’d dropped her off at the hotel. The only reason I knew that was because I’d come by the hotel again this afternoon to deliver Imelda a clear message: Stay away from me and my sons. She was not my sister or their aunt. I didn’t want her in our lives. She’d schemed, she’d manipulated, she’d lied. All so she wouldn’t lose her hotel, of which she was behind on payments. Thomas Donato had paid her to keep up the fabricated life he created for me.
I still didn’t know why he felt the need to involve Imelda. And at the moment I didn’t give a flying crap about him. Sitting at the bar, I tossed back a shot of Patrón and swiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
Two days before, Imelda had confessed I was not Jaime Carlos Dominguez. My name was James Charles Donato and I’d been living in a dissociative fugue state for nineteen months and counting. Anytime, any day, anywhere, I could snap out of it. Boom! I’d be James again. The real me. When that happened, I’d lose every memory I’d had since that day I woke in the hospital to the whir of machines, tubes snaking from my arms, and the gagging stench of dried blood, antiseptic, and my own unwashed body. I didn’t have any idea who I was or where I was from. I didn’t have a single memory in my head but for that first one. That of a doctor looming over me and asking for my name.
When I would emerge from the fugue, I’d forget how much I had loved my deceased wife, Raquel, and my sons. I wouldn’t remember Julian’s hug when he learned I’d adopted him as my son, or recall the first time Marcus squeezed my finger and gave me a toothless smile.
I would forget who I was now. Jaime Carlos Dominguez.
For nineteen months I hadn’t been living a lie. I’d been a lie. A man with a false identity and no past.
As for my future, it seemed I might not have one. My brain would flip the switch from Carlos to James, and the man I was today would disappear tomorrow. And when I did, my sons would have a father who didn’t know them and might not want them.
¡Dios! What will happen to my sons?
I slammed back a few more shots and swallowed the tequila’s burn. I swore I intended to go home after seeing Imelda, but hell. I needed a drink, or two. I emptied another shot glass. Make that five.
The tequila knotted in my esophagus. I hissed through my teeth, pounding my sternum with a fist, then coughed.
I glanced at my watch. Good, I had some time to hang around before returning home. Natalya, my deceased wife’s half sister, was watching the boys. As a representative for her father’s business, Hayes Boards, she was in town for Puerto Escondido’s annual torneo de surf. She planned to leave this morning but given the nuclear bomb that went off this past weekend, she’d stay another week. I needed to deal with the fallout without worrying about who was caring for Julian and Marcus.
I needed another drink.
Pouring more shots, I emptied them in quick succession—one, two, three—striking the glass on the counter after each round. After downing my ninth shot, I stared at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Bloodshot eyes embedded in a face with three days’ growth on my jaw stared back at me. The mirror tilted.
“Whoa,” said the guy on the stool beside me. He pushed me back in my seat.
“Lo siento.” I leaned on my elbows and lowered my head into my hands.
“No worries, dude.” He clapped my sweat-drenched back. Sun-bleached hair fell over his brows. He tossed it back with the flip of his head and grinned.
“You’re done here, Carlos. I’m cutting you off, friend,” Pedro the bartender told me in Spanish. He swiped my glass off the bar and underhanded it into the sink, where it clattered against the other dirty glasses.
I snagged the bottle of Patrón, the finger of liquor left inside sloshing around, and stumbled off my stool. Pedro yelled at me as I left. I waved a hand behind my head. “Put it on my tab.”
I took a long step off the bar’s deck and dropped into the sand. The early evening sun scorched my face, temporarily blinding me. Squinting against the glare, I trudged across the sand, and sought refuge under the shade of a lone palm. It offered no reprieve from the dry heat.
Neither did the tequila, I thought, wiping the sweat off my forehead. I was still the guy with the fake name and doomed future. And I didn’t have an ounce of control over it.
Leaning back against the palm trunk, I gazed at the sun taking a dunk into the ocean’s horizon. Bile thickened in my throat, and my stomach gurgled in that unsettled I-have-to-vomit sort of way. I rubbed the front of my shirt and eyed the trash can nearby. A camera clicked.
I scowled at the photographer.
Ian lowered his camera, letting it hang from the strap over his shoulder. He used his hand as a visor, shading his face. “The lighting’s phenomenal. It was a good shot.”
I flipped him off.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, I should have asked.”
“Forget about it.” I probably would. One day. I offered the near-empty bottle. “Drink?”
He grabbed the bottle’s neck, wiped the lip with his shirt, and drank. His lips spread thin over his teeth as the liquor’s sourness made its way to his stomach. He returned the bottle, now empty.
“Why are you still here?”
He clipped a cap on the lens. “Imelda’s looking up some information for me.”
I overhanded the Patrón into the nearest trash can and missed. It dropped into the sand. Shit. “I wouldn’t trust anything she tells you.”
“My situation is unrelated to yours.”
“You mean she hasn’t been paid to lie to you?” I pushed away from the tree and the horizon tilted.
“Steady, man.” Ian snagged my arm. He scooped up the Patrón and waved the bottle at me. “Did you drink the entire thing?” he asked, tossing it into the trash. It crashed onto a pile of empty Corona bottles left over from the torneo.
I shook my head. No, thank God. I was drunk, not comatose. The bottle had been less than half-full when Pedro started pouring me shots. Speaking of shots . . .
“I need another one.” I stumbled away from the tree.
Ian folded his arms. “You’re just like him, you know.”
“Of course I look like James.” You idiot.
He nodded his head in the direction of Casa del sol’s lobby. “I was talking about your brother Thomas.”
The asshole who choreographed my mess of a life. Definitely not the person I wanted to see. I couldn’t be responsible for what I’d do to him if I did. He’d find out firsthand what it was like to recover from reconstructive facial surgery and pulled shoulder ligaments.
That had been my second memory. Opening my eyes to a woman sitting beside my bed. She’d worn a white blouse and gray skirt, her shapely legs crossed and leaning to the side. Breathtakingly beautiful, that was my first thought of her. Like an exotic model from an upscale clothing catalog. Or the ones airbrushed to perfection on the glossy pages of a magazine, like the one she flipped through. I lifted my head to see what she was reading and groaned at the laser-sharp pain that exploded in my shoulder.
Her head snapped up. She tossed aside the magazine and leaned over me. Her hand found mine, soft and cool to the touch, and when she smiled, her cocoa eyes sheened. “Don’t move; you need to rest,” she said in a soothing voice. “Your nose and cheekbones had to be reset. The less you move, the less pain you’ll feel.” Her fingers fluttered over my face, drawing my attention to the bandages wrapped around my head.
She nodded toward my right shoulder. “You dislocated it.” She explained that the swelling had finally diminished enough for Dr. Mendez to pop the joint back into place. I had to keep it immobile, then I’d need therapy.
My gaze skimmed her face, the sharp angles of her cheekbones and straight line of her nose, hinting of European descent. I frowned. How could I know that when I didn’t even know who she was, let alone my own name?
“Who are you?” I whispered through chafed lips.
“Imelda.” She smoothed her palms over the front panel of her skirt. “Imelda Rodriguez. I’m your sister, and I’m going to take care of you, Carlos. Sí?”
“Sí.”
I had a sister.
I didn’t know why it was important. It was more like a feeling I had. This woman would watch over me while I healed. For the moment, I felt safe.
As I eyed Ian a few paces away, an uneasy feeling rippled through me, adding to the queasiness brought on by downing too much liquor in the span of twenty minutes. I wondered if I was any safer today than I had been before I entered my fugue state.
Pedro left his post at the bar and went around the back, probably for a smoke. He’d never know I’d slipped back into the bar for one more shot. “I’m getting a drink. Want one?”
Ian shook his head and shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Drinking yourselves to oblivion won’t solve your problems.”
I snorted in disgust.
“Yeah, your bro’s fairly wasted, too. He’s been a permanent fixture in the lobby bar since he arrived two days ago.”
“I don’t give a fuck. As for my problems, those shots have done a phenomenal job making me forget them.” I started to walk away.
“May I give you a word of advice?”
The warm sand under my feet and the alcohol I’d consumed were turning my body to liquid. I swayed as I stared at him. He didn’t say anything, just tilted his head and lifted both brows, waiting. I sighed, circling my hand. Come on, man, spit it out. I needed to move on.
“Talk to him,” Ian advised.
“For real?” I scoffed, and started to turn away again.
“Then go beat the crap out of him. Trust me, you’ll both feel better.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I said around a thick tongue. Maybe I shouldn’t have another drink. I didn’t need Imelda to cart my ass home.
“Suit yourself.” Ian made the briefest eye contact before touching his brow and giving me a two-fingered salute in the direction he started walking. He was probably going to go pack for his flight back to the States. Back to Aimee.
“You love her,” I said when he reached the bottom steps where the hotel’s patio kissed the sandy beach.
He swung around and leveled his gaze with mine. “Yes, I do. Very much.”
“Treat her well. Apparently, I didn’t do such a great job.”
He gave me a brief nod and jogged up the steps, taking them two at a time.
My phone buzzed. A text message from Natalya.
Will you be home for dinner?
I wiped the sweat from my eyes and texted back.
No. Not tonight.
I didn’t want to show up drunk. Not before the boys went to sleep. They didn’t need to see how messed up their father was. But Natalya . . .
Wait up for me.
Please.
She pinged back within seconds.
I will. Be careful.
I worried her. She told me as much when I laid out my tragic story like a freshly caught fish split open, skinned, and deboned. I felt like that fish out of water. Flapping around and gasping. Floundering as I tried to make sense of it all. The lies, the deceit. The abandonment. My family had left me here, like a discarded flip-flop lost in the sand. Natalya had stared at me, her eyes the size of the full moon outside my bedroom door, her jaw unhinged. Then she cried and tried to comfort me. I didn’t want her sympathy, and I especially didn’t want her pity. I punched the wall instead and went for a run. I ran hard, and fast, and for miles. Because if I stayed with her she’d see me cry, too.
Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I looked at the ocean and debated where to go next. Beside me was the beach bar. Behind me was the hotel. Ian had disappeared into the lobby and Thomas was somewhere inside. Most likely the lobby bar. You’re just like him. Ian’s words returned like waves that kept on coming. Forget the tequila. I needed to paint.
I flipped through my prefugue paintings, the ones Thomas had shipped here under the guise they were mine. I studied them as though seeing them for the first time. These were his. I mean, mine.
James’s.
Whatever.
I snapped through the canvases, leaning one after the other against my shins. Paintings of landscapes I could only assume I’d once seen. A forest of oaks in the evening light. A meadow at sunset. An ocean cast in the hues of slate and stone. Where were these places? What meaning had they held for him?
Not him. Me, I corrected. What meaning had they held for me?
Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
I slammed the paintings back against the wall and shoved open the window. The evening breeze, heavy with salt from the ocean and smoke from the grills parked on the sidewalks below, exploded into the room. I sucked in the pungent air and a palette knife of pain sliced through my skull as though my brain were a glob of acrylic paint. I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. Tomorrow’s hangover would be nasty.
In the far corner of my private studio, paintings of Aimee’s likeness mocked me. I’d been painting her for over a year, the woman I reached for in my dreams. Her image morphed painting after painting until it had become almost an exact replica of the woman I’d found crying outside my studio.
That had been the ultimate mind-screw, seeing her sitting there; to touch the woman who left me baffled on the nights she came to me. Always the same dream—always my reaching for her, kissing her soft lips until she faded away, leaving my arms empty and soul wanting. Longing for something. Or, had that been that other part of me, the James me that longed for her?
Those dreams stirred a mixture of baser emotions. Joy, sadness, anger, and fear. All but the fear dissipated when I jolted awake, gasping for breath. Fear clung to me long after I woke in a sweat, damp sheets tangled around my calves. Some nights it took hours to fall back to sleep. Other nights I remained awake until the first light of dawn. I’d lace up my running shoes and hit the pavement to burn off that fear.
But it never completely went away. Now I knew. In all honesty, I’d been afraid since the day I woke in the hospital. I thought the memory loss triggered that fear, when perhaps it had been something else warning me that everything Imelda and the doctors had told me about my past had been manufactured. Some buried part of me understood it was all a lie. I was a lie.
I scrubbed my face with both hands, hating that nightmare. I hated that image of Aimee luring me toward her. She represented everything I couldn’t remember and everything I would lose. Damn her. Damn her to hell.
I roared, grabbing one of the older versions of her image, and slammed it against the table. The wood frame splintered. I smacked the canvas again. Again, and again, and again. God, I hated her. I hated that I dreamed about her. I hated that she came looking for me. She ruined my life. No! I slammed the canvas against the tabletop. Imelda ruined my life. Thomas screwed me over. They screwed up my sons’ chances of having a normal life.
Sweat broke out across my body and veins popped up on my arms as I did what I could to annihilate the painting. The wood frame fell apart and the canvas shredded. I lunged for another canvas.
“James!”
I whirled, teeth bared. Thomas stood in the doorway, suit pants wrinkled and white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up his forearms and jacket slung over his shoulder. His hair was uncombed and brown eyes wild. We had the same color eyes.
I sneered at him. He clutched the door frame, his chest heaving as though he’d been running. How long had he been there? How many times had he called my name?
No, he didn’t call my name. I wasn’t James.
“Don’t, James. Don’t destroy your paintings.”
“That’s not my name,” I spat. “I’m not him.” I didn’t want to be him. I am me. My body, my life.
“Fine. Carlos. I don’t care what name you go by. You’re still my brother.”
I jabbed a finger at him and ate the distance between us. “You’re no brother of mine.” I punched him in the jaw. His head snapped. He staggered back a few steps. White-hot pain radiated from my knuckles to my shoulder, rattling my arm. That hurt. I shook my hand.
Thomas gripped the door frame to right his balance. He pressed fingers to his chin, worked his jaw. “Damn. Guess I deserved that.”
He deserved much more where that came from. I wanted to hit him again, beat him until his nose shattered and cheekbone cracked. He needed to leave. He needed to leave now. I pointed at him. “Get out.” I had two sons to worry about. If I came home drunk, bruised, and bloodied, Natalya would be fuming and Julian would ask questions. He was almost six, and he was smart. He’d know his dad got into a fight and he’d want to know why.
¡Mierda! How do I tell them about me?
I don’t. Not yet. They’re too young to understand. I could barely wrap my own damaged mind around it.
Flexing my fingers, I gave Thomas my back. I picked up the damaged canvas from the floor. It had split down the middle, right through the beautiful eyes that had bewitched me for months. I tossed the ruined painting on the table, wondering if Aimee would visit me again in my dreams now that I knew who she was. Would that other part of me still try to communicate while I slept? Because that was what I believed James was doing. There was something he wanted me to know.
Thomas came into the room, edging the table. He stopped on the opposite side. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. Imelda and Aimee have told me enough.”
“They’ve only told you what they know.”
Which was more than I cared to understand. The more I knew about James, the greater the chance I’d snap out of the fugue.
“I don’t want to hear anything more, especially from you.”
“I don’t care what you want,” Thomas snapped.
“Obviously. That’s why I’m here,” I scoffed, pushing off the table and extending my arms to encompass the room, the town. Oaxaca. This whole fucking country.
“God dammit.” Thomas pounded the table. “Would you just listen? Please. Hear me out.”
“Why now? Why not nineteen months ago when I was flat on my back in a hospital bed? Why not when my face was swollen and shoulder busted and I was going out-of-my-mind crazy wondering who the hell I was?” My mind flashed back to the hospital, to a man standing outside my door. Aviator glasses, expensive suit, and face etched in grief. Anger sparked, flaring hot like a struck match. “You were there, in the hospital.”
Thomas shifted. His mouth parted briefly then flattened. He nodded.
“You gave Imelda the envelope with all my documents.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t say a damn thing to me and you paid her to lie!” I grabbed the jar of paint on the side of the table, the Caribbean-blue color I’d worked hard to customize so that it matched the eyes of the woman in my dreams. Aimee’s eyes. I lugged the jar across the room. Thomas’s brows shot up into his hairline. He ducked. The jar shattered against the wall behind him. Paint oozed like a Jackson Pollack painting, down the wall, puddling on the floor.
Thomas lunged out of the way. Paint stained the back of his shirt, dotted his hair. Blue polka dots like the cartoon animals in one of Julian’s children’s books. His shirt was ruined.
I shoved my fingers through my hair. “Go. Just go away.”
Thomas hesitated; then he pulled out a card from his breast pocket and left it on the table. “I kept you hidden to keep you safe. Phil tried to kill you.”
“The same guy who attacked Aimee? Where’s he now?”
“In prison.”
“Then I don’t need to worry about him.”
“There’s more—” He stopped when I held up my hand. He scratched the side of his nose. “Suit yourself. Call me when you’re ready to talk. But for now, I’m thinking it’s probably best you remain in Puerto Escondido.”
“I never intended to leave.”
Thomas shot me a look before walking to the doorway. He picked his suit jacket up from the floor where he’d dropped it after I punched him. He folded the garment over his arm. “Promise me you’ll call if you change your mind.”
“About talking or leaving Puerto Escondido?”
“Both.” He gave me a sad smile. “Take care of yourself and . . . watch your back.” With that, he left the room.