EPILOGUE
CARLOS
Six Months Ago
December 17
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Carlos let himself in through the glass slider as he always did when he visited his neighbor.
“Señora Carla?” he called.
Classical music played softly. Vases of freshly cut flowers from the local market colored the room and perfumed the home’s artificially chilled air, as did the faint chemical scent of pigment. Carla had been painting earlier.
“Carla?” he called again. He heard a faint noise in the other room, like a pen tapping on a desktop.
He followed the sound through the great room and into the den. Carla wasn’t there but her laptop was powered up and on her desk. He’d quickly check into its wireless-connection issue then leave her a note. He was already late for a meeting with a new client at the gallery. The mayor had commissioned a painting for city hall.
Carlos jiggled the mouse before realizing the Skype app was already open with a connected call. A man dressed in an orange jumpsuit sat on the other side, leg propped on the table as he leaned back in his chair. He stared at the ceiling, his fingers drumming on the chair arm.
Where was Carla? She couldn’t have gone far considering she had a call still connected. Obviously, she’d gotten her wireless to work without him. Perhaps the man on the other side knew where she’d gone off to.
“¿Hola?” he asked.
The caller dipped his chin and narrowed his eyes at the screen. His brows bunched in confusion; then his mouth fell open. “James?”
Carlos jerked back. His stomach bottomed out like a sinkhole.
Orange-suit man dropped his booted feet to the floor with a loud thud. He leaned forward, his face and shoulders filling the screen. He whooped. “It is you.”
Carlos’s gaze dove to the name stamped on the man’s right breast. DONATO, P.
Phil.
The name crash-landed in Carlos’s head. Dread, sour and toxic, filled the empty space in his gut.
Phil hooted, slapping a palm on the tabletop. His image bounced on the screen—his steepled palms over his nose and mouth, his eyes going baseball-size on either side of his fingers. “You’re alive. You’re fucking alive.”
Carlos worked his jaw. His hands balled into fists as the dread twisted and morphed into a level of rage he couldn’t comprehend. Pain splintered through his head, leaving him unbalanced and seeing stars.
“Thomas, you sonofabitch,” Phil said more to himself. He jabbed a finger at the screen. “He told me you were dead. Jesus, it’s a miracle you survived at all considering how offshore we were. Ah, man, I thought you were a goner when I told you to jump, with your face being so messed up. They did a number on you. Sal, that tool that was with us in the boat, he took my gun. He shot at you, man. He shot at you!”
Phil continued to ramble, jumping out of his chair to lean in closer to the screen. Carlos’s eyes bugged, the pain behind them unbearable. He weaved on his feet.
Phil thumped his chest. “I never planned to use it. I wasn’t going to kill you. No way, man. You might have treated me like shit all our lives but I never would have killed you. Brothers don’t do that to each other. I told you to swim. I warned you when to jump. I saved your ass, I saved you. Sal would have killed you. But not me. I couldn’t pull the trigger. I just couldn’t.” Spittle rained on the screen, giving his lips an unnatural sheen. He flopped back into his chair and heaved a breath. “Besides, Mom would have kicked my ass if I harmed you, especially after what I tried with Aimee. Dude. My bad. But, shit, the whole family had teed me off. I was tired of being treated like crap by you guys. You can understand that, right?”
Nausea sloshed inside Carlos. He bent at the waist, hands on hips, and blew out large breaths. He started panting.
“It’s great to see you, man,” Phil was saying, “really, really great.”
Carlos cocked his head from his bent-over position and glared at the laptop. Phil peered into the tiny camera narrowing his eyes. “You look different. They fixed your face, like a Racer-X-from-Speed-Racer-reconstructive-surgery fix. Damn, your face had been a mess when I last saw you. Your eye was practically sealed shut. How did you swim like that? Come to think of it, how did you get to shore?”
Carlos’s chest rose and fell. His fingers dug into his kneecaps.
Phil scratched his cheek. “Fucking spectacular, man. I still can’t believe I’m seeing you. All this time I thought you were dead, and there you are, in the flesh, hanging out with Mom.
“By the way, why are you there?” He gasped. “Have you been in Mexico this whole time?”
Carlos gritted his teeth. Sweat bloomed over every inch of skin. Muscles cramped. His entire body was shaking. He straightened to his full height and stared down at the laptop.
Phil whistled. “Boy, you look madder than a penned-up bull. You must be really upset with me. But, hey”—he raised both hands in surrender—“I’m a reformed man. I take full responsibility for everything, including that little finger number I did on your fiancée.” He wiggled his fingers, then cleared his throat. “Oops, ex-fiancée. I was a bit messed in the head back then.” He pointed at his temple then clapped his hands together. “Tell you what. When I get out of here, I’ll make it up to you. I owe you big-time. You helped me see the light, so to speak. I’ll find you and we can—”
Carlos roared. He grabbed the laptop and threw it at the window. Glass shattered.
He looked madly around the room, panting, fists balled. Home. He had to get home.
And this place wasn’t home.