CHAPTER EIGHT
Sam
“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”
-Goethe
Whispering at café tables with Danny, the thought of coming within arm’s reach of Scott Phillips and the brothers he flew in with was nerve-wracking, but not terrifying.
Most people only see what they expect to see and none of the men will be expecting me at a Costa Rican airport. Besides, my hair is a different color and I’m wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, sunglasses to conceal my face, and a peach dress, unlike anything I’ve ever owned. I won’t be recognizable at first glance and before Scott has the chance to do more than glance, I’ll be gone.
I thought I was ready.
As ready as I would ever be to walk into an airport with a bag filled with cocaine.
But now that Scott Phillips is standing across the airy, open baggage claim at the Liberia Airport, surrounded by Sigma Beta Epsilon brothers, I’m breaking out in a sweat beneath my filmy dress. My stomach is tied in knots and my hands would be shaking if they weren’t clenched tight around the coffee I’ve been nursing for thirty minutes.
Danny’s nosing around the brothers’ social media pages revealed that Todd, J.D., and Jeremy are on the next flight from L.A., landing in two hours. I don’t have to worry about being noticed by my other targets, but there are fifteen brothers milling around the baggage claim and Scott is at the center of the swarm. His ever-present, pretentious, “I’m the next great American author” briefcase is right beside him, the way I expected it would be, but unless he separates from the crowd, I won’t be able to get close enough to swap out our bag without attracting attention.
Seconds are ticking by and if I don’t get a break soon, I won’t be able to plant the drugs on Scott at the airport with its abundant supply of police ready to respond to a call from a red security phone.
Or worse, I might still be perched on this stool at the espresso bar counter with a kilo of coke in my bag the next time the burly, sharp-eyed man with the drug dog makes his rounds through baggage claim.
I spent half the day yesterday observing the man’s patterns and he doesn’t pass through this area more than once an hour. But it’s been nearly forty minutes since I watched him lead the dog up the escalator toward the security screening line. I’m running out of time and this plan, which seemed so simple and elegant a few days ago, is beginning to look poorly thought out and far too dependent on dumb luck.
Danny and I should give up and get out of here before it’s too late, but I’m possessed by the horrible certainty that if I fail now, I will continue to fail. And I can’t fail. I can’t, or all the hard work and sacrifice of the past year will have been for nothing.
“I should have stuck with the gun,” I whisper behind my coffee cup.
“We still have time,” Danny whispers back. “He’ll get his suitcase and move to the back of the group. That’s when you go.”
I swallow, forcing the acid rising in my throat back down the way it came. “You should head back to the car. If I’m caught, I don’t want you around.”
“You’re not going to get caught,” Danny says firmly, his confidence clearly not as shaken as mine. “Look, he’s got his bag. Get ready. I’ll bet you dinner tonight he’ll start checking his phone in two seconds. You’ll be able to swing by and make the exchange without him looking up from Instagram.”
I nod, heart racing as I set my coffee down and get ready to slide off my stool.
As Scott drags his black roller suitcase off the carousel, he turns to one of his friends and laughs his donkey laugh, the one that showcases his wide, blunt teeth. I thought I had control of my anger, but seeing one of the men who attacked me and lied about it going about his life like he has every right to health and happiness makes me want to kill him with my bare hands.
Heat creeps up my throat to burn my cheeks and the backs of my eyes begin to pulse and throb.
The open air baggage claim is shaded and a cool breeze stirs the air, but I feel like I’m in the middle of one of those broiling Miami days, when I would emerge from my boxing class into one hundred degree weather with one hundred percent humidity feeling like a tomato in a frying pan, so overheated I was about to split my skin.
I literally see red, my vision blurring as Scott reaches the edge of his group and keeps walking, headed toward the far side of the room.
I’m so lost in my anger it takes a beat for panic to penetrate my rage.
“Where’s he going?” I ask, voice shaking. “Where’s he going?”
“The bathroom. I’m going after him.” Danny pulls his ball cap lower over his face and grabs the briefcase by my feet.
I snatch a handful of his tee shirt and hold tight. “No. You can’t. I told you, I won’t let you put yourself in danger.”
“I’m not going to be in danger,” Danny says, speaking low and fast. “I’m going to get this done and we’re going to get out of here. Go stand by the security phone. If I touch my hat on the way out of the bathroom, make the call. I’ll head out the right side of the baggage claim, giving the rest of them a wide berth and meet you at the car.”
I shake my head. “Danny, no, I—”
“There’s no time for a fight, Sam,” he says, pressing a kiss to my cheek before he whispers, “If we’re going to pull this off, we have to be prepared to improvise. See you in a few minutes.”
Before I can find words to stop him, he’s pried my fingers from his shirt and is headed toward the back of the baggage claim with the briefcase. He’s nearly half a foot taller than Scott, with much longer legs. By the time Scott reaches the curved hallway leading into the men’s bathroom, Danny is just a few steps behind.
Which is a good thing, because no sooner has he disappeared than the police officer with the German shepherd appears at the top of the elevator.
Instantly, my throat closes up with panic.
I spin to face the bar, wondering if the smell of the coke is strong enough to draw the dog into the bathroom. Just in case, I fumble my phone from the burlap purse slung across my body and stab out a quick text to Danny—
Dog back. In baggage claim. Don’t come out with bag.
—and hit send, only to be rewarded with a hum from the stool beside me. I glance down to see Danny’s phone resting on the metal seat.
It must have fallen out of his board shorts again.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Doing my best to appear calm and in control, I slide Danny’s phone into my purse along with mine, leave a few hundred colones by my coffee cup for the harried woman manning the counter alone, and start across the room to the emergency phone.
I keep my pace slow and even, ignoring the sweat beading on my upper lip and the hair rising on the back of my neck. The return of the policeman and his dog are bad news for calling in a report, too. I planned to make an anonymous tip and don’t want to be seen, but getting caught with the phone in my hand is far better than Danny getting caught with the drugs.
Stomach cramping and my pulse fluttering unhealthily in my ears, I lean against the concrete wall a few yards from the phone, gaze fixed on the exit to the bathroom, willing everything to be all right.
The policeman and his dog are taking their sweet time circling each of the carousels and almost all the SBE brothers have their bags. It feels like it takes hours for Scott to emerge, dragging his suitcase behind him. I push away from the wall, heart slamming against my ribs as I try to get a better look at the other bag he’s carrying.
He’s only a hundred feet away, maybe less, but the briefcase is in his right hand and I can’t see enough of it to be sure which one it is—his old, battered case, or the new one we bought and roughed up to match it. My hands clench and unclench at my sides as Scott hurries to rejoin his friends and the policeman and his dog complete their circuit of carousel three and start toward the final carousel, their path leading them directly past the bathrooms.
If Danny comes out with the drugs right now, he’s going to be caught. There’s no way the dog is going to miss a kilo of cocaine gliding by right beneath its nose.
I press my lips together and hold my breath, praying for the first time in longer than I can remember. I don’t know who or what I’m praying to, only that I need Danny to be okay. I can’t let him go to jail because of me. Knowing he’s locked away in a cell and suffering because he loved me too much to let me flush my life down the toilet alone would make the hell of the past year seem like a walk in the park.
In that moment, as I wait for Danny to emerge and the dog lifts its nose, its muscled body tensing as it scents the breeze drifting through the airy archways leading to the road, I realize how much I still love him.
My mind clears and the barbed wire coiled around my heart falls away and I’m flooded with love.
And regret.
How could I have let him do this? I should have wrapped my arms around him and refused to let go. I should have tackled him and wrenched the bag out of his hands.
Right then, I swear I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe, if only he steps out of the bathroom holding Scott’s bag instead of his own.
A moment later, Danny’s familiar form appears in the open doorway and time slows. His head is tipped down, his face concealed by the brim of his ball cap, so I have no idea what he’s feeling. The bag in his hand doesn’t look like the bag we bought at the office supply store, but it’s hard to tell at this distance. It could be the case with the coke in it, and if it is, I need to get it in my hand before the dog discovers the source of the smell making its large ears stand straight up and the hair on its back bristle.
I propel myself away from the wall, walking as fast as I dare toward Danny, planning to wrench the briefcase from his hand and accuse him of stealing it if that’s the only way to make sure I take the fallout for our failed plan. But before I’m ten feet from the emergency phone, the dog lets out a deep, terrifying bark and leaps forward.
It lunges for Danny, towing his bulky handler behind him.
I freeze, eyes going wide and terror overloading my nervous system. For a moment, I’m afraid I might do something spectacularly ineffective and girly like faint, but then the dog keeps going. It charges past Danny—who is tugging the brim of his hat as he ambles toward the opposite side of the baggage claim, looking every bit the laid back surfer without a care in the world—and aims its powerful body at Scott.
I watch as the dog rips the briefcase from Scott’s hand, shaking it in its powerful jaws until the top flap flies open and a dark green, plastic wrapped kilo of cocaine comes tumbling out.
Thank.
God.
Or whoever is listening to dark prayers like mine.
Biting back a cry of relief, I turn to the right, moving away from the drama unfolding by carousel four. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the cop draw his gun and order Scott to the floor, first in Spanish, then in louder, more authoritative English.
“There’s been a mistake,” Scott says, paling as he lifts his hands into the air. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know what that is. It’s not mine!”
The second part of his protest is true enough, but Scott has done his share of wrong things.
Of wicked, heartbreaking, life-shattering things.
As he’s forced to the ground and his arms pulled roughly behind his back, I don’t feel the slightest flash of conscience. This is what the spineless worm deserves. This is better than he deserves. He’s getting off easy though he obviously doesn’t know it.
By the time the officer has the cuffs locked around his wrists, Scott is crying out for his friends to help him, begging someone to come explain that there’s been a horrible mistake. But the rest of the Sigma Beta Epsilon frat keep their distance, watching their brother get arrested with expressions ranging from shock to amusement to the boredom peculiar to the very rich and poorly brought up.
Scott is at the bottom of the Greek social structure, a legacy whose father donated too much money to Sterling University’s SBE house for his son to be denied membership. Scott is tolerated by his brothers, allowed to fawn and flatter and to do the jobs the others don’t have time for. He’s the one who organized the cleaning for the house and made sure the kegs were picked up in time for the parties. He’s the one who kept records on the pledges and filled out paperwork for the Greek council. He’s the type of guy who can’t say no, whether it’s signing on for another thankless job or stepping in to take his turn raping a girl pinned to a pool table because his frat president told him to.
He’s pathetic, and if circumstances were different, I might feel sorry for him. He will never be man enough to be anything other than bottom dog, a cowering, self-hating omega begging for scraps from monsters he believes are his betters.
But I remember the way he whimpered as he shoved inside the already wounded place between my legs, grunting like a pig as he found release to the cheers of his brothers. I remember watching him stumble away to collapse on the floor against the wall, tucking himself back into his pants with shaking hands, looking like he was the one who had just lived through something unspeakable. He’d kept his gaze on the floor and his chin tucked to his chest, refusing to look up or meet the eyes of the person he’d violated.
Because I remember, because I will never forget, no matter how much time passes or how much distance I get from that night, I turn my back on Scott and walk away.
And with every step I take toward the parking lot, I feel a little freer.
I lift a hand, holding my straw hat firmly onto my head as I step out of the baggage claim into the breezy afternoon, one less shadow following me into the sun.