La Paz airport was still two hours away. I yawned and peered over at Dean crumpled in the seat next to me, deep in sleep. No sound coming from the pod behind us. Other than the engines whining softly, the cabin was quiet and still as a tomb.

I peeled myself carefully out of the blankets and stood to go to the washroom. A smaller tomb inside the tomb. I sat on the closed toilet seat and tried to think. Yes, I had lied to him. And I had lied when he asked me whether I lied.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and tapped it awake. There was no signal up here, but the memory of my secret conversation was still fresh on the screen. Not a dream after all. My fingertips hovered over those words, as good as set in stone now, and I tried to think.

“We have unfinished business,” said the first message. I had received it late last night, while Dean was showering and I lay waiting in bed for him. It had felt like a message from the devil himself. Like the spirit of a dead man speaking to me through a Ouija board, I still couldn’t quite believe it. With those few words, Jeff Cane had put to rest any doubts I had that his escape would affect me. I had stared at that message for ages, trying to figure out what it meant, what he wanted from me. And then I realized that I didn’t want to tell Dean about it.

I scrolled further down, trying to find some missed insight hiding in those brief, furtive texts before we had boarded and taken off.

“We have unfinished business.”

I replied: “That’s true.”

Had it sounded sinister? Disinterested? Or even …playful?

“Congratulations on your marriage and daughter,” he had texted next. Nothing strange. Nothing illegal about making small talk with an escaped convict, was there?

“Thank you,” I had texted back, daring him to say whatever it was that he wanted to say already. He was a fugitive, hiding god-knows-where. The man who had almost certainly killed his wife. I remembered all those poisonous words he had poured into my ear so long ago. About how I truly understood him. I had hated to think that a man so dark had seen anything of himself in me.

“I underestimated you,” he had texted back next. Of course he had. And yes, I was still buzzing from the thrill of the trial, still coming down from the high of it all.

I had replied, “you still are underestimating me.” And I had cringed after I sent that, ashamed that I was having a conversation with him at all, horrified that I hadn’t called the police already, hadn’t raced to fetch Dean and showed it to him immediately. And then, when he took his time replying, I felt a rash of embarrassment that would have only gotten worse and worse had it not been interrupted by his final message: “Do you miss me Nora?”

I had switched my phone off and flung it aside on the bed, and Dean had come from the shower and we had gone to sleep, but the words were still there on my phone, still in my mind. He hadn’t sent anything more after that. Dean had told everyone to switch their phones off just before we headed out to the airfield, but I had kept mine on. Stupid, I know. Insane, actually. But I couldn’t help myself. It would be difficult for him to trace us that way, but not impossible. My husband was doing his damndest to keep us safe and hidden, and yet I had deliberately left a little opening, a little bread crumb I knew Jeff would be tempted to follow.

Do you hate me now? Are you wondering why I would do such an awful thing to jeopardize our safety – the safety of my own child? I don’t know what to tell you. All I can say is that for the first time in a good few months, it felt totally, unequivocally like the right thing to do. Just knowing that he was out there, just knowing that there was a chance of him finding us, of the possibility of danger… it did something to me.

I can’t defend myself and my actions. Not really. I know it won’t seem like it makes much sense for me to say that I loved Dean with all my heart and little Matilda with even more of me than that. How could I love them and still flirt with danger like I had? What was I thinking? Well, I wasn’t thinking. I was …feeling. I hated Jeff Cane with an intensity bordering on obsession. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do if he were to appear again in our lives. And yet… the thought of Jeff Cane made all the other thoughts in my life seem so much clearer and brighter.

I stared down at my phone, hands shaking over the screen a little.

No matter where in the world I went, I couldn’t leave behind the things that Jeff Cane represented in my life. My old clients used to tell me that the timely application of pain was something that elevated them, and brought their ordinary experiences up and into a realm even more rarified than ordinary pleasure. The darker the darkness they could take, the lighter the light they were rewarded with. Like watching a really good horror movie. Like that sickening, fantastic thrill of hovering suspended at the highest arc of a rollercoaster and anticipating everything that was about to happen to you, and knowing you couldn’t resist it. Like how much more delicious a warm bed seemed when there was a vicious thunderstorm raging outside.

By the time we began circling the airport, it was mid-afternoon and the sky was sun-bleached and pale. From the air the country had a ragged, chaotic look to it, like a giant rock baking in the sun, scattered here and there with patches of wild foliage.

We landed easily and Dean stirred, woke up and squeezed my thigh lovingly. Colleagues of friends of investors of other friends had an available vacation home here that they had been happy for us to use. But what would happen if I dashed out of the door the second it was opened, and ran out into those humid hills, and never came back at all? So far away that nobody could find me again, not even Dean?

We disembarked and were hit with an oppressive wave of heat as we descended the steps. Matilda was restless and I took the opportunity to put her on my hip and fuss with her instead of paying too much attention to the gawking airport officials. Dean dealt with them swiftly and soon we were all ferried to a cordoned off area and the open doors of our escort vehicle. Who would dream of coming out all this way, to the middle of nowhere? It didn’t only feel like we were safe, it felt like we had dropped out of existence all together.

The nanny slammed the car door on the heat and we all took turns exchanging looks with one another in the car. The driver, already having been given his instructions, left swiftly. My eyes caught the weapon at his hip. Dean caught me looking and smiled tenderly at me. How did such an awful bitch like me end up with such a perfect man? I leaned forward to peck him on the cheek and we sped off, out into Bolivia, of all fucking places, and it was strange enough that nobody felt compelled to say much. Even Matilda, usually content with her own private dramas that included her toes or her teething ring, was struck by the new scenery outside the tinted windows, and was watching it rush by with interest.

Why couldn’t we just live here forever, away from California and everything in it, and start over again? Why not raise Matilda here in the wild, barefoot, and grow olives and forget about everything? Already it felt like having left home, it had no hold on me anymore, and I wanted to keep going even further. Why not live a life in each and every wild little corner like this that we could find? One life in Tanzania. One life in Mongolia. One life in Estonia. We could be like gypsies, leaving camp whenever the notion took us, when the wind changed and we felt like it.

As we drove down increasingly quiet roads away from the center of town and further north, to our little villa hideaway, I stared out of the window long and hard, until I noticed my own reflection staring back at me. I turned away and put my head on his shoulder.

“We’ll be back home soon,” he said quietly. “We won’t be out here long. And the villa is beautiful, I have no doubt about it. You’ll be very comfortable there, and Maria will help you with everything…” he said, sensing my unease.

I snuggled closer to him.

“As long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter.”

Did it matter that I had lied to him, if I also told him the absolute truth, plainly, just like that? None of it did matter. The money. The jets and the cars and the pretty houses. As long as we were together, I didn’t care about being ‘comfortable’.

We drove on in silence, taking in the landscape outside, each of us far off in our own thoughts. The car had some trouble on some rocky inclines and then we were back on tarred road again. We wove on like this, seemingly in and out of civilization, until we found ourselves on what ended up being a dirt road driveway straight to a private property.

Dean’s friends had the kind of money that you could almost smell as you got closer to it. The rocks and shrub of this rural Bolivian village gave way to expensive looking slate paving that cut through a sharp path for us to drive through, and soon we were flanked by clipped topiaries and astonishingly, a bubbling fountain at the head of the drive.

We pulled up at a portico dressed with the shocking pink of bougainvillea, inviting us through a tunnel that lead to a house that looked like a mirage crouched here in the hills. I was almost disappointed that we weren’t going to be hiding out in a more authentic place, but then I remembered that Dean’s friends weren’t the type to let the fact that they were in a poor tropical country stop them from feeling like they were in the lap of luxury.

Inside all the tiles and terracotta were cooling and peaceful. But I felt ill at ease. Matilda had dozed off and Maria took her off to set up her nursery. The driver made himself scarce in that way they always do and I was left staring at Dean across from a marble table in the kitchen that felt like a dissection slab.

“On the run again,” I said, half a question, half a statement. I could still taste him.

“One day, Nora, you and I are going to have a quiet little life together, OK?” he said and took a few slow steps towards me.

“Quiet? Oh god, don’t say that. I can manage anything except quiet!” I said and extended my arms to him laughing, although I meant it a lot more than he probably knew. I folded easily into his arms and he held me there soft and still, his hands resting at the small of my back and his chin balanced just so on the top of my head – just one of the many ways we knew to fit our puzzle pieces together.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

“Never better.”

He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes.

“You’re brave, you know that?”

“Not brave,” I said quickly and squirmed from his arms. “Just not scared of the same things everyone else is.”

I traced my fingers over the cold marble counter top and tried to assess its sturdiness, and whether I’d fit on it outstretched. There were no handles to grab in the event I convinced him to do to me what I wanted him to do, right here on this table.

“We have unfinished business,” I said, the recycled words feeling more than a little dangerous on my tongue. He gave me a smile so hot I could believe it might melt even that cold marble slab under my fingertips.

“Do we? Now I seem to have forgotten what that was… do you think you could remind me?” he said and sidled over, where he soon had his lips teasing warm and wet against mine.

“Oh, you remember…” I said, and rubbed the top of his thigh through his trousers.

“I really don’t. Remind me” he said and pressed his hips against me, pressing me backwards so I had to extend my elbows onto the marble to prop myself up.

“You… had something to give me,” I said and slowly lifted my knees higher, so I slipped further back onto the table, and could nearly graze my bare feet along his lower back.

I loved when he held my feet when he fucked me. I loved when he gripped both of my ankles hard and pulled me open wide and ploughed into me like he was trying to teach me a lesson. I wanted that now. Wanted a deep, merciless fuck right here, right now, quick and dirty before anyone could think twice about it. I loved how slippery my slightly sweaty skin felt against the unyielding marble, and how I could smell the heat on him too, could smell the air and dust and heat on him, and how I was ready for his cock again, ready for the rough stubble of his face against my neck as he leaned in close to whisper things into my ears as he inched into me down below. I wasn’t just horny. There was something demonic in my hunger for him.

I dug my nails into his biceps and let my lips part as kissed my neck a little. I once saw a crow on a fence panting in the heat, its beak open. I felt like that crow just then.

Animalistic.

Black-eyed.

I didn’t want him to just fuck me. I wanted him to destroy me. I wanted sweet, sweet annihilation, to be nailed so hard I stopped thinking, till every last whimpering atom of my body belonged to him, fucked roughly till nothing remained, stretched past all reasonable limits, spread wide and adored and degraded and loved and ruined till every last care and worry for this stupid world was shattered, drenched in sweat and dripping with beautiful cum, his cum…

He pressed his fingertip to my lip and smiled sweetly at me.

“You, my little minx, are insatiable, aren’t you? I’m going to head outside and do a quick scan of the property and make sure Alberto’s sorted out that back section. And then I’m coming back for you. You can help me test the strength of the bedposts if you’re a good girl,” he said with a grin. I grabbed his hand and stopped him from walking off.

“No. Now,” I said quietly and pinned him with my eyes. My legs were still slightly parted, and my skirt was no rumpled high up on my thighs.

“Baby… this is for us. Let me make sure everything’s safe and then we can relax, just you and me, ok?” he said. I let him go and he trotted out the kitchen, ready to survey the perimeter.

How could I tell him that the fact that we were in danger was the whole reason I wanted him to take me right there, right then? How I could I tell him I didn’t want to ‘relax’ at all? I didn’t even understand it myself.

I hopped off the counter and idly rifled through the fridge, then padded barefoot around the dining area, casually taking note of the various artifacts and artworks the owners had arranged here and there. It was utterly boring. Maybe I could understand why Jeff was the way he was.

What do you do after you have all the money you could ever want? What do you do when all your needs are easily taken care off?

Reader, there’s a certain kind of boredom I hope you never get to experience. I was beginning to stare into the jaws of the horror of a comfortable life and let me tell you, there was nothing strange or dark or thrilling enough that I wouldn’t have considered it at that moment to alleviate the boredom of that tasteful sitting room, those perfect carpets, that glossy kitchen.

I went upstairs to what was probably our bedroom and saw our luggage propped neatly at the entrance. I pressed open the door and my throat screamed out loud before I had fully registered what I was looking at. My blood stopped pumping and I staggered backwards, hands to my mouth, unable to stop the blood chilling shrieks that were coming from there. In front of me was a beautiful four poster bed with graceful white gauze curtains draped over it, and between those parted curtains, like a tiny drama presented on a tiny stage, was the twisted and bloody body of a cat. Partly dried pools of nearly black blood lay in violent globs against the white bed covers. I screamed for an eternity. Downstairs, I heard Matilda start crying desperately herself.

In an instant the sound of footsteps announced Dean’s arrival, followed by the pale faces of the nanny and the driver who then stared at the bed like a demon had taken their tongues and frozen them to the spot.

“Fucking hell,” Dean muttered under his breath, again and again, and his arms were on my shoulders as he looked me over, searched all over the room with wild eyes and came to look at me again, stroking my face hard.

“Are you hurt? Did you see anyone?” he begged. I shook my head, unable to speak.

The driver had already bustled into the room, folded the bedsheets over and bundled the bloody cat over his shoulder, before bouncing out the bedroom with the nanny following him, muttering in panicked Spanish.

Dean was at the windows now, looking for a place where someone could have entered. I backed away slowly, my ears ringing.

He had been in here.

Jeff Cane, by some miracle, had beaten us to this villa, murdered the cat and had time to leave it spread here, right on the place that only a minute ago I had imagined Dean and I would occupy. The thought was too grisly for words. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and my shaking hands seemed not to listen to my command to stop shaking.

Dean raced downstairs after pecking me on the cheek and I was left alone again upstairs, staring at the now stripped bed. The commotion continued on downstairs but I couldn’t focus on any of that. Suddenly, I felt a buzz in my handbag and realized it was my phone. The world went quiet as I looked down to the see the message from Jeff Cane resting there in my palm:

I like it when you scream. You have 2 hours. Run.