“Sam, wait—”
“Thanks for lunch,” I say, forcing a smile as I retreat to my hotel room to rebuild my defenses.
The next day I see Danny only for the half hour it takes to march the kilo of cocaine I’ve bought from Carlos back into the jungle and bury it, and for the next three days, I insist on doing as much of our communication as I can over the phone. When we have to meet in person, we meet at small cafés throughout the city, finalizing our plans in public. The only time we spend alone is during the eight miserable hours we spend in the hot sun digging a pit deep enough for a man to stand upright and not be able to peer over the edge.
At no time do I allow our conversation to get overly personal or that flirtatious lilt to enter my tone again. I am determined to protect Danny from me, even though that’s clearly not what he wants.
The morning I check out of my hotel, on my way to drop my things at the cabin before Danny and I head to the airport to put our first plan into motion, I’m too nervous about the cocaine in my bag to worry about what it will be like to sleep in the same room with him again.
He promised to take the bed and give me the fold out couch. We should be safe on our separate islands, sharing the same ocean, but never getting close enough to touch. I will stay strong and learn to ignore his smell, his smile, and the way being close to him feels like treading water inches from a life raft.
I will not let him haul me in to safety.
I will stay in the water with sharks until the sea runs red with their blood, and only then will I let myself imagine what it might be like to no longer be alone.
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 bags 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.