Snowbound

EIGHTY

He’d been trying to catch the bartender’s attention for five minutes, with no success. The club was packed, the music appalling, and all he wanted was a nightcap, something strong and classic that you didn’t have to slurp out of someone’s navel.

The hard bump jolted him from his annoyed reverie, and he turned, ready, but it was just a very drunk young man—twenty-one, twenty-two—holding a Corona with lime in each hand, taking full advantage of the all-inclusive amenities. He wore a baseball cap turned sideways on his head, and no shirt, for the benefit of anyone who might desire an unencumbered view of his magnificently sculpted abs.

“Watch out there, bro, ’kay?”

Javier glanced down at his boots, spilled beer foaming on the iguana skin as a surge from the dance floor pushed the college boy within range.

“Watch out? You just bumped into me,” Javier said. “Why are you telling me to watch out?”

One of the young man’s friends grabbed his arm, “Come on, Brian, I found that piece of ass we saw at the pool today.”

But Brian jerked his arm away. “Nah, man, nah.” His face becoming flushed with rage. “What the fuck is your problem, bro?” He poked a finger into Javier’s chest, cerveza sloshing onto Javier’s black silk shirt, so close now, Javier could see his pupils—booze-dilated into huge black plates.

“Nothing,” Javier said.

“What?” Brian turned his head, displaying his ear to Javier in an exaggerated fashion.

“Nothing,” Javier said, louder.

Brian nodded. “That’s right. That’s what the fuck I thought.”

“What did you think?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘That’s what the fuck I thought.’ Like you had already formed an opinion prior to my response.”

“Yeah,” Brian said, pointing in his face now, “I could tell you were a little bitch and that you wouldn’t do shit.”

Javier nodded, smiling, “Very perceptive of you, Brian.”

Then he turned toward the bar, the bartender coming his way now, raised a finger to catch her attention as the college boy drifted back toward the dance floor.

He strolled the Fun Ship’s Empress Deck, the glasses pleasantly cool in his hands. Though he could still hear the bass pulse of the Christmas Eve rave at the Galax-Z dance club on the upper deck—a trip hop remix of “Silent Night”—it felt good to be walking away from that madness toward the bow.

They were thirty miles off the eastern bulge of South America, and the stars shone in clustered swarms. Farthest he’d ever been from Sonora.

He’d been planning to kill her tonight, but he figured he might as well play it safe, wait until they reached Rio. There was such joy in the anticipation.

She put her hands on the railing and leaned over the bow, the dark water six stories below, tropical air clinging to her skin like sweaty satin.

Kalyn turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. Javier passed through the illumination of a deck light and handed her a glass, Kalyn registering the sour waft of tequila.

“Patrón,” he said. “Sorry, best they had.”

They clinked glasses, stood leaning against the railing. Somewhere out in all that dark lay the coast of Brazil. They would dock in Rio de Janeiro on New Year’s Eve.

“How is Kalyn tonight?”

“All right, I guess. Missing Lucy.”

Javier sipped his tequila. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Raphael.”

“You’ll see him again.”

“I hope.”

She said, “We did a good thing, you know.”

“I’m aware.”

“Doesn’t it feel good to you?”

“I suppose.”

She looked over and smiled, thinking of that night just a year ago, when she’d finally caught up with him. He’d wanted a way out—they both had—and she’d shown him a door. Now they were standing here together at the bow of a cruise ship, en route to South America, with $425,000 between them that Javier had taken from the safe in that Alaskan lodge. He still scared her, something diamond-hard and unknowable in those blue eyes, but she liked that he scared her, and she liked his heat.

“Merry Christmas, Jav.”

“Feliz Navidad, Kalyn.”

The engines of the cruise ship hummed beneath them, a low, steady bass line, and Kalyn leaned over just enough so their elbows touched.

Javier said, “What are you doing?”

“This.” And she kissed him for the first time, for a long time.

When they came apart, she said, “But you know something?” The corners of her mouth and her tongue were tingling. “You still hurt my sister, you fucking psychopath.”

Javier smiled at this, but the smile faded and he stared in disbelief, watching Kalyn bend down, her knees grazing the pool of blood, and wrap her arms around his thighs.

Then she hoisted him up onto the railing, grabbed the handle of the knife she’d embedded in his gut, and pushed him into the Atlantic Ocean.