The last line was my suggestion, and Lillian’s own words, which we had also used on Marcella’s stone. It fit Marcella a lot better than Lillian, but I thought that she would like that link. Maybe she wouldn’t, but we make the best decisions we can with what we have.
Once the sun is fully hidden, and the mosquitoes are out, I grab my shovel and bucket and make my way back to the caretaker’s shed.
Now, alone in the shed, I sit down, turn on the lamp, and do my best with her obituary.
CHAPTER 76
SAM
Here’s the thing about $400 million: it lets you do whatever the fuck you want to do. And oh, it stretches. The interest on my new nest egg is fifteen mil a year. That’s forty-two grand per day. I’ve been shelling out money right and left, purchasing anything I see and want, and the balance doesn’t change. Yesterday I bought a vintage Patek Philippe. Today I gave the pool attendant five grand as a tip. Everyone at this resort knows who I am, the type of drink I want, and the car I drive—which, by the way, is a 1957 Pininfarina.
I roll onto my stomach and adjust the face cradle, letting out a long and controlled breath as the masseuse’s strong fingers strum along the tight muscles of my neck. The ocean wind rustles the silky sheet against the sides of my arms, and I focus on the soft sounds of the waves crashing into the rocks, then subsiding. Crash, withdraw.
Crash, withdraw.
A bird softly caws, and from the pool, there is the strum of a ukulele.
Next week my identification and passport will come in, and I’ll officially be a new man. Nicholas Delph. I’ve been working on my backstory and researching the ideal place to live. I’ll have several homes, of course, but I figure I’ll try out one country at a time. Right now, I’m in Venezuela, but with my passport, I’m thinking a château in France or a mountain range outside Mont-Tremblant.
I’m still healing over Mike. It was a bitter cocktail of love and hate, and I think I was addicted to the roller coaster. I feed on drama, I know that. The danger of his job, his secrets, the mental games I played with Lillian—there’s a hole in my heart that all that used to fill. I’ll find some rugged backpacker or a sandy beach god to distract my heart, but in the meantime, I have four hundred million reasons to be appreciative of Mike, and of his lies to the police—lies that allowed me to walk free after that basement fiasco.
“Mr. Knight?” I turn my head to one side and see a man in dark jeans and a sweater.
I start to respond, start to turn my body for a better look, but then there is a gun pressed against the back of my head, and I realize that this vacation, this new life . . . is already over.