“I’m fine,” I snap.
“You broke your hand hitting a wall, Danny,” Caitlin says. “You would end up making a mistake and you and Sam would end up losing everything that matters.”
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. “But I don’t hear you telling me it’s wrong.”
“You know me better than that,” she says softly, sounding tired after only a few minutes of conversation. “But you can’t take the law into your hands right now. You would get caught. All the cards are stacked against you. And I love you and Sam too much to let you leave here without speaking my mind. Whether you listen or not is up to you.”
I swallow hard, fighting the tears that simmer as close to the surface these days as my rage. “Then what do I do? I can’t let them get away with it. They can’t do that to her and walk free. It will kill me, just…eat me alive. Just thinking about it is enough to make me fucking crazy, Caitlin.”
“So you wait until you’re not crazy anymore,” Caitlin says, leaning in close and dropping her voice to a whisper. “You go to Sam, and while you’re healing and loving your way out of the hell you’ve both been through, you plan every single detail in advance. Take at least a year, longer if you can. Give them time to stop looking over their shoulders and make sure you have an airtight alibi. Then, if you still need this…”
I hold her eyes. “You’re serious?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“As long as you can do it without exchanging one thing that will eat you alive for another.” She takes my hand again, making me aware of how cold her skin is. “And don’t let it change you. You’re a good man, Danny. I wouldn’t want you to lose that, or stop believing that you deserve happiness.”
“It doesn’t matter what I deserve,” I whisper. “We don’t get what we deserve.”
“And thank goodness sometimes for that.” Caitlin smiles sadly. “I’m so sorry for all of this Danny, but I believe in you and Sam. You will get through this together, I really believe you will.”
* * *
They say time heals all wounds and it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
But when I finally fly into L.A.—getting to the courthouse hours after the not guilty verdict has been announced, thanks to a delay in Chicago—I know I will never be healed. I will never stop wanting vengeance for the girl I love.
I search for Sam at her apartment and at the extended stay hotel where her roommate says Sam and her parents were staying during the trial. But the Collinses checked out this morning and Sam is nowhere to be found.
I call Mr. Collins, but all he’ll tell me is that Sam drove off while he and his ex-wife were checking out of the hotel and hasn’t been answering her phone. The terse tone in his voice infers that somehow that’s my fault. He hangs up before I can tell him how sorry I am that things ended up the way they did and refuses to answer my calls for the next few days.
I stay in Los Angeles for almost two weeks, haunting the campus, her apartment, the test prep place where she used to tutor kids after school, looking for any sign of her, but she’s vanished into thin air. I put an ad on Los Angeles Craig’s List asking Sam to call me, then cross-post it to every major city on the west coast. The next night I expand the search to the heartland and the east coast. I keep the ads rotating every forty-eight hours until my inbox is full of weird messages from creepy guys and a few desperate-sounding women and I finally realize it’s pointless.
I’m not going to be able to find Sam unless she wants to be found.
Finally, after two weeks of crashing at a hostel in Hollywood, sleeping in a weird pod bed that makes me feel like I’m waking up in a coffin every morning, Pete calls saying Tevia is quitting at the end of the week and he can’t get another guide trained on such short notice. If I don’t come back to step in, he’s going to have to cancel fifteen tours and the chances of staying in the black this month will be slim to none.
I don’t want to go back or give up on Sam, but deep down I know I’m not accomplishing anything here except driving myself crazy.
* * *
I fly home. I go back to work.
I crash at Caitlin and Gabe’s and spend the summer teaching Emmie how to surf and doing my research on Todd, Jeremy, J.D. and Scott. In the fall, Ray and Sean go back to the American school in the city, Emmie starts home school with Caitlin, and Gabe returns to work doing whatever rich guy thing he does with properties and investments. I spend the mornings with Juliet strapped onto my chest in her sling, walking the picturesque ancient roman streets of Porec while Caitlin and Emmie study, plotting how I’ll make the monsters who hurt Sam pay. In the afternoons, I lead rock climbing expeditions up the face of the cliffs outside town, and at night, I continue my research alone in my room.
Caitlin doesn’t talk to me about hurting people again, but she doesn’t try to draw me into family dinners or evening sails on Gabe’s boat more than once or twice a week. She gives me my space and lets me obsess, almost as if she knows planning how I’m going to get my revenge is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.
Without Sam, without being able to love her, without even knowing if she’s okay, it’s like the best part of me has gone missing. Hate helps numb the pain of losing her, keeping me moving around and functioning instead of walking into the ocean across the street and letting the water carry me away.
The holidays come and go and Juliet starts to crawl all over the house, but Sam’s dad still refuses to answer my calls. Spring rains flood the streets of Porec, and Caitlin and Gabe start talking about getting on a list to adopt another baby when Juliet is two.
And then, it’s almost summer again and Ray is graduating from high school and planning a European tour with his crazy girlfriend, Sean is convincing me to hire him as a guide even though he won’t be seventeen for a few more weeks, and the summer trip I’ve been preparing for all year long is suddenly only a few days away.
* * *
They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and of all the platitudes I’ve heard in the year since I lost the girl I love, it’s the only one that makes sense.
I board the plane for Costa Rica in board shorts and a weathered blue tee shirt, looking like I don’t have a care in the world. I’m a laid back surfer on my way to catch some waves, not a cold son of a bitch with a block of ice and hate where my heart used to be.
I haven’t decided whether to kill Todd, Jeremy, J.D., and Scott while they’re living it up in Costa Rica for their senior trip, or just make them wish they were dead, but I know one thing—whatever I decide, no one is going to suspect I’m the one responsible.
Even though I have every detail memorized, I go through the plan again during the flight. It’s become a ritual more comforting than any rosary I was forced to say back when my mom still got around to dragging my ass to church.
Soon, this will be over, and I’m not sure what I’ll cling to for comfort then, but I suppose it won’t really matter. I will have done what was right by Sam. Maybe I’ll be able to move on with my life after, maybe not, but I hope I’ll at least have put some of the regrets that haunt me to rest.