I kept my mouth shut.

She stood, leaned across the space between us, and kissed me. First on the cheek, then she stepped back, cradled my cheek in her palm, and kissed me on the side of my lips, and then on my lips. She held there. Tender. Soft. And inviting. While her lips were pressed to mine, the argument inside my head was raging. Some part of me wanted to save her from me.

I knew better and she didn’t—which was the growing source of ache in me.

Slowly, she pulled away, wiped her thumb across my lips. A satisfied smile. She whispered, “I want you to know I haven’t kissed a man since my husband died. For years, I didn’t want to, and for several more I couldn’t find anyone worth it. I’ve been holding that a long time.”

When she turned and began walking inside, I watched her—her shoulders, the vein throbbing on the side of her neck, the small of her back, the angle of her hips, the lines of her calves. She wasn’t inviting me to follow her, but she wasn’t wishing I’d look away, either. In her own way, she was allowing me to look—to soak in the sight of her, appreciate her as a woman, and I was pretty certain she’d not allowed that in a decade, either.

My emotive response to both Amanda and Shelly was a deep desire to ease their pain, to not regret, to not be alone, to not have to face life without them and what that said about me. Of course, I cared for them. Deeply. And not all of my reasons for being with them were selfish but many were. What I felt for them can best be described as “deep affection.” A product of convenience. Of geography. Of my own need. Watching Leena climb the stairs inside, I couldn’t honestly tell you that I loved her—I’m not sure I’d know that if and when I felt it—but whatever I felt for her was different. At every level, and the depth of it convinced me that while I’d told both Amanda and Shelly that I loved them, I knew then, sitting on that pool deck overlooking the Pacific, I had not.

Not even close.

*  *  *

I sat by the pool a long time. It was close to 2:00 a.m. when I thought about going to bed. I walked to the edge of the pool and was about to turn out the light when I heard a stick crack, followed by footsteps, a shuffle, and a guttural grunt. Then another footstep. Another shuffle. Another grunt. I stepped into the shadow and watched as a lone figure walked up the steps from the side of the house toward the pool. He climbed the last step, leaned against the railing, and steadied himself. I was moving toward him when he took a step and fell headlong into the pool. His still body floated facedown as a cloud of red spilled out of his side and into the water around him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I was screaming for Paulina before I hit the water. I dove in, caught Zaul by the shoulders, flipped him, cradled his head, and began pulling him to the side. By the time I got him to the steps, she’d turned on the light and was standing at the railing—her gown flowing in the wind. She saw us and disappeared.

I dragged his body from the water and laid him out on the pool deck. His face was busted up. Whatever piercings he’d once owned had been ripped out. His ear had been torn. Eyes were swollen. Had a nasty cut over one eye and beneath another. Someone had carved on one of his arm tattoos with a sharp object and one shoulder seemed out of place and resting lower than the other. He was clutching his rib cage, and when I pulled up his shirt, I could understand why. Deep black-and-blue contusions surrounded his entire torso. One leg seemed limp and weak. A couple of his fingers were swollen and one looked broken. But that was not the worst of it.

The worst was an open gash on the side of his stomach that wound around his back. Infected and actively bleeding—it was an ugly wound. He’d stuffed it with paper towels and a piece of cloth I couldn’t make out. Based upon his ashen appearance, he’d lost a lot of blood, and based on the caked stains on his clothes and skin, he had been for a while.

Paulina landed next to me about the time I figured out he wasn’t dead. Least not yet. He was delirious and fading in and out of consciousness, muttering words I couldn’t understand. Her finger immediately landed on his carotid while the other hand propped open an eye. Didn’t take her long. She checked his injuries, including his side, and shook her head. “He’s very weak. Fighting infection.” She pointed to his face, arm, and side. “He needs about a hundred stitches. He’s dehydrated. He needs a hospital, but—” She held up a finger. “If we put him in a hospital and he’s done anything deserving arrest since he’s been here, the police will arrest him and put him in a Costa Rican prison, and you and his mother and father will never see him again no matter how rich they are.”

Blood was trickling out of his face. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and began dialing Colin. I spoke as I dialed. “Colin can be here in an hour and either find an airport close or land his jet on the highway a few miles from the house. This time of night there won’t be anyone on the road.”

As soon as I said this, Zaul’s hand came up and covered both mine and the cell. He held it there, shaking his head, preventing me from dialing. His words were muffled, and I couldn’t understand what he said the first time but I did the second and third. “Not going home.”

I leaned in. “Zaul, you may die tonight if we don’t get you to medical care.”

He nodded. Then he shook his head again. “Not going home.” He laid his head back, but his hand remained on the cell phone.

While I sat thinking how to circumvent Zaul and get him home, Leena spoke. “If we can get to a pharmacy, I can get enough medicine to inject him and get us to León, where he will need some time to recuperate.”

“How about here?”

“His injuries are serious. Even if you could get the plane here, I’m not even sure he should fly. His blood pressure is dangerously low. He needs an IV. Antibiotics. Fluids. Morphine. X-rays. A check for internal injuries. A lot of stitches. And I can’t get that in Costa Rica because they don’t know me, but I can get it in León. And by the time we wait through the crowded emergency room anywhere close to here, we could get in through the back door in the clinic at León and then, if needed, right into the hospital. The doctors know me there.” Her intensity grew. “He needs care right now. And the only way I know to do that for certain starts in León.”

Zaul’s eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. “Get Isabella. I’ll get him to the truck.”

I carried Zaul to the truck while Paulina woke Isabella and Paulo and then brought me some blankets and several pillows as well as an armful of towels. Ten minutes later, Paulo backed us out of the drive and was headed north up the highway to León. The highway was dark, and there wasn’t another car in sight. Isabella stared through the back glass while Paulina huddled in the back with me. While I cradled Zaul and kept him from bouncing around, she did what she could with what little first aid we had to pack the gash on his side and wash his wounds. The look on her face told me she was worried. I held the flashlight and helped her as best I knew how. For his part, Zaul was mostly unconscious, which was good. If he were awake, he’d feel the pain, so unconscious was better. The last hour, she checked his pulse every few minutes and grew increasingly worried. “His fever has spiked.” She was right; Zaul was on fire and his skin was hot to the touch and his lips were blue. Paulo stopped at a gas station and bought a bag of ice, which we packed behind Zaul’s neck, in his armpits, on his stomach, and around his groin.

Driving in the dark, staring back and forth between Zaul and Paulina’s eyes, the occasional house light passing in the trees off the side of the road, clarity settled on me.

But the clarity did not bring me peace. How I got where I am in life was not the result of much thought or planning on my part. Nor can I tell you it was always the path of least resistance, although that was sometimes the case. More like the path of “that looks interesting” or “why not” or “wonder where that goes.” I’ve checked no moral compass and until recently never considered myself evil. Sitting in the back of that truck, Zaul bleeding in my arms, his life draining out of him, the whole of me pressed down on me and my reaction to the timeline and consequences of my life—and my choices—was one of disdain. Of bitterness. Of an acrid taste in my mouth. My sin had not been outright murder. I’d not defrauded millions. Not caused a holocaust. Not shot a dozen kids in a school. Not raped. Pillaged. But as I looked across my history, I wondered for the first time if my actions might be even worse.