“Good night,” James murmurs from the doorway. He flicks off the light and closes the door, leaving it cracked to allow in a ribbon of light from the bathroom down the hall.
A whispered “Good night” reaches him as he turns away. James stills, blinking away the burn. As Marc’s words sink in, James sends up a silent prayer.
He gives the door frame a couple of knocks and returns to the kitchen. When he puts the pizza in the fridge, he finds a six-pack of Newcastle on the top shelf. Thank God. Popping the top, he breathes in the ale’s roasted-nut aroma. Muscles bunched from traveling unwind. He tosses back half the beer before leaning against the countertop. He crosses his arms, letting the bottle dangle from his fingers, and inhales, long and deep. His eyes drift close.
He is finally home, but not really home.
This isn’t his home.
But he didn’t belong in Mexico either, so he left that life behind. Not just because California is familiar, but because Carlos had everything James wanted before the accident—an art gallery to display his work, a classroom to teach others, and a studio ideally situated to take advantage of a full day’s natural light. Then there was Carlos’s artwork, paintings well beyond James’s expertise.
As ashamed as he is to admit it, James is jealous of the man he was in Mexico.
He pushes away from the counter and stretches his arms overhead. His back pops and cramped legs ache. Feeling restless, he glances out the windows and considers going for a midnight run. He’d do it if he felt comfortable leaving the boys alone. They’re still too young, and it’s their first night in a foreign country and a strange house. A house that had been home to Phil during the months leading up to his arrest.
Beyond the glass, he stares into the dark woods of oak and pine, which looks peaceful during the summer months. A place of rebirth and renewal. But in the winter, it’s dark and sinister, with branches bare and bent like bones.
Skeletal like Phil’s frame.
Six days until he’s released. Six days to figure out how to avoid him, along with the rest of his family. Would Phil come here since it’s the last place he lived?
His gaze jumps to the dead bolt on the back doors. Swearing under his breath, he e-mails himself a reminder.
CHANGE THE LOCKS.
He slips his phone into his back pocket and looks around the room. Pent-up energy channels from jittery fingers to cramping calves. Maybe his old treadmill is in the garage.
James makes his way there, flicks the light switch. LEDs flood the four-car garage and his chest rises sharply. He knew his belongings were there, what he had before and what he shipped from Mexico. But knowing and seeing are two different things.
The bulk of his items take up the expanse of two car spaces, cardboard boxes stacked like fat square pillars. They hold everything he wanted to keep from a life in Mexico he wished had never happened, and a life before that he never intended to leave. Basking in the LED glow, his two lives converge atop the smooth concrete.
He moves into the garage, drawn by the thick black Sharpie lettering on a stack of boxes. ART SUPPLIES. He slowly sweeps his hand along the words, recognizing Aimee’s handwriting. When did she pack his stuff? Before or after she found him? He can’t imagine how difficult the months after Thomas announced his death had been for her. The need to hold her from just thinking about it nearly stops his heart.
The words blur and for the second time that night, James’s eyes dampen. Knowing Aimee, she would have packed his supplies neatly and orderly, even with the knowledge he would never use them again.
And he most likely won’t. The hunger inside him—that drive to create, to share his interpretation of the world—is gone.
So is Aimee.
He punches the box and returns inside.
CHAPTER 4
CARLOS
Five and a Half Years Ago
December 8
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
It was dark when I stumbled up my driveway. Fourth night this week I’d spent with Patrón, liquid gold and the only remedy that got me through the lonely evening hours. After mucking through another day teaching art classes, organizing the gallery’s next season of showings, and finalizing contracts on several commissioned works, I left my car at work and landed on a stool at La cantina de perrito, a bar down the street from my gallery. Natalya wouldn’t be happy. The boys had been asking why I hadn’t been around much.
Because your dad’s a ticking time bomb, that’s why.
Glancing up at the second floor, their bedroom windows black squares against the house’s white stucco paint, I craved a sense of normalcy. To go back to the way things were before Aimee had shown up.
Face angled toward their windows, I stepped backward and stumbled over a planter edge. My shoulder slammed hard into the adobe wall lining my property. Pain spiraled like fireworks across my deltoid, waking up the old injury. I hissed and punched the bricks. “¡Mierda!”
I needed to get myself together. ¡El pronto! If not for me, then for Julian and Marcus. I sucked the torn skin on my knuckles and shook my hand, trying to lessen the pain.
Thomas had left for California six days ago. Imelda texted me when he checked out of the hotel. True to his word, which said nothing of his character, Thomas didn’t contact me again. Imelda had tried to reach me daily. I sent her calls directly to voice mail where the number in the red notification circle on my phone app had crept up all week.
I fumbled with the lock. The front door flew open. Natalya stood there, hands on hips, scowling. She wore a fitted white tank and a tie-dyed skirt that dusted the floor. Damn, it was colorful, just like her long copper hair. Bright and lustrous with multiple shades. I blinked hard, trying to focus, and stumbled through the door. She caught me before I face-planted. My chin dipped to her sunscreen-slathered shoulder. Coconut and salt. She’d been at the beach with the boys. Heck, she practically lived on the beach, even after years spent competitive surfing. She’d been a rock star on the board, just like her father, world-class surfer Gale Hayes.
Natalya stumbled under my weight. “You smell like a dirty bar mat.”
I straightened, focusing on her head to keep the room from spinning, and gently tugged a few strands of her hair. “So pretty,” I murmured about the colors. She was fair to her sister Raquel’s dark. They shared a father, but both had taken after their mothers.
Natalya nudged my hand away. “You’re drunk. Again.”
“Yep.” I lowered my hand and swallowed, my throat drier than the hillside behind the neighborhood. “Need water.”
She followed me into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets. I filled a glass from the fridge water dispenser. She popped the cap on a bottle of aspirin she found next to the boys’ vitamins and dropped two tablets in my palm. “This is becoming routine.”
I smirked at her, popped the pills, and drank the water.
She watched me drink, her gaze zigzagging from the glass to my face and then to my hand. She sucked in a breath. “Carlos.” She took the glass from me, setting it aside on the counter and cradling my hand. She brushed a thumb gently over the torn flesh. “What did you do?”
I pulled my hand from her grasp. “I had a run-in with a wall.” Tonight was another low for me. I’d been punching things all week. My bedroom wall when I first told Natalya about what I’d learned from Imelda, then Thomas earlier this week, and now the bricks outside. It was time for me to dry out and do . . .
My thought tapered off. Do what?
What in God’s name could I do to make my situation better? How could I ensure my sons were taken care of should I happen to one day wake up as James?
Natalya sighed and I raised my head as though looking to her for an answer. Realization dawned like the eastern sun, bright and luminous. Maybe she was the answer.
She curved an arm around my back. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
She stayed with me while I washed up and brushed my teeth. Then she went to crack open the slider to the balcony and closed the screen, giving me a moment of privacy while I shucked my clothes and pulled on boxers and a shirt.
I flopped onto the bed, arms spread wide. My head spun in the opposite direction of the ceiling fan overhead. I groaned and closed my eyes, listening to Natalya move around the bed. The jangle of the sterling-silver bracelets she always wore. The steady patter of her bare feet walking on hardwood. The wisp of cotton sheets as she yanked them out from underneath me. Grunting, I lifted my hips for her. She stood near the end of the bed. I grinned and waggled my brows. She flopped her arms, giving me a disgusted look, and the similarity in that one gesture hit me in the chest, almost killing my buzz.