establish myself as a badass. Gone.”
“You’ll recover.”
I felt his eyes on my back. “How are you?”
I stared out the window. The view was to the north, and I could see both Torrey Pines State Beach and the condos up on the hill where Emily had lived in the distance. “Fine.”
“Really?”
“No. But I will be.”
I knew that I would be, eventually. But death has a way of screwing you up. And not just the deaths of those around you, but the possibility of your own. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find that sense of normalcy again.
“We should go do something,” Carter said.
I turned back to him and looked at his cast and sling. “I don’t know that you’re in any kind of shape to be doing anything.”
“They’re gonna let me outta here tonight,” he said. “But I mean doing something like getting out of town. Away from all this crap.”
I liked that idea. “Okay. Where?”
He grinned. “I was thinking Cabo.”
I nodded, again liking the idea. “Good choice.”
“No Ice Queen,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Just me and you.”
“No problem,” I told him, thinking about what had happened out in the hallway with Liz. “Just me and you. And the trip’s on me.”
“As it should be,” he said, the grin returning. “A little food, a lot of alcohol, and a lot of surfing.”
“Your arm gonna be up for getting in the water?”
He made a face at the cast. “It’ll be fine.” He looked back at me. “Yeah. Cabo. Food, booze, and we’ll surf until we’re dead in the water.”
I hadn’t been to Cabo San Lucas in a couple of years. There was a strong right break known as Zippers just up the road from the resorts, on the Sea of Cortez side of the point, that produced solid waves and took a lot out of you on a good afternoon. I pictured the azure colors of the water, paddling out to the lineup, and leaving a lot of things out on those waves.
I was already looking forward to it.
