He took her hand in his. She wanted to think it was for comfort, but she had a feeling it was more about keeping her from finding additional scars.
“It was about ten years ago. I was working for an oil company. Some of the work I’d done in graduate school was about imaging. It’s technical, but basically there are ways to look below the earth’s surface to find potential oil deposits. There was a big one in South America. We knew about it for a while but there were complications with getting it out of the ground.”
She pulled her hand free. His gentle touch was more of a distraction than she needed. “I know what extraction is. I’m Jed Titan’s daughter. I practically have oil in my blood.”
“Right. As part of my work with the imaging, I discovered a new way to extract the oil. It avoided most of the geographical problems, so a couple of guys and I flew down to check out the area ourselves.”
“And?”
“It was perfect. Using my new techniques we could get to all the oil and do minimal damage to the environment.” He shifted on the bed. “The land was owned by a few dozen families. I met Francisco, who sort of ran things. I convinced him and he convinced the others. The beauty of the plan was they still had access to nearly all their acreage. They could farm and live their lives while raking in the money from us.”
“So where’s the bad?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t going to like how this was going to end.
“I thought I was smarter than everyone who said it couldn’t be done,” he said. “I ignored the warnings, both scientific and spiritual.”
“There were spiritual warnings?”
“Local legends not to take from below the ground. Anyone who did would be cursed by the gods.”
“Creepy,” she said as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “What happened?”
“In the early stages of drilling, we hit a lot of gas. I didn’t think anything of it. We were testing the local air and there wasn’t any hint of a problem. Three months later, the people started getting sick. We figured out right away we’d poisoned the water, but by then it was too late. Three people died.”
Izzy stared at him, not sure what to say. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you know there was a risk before you started?”
“It was an impossible chemical reaction. Unpredictable. Nothing like this had ever happened before. If we’d used traditional drilling methods, we might have caught it. But we didn’t.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “We managed to save the rest of the village, but it was too late. Two of the dead were from Francisco’s own family. Everyone blamed him and he blamed me.”
She didn’t know what to say. She knew firsthand the dangers of drilling miles deep into the earth. People could die-but not the innocents. Not those who hadn’t signed up for the risk.
“It was my fault,” Nick said hoarsely. “I did it. In my arrogance, I was so sure. I went to Francisco to apologize. He took me prisoner and he took a friend captive, as well. The men in the village held us for months, torturing us with knives. They fed us just enough to keep us alive, but never enough that we weren’t starving. They broke my friend’s legs and he nearly died from an infection. I don’t know how many times I faced death. If I’d been by myself, I would have given up, but I couldn’t. My friend wouldn’t let me. We kept each other alive.”
Nick drew in a breath. “He never blamed me. Not then, not now. Most people would. I screwed it all up and he never said a word.”
“You made a mistake. There’s a difference.”
“Tell that to the people who died.”
“Nick, you can’t blame yourself.”
“Sure I can. Eventually I realized I had to get us out. He was close to dying and I couldn’t hang on much longer.”
Now she grabbed his hand. Maybe to try to offer comfort, maybe to anchor herself in the middle of a particular level of hell.
“It was my fault,” Nick continued, his voice thick with pain and remorse. “All of it. I killed them. I live with that every minute of every day. I was arrogant. I thought I knew better. I deserved to die. But my friend didn’t deserve what was happening. One day I managed to pull the chains loose. I got us free and I walked us out of the jungle.”
He squeezed her fingers. “When we finally made it back to the States, I went to the police and told them what I’d done. No one could help.”
“What do you mean help?” she asked, suspecting the answer. “You mean no one would throw you in jail?”
“Yeah. I went to the state department. They sent out a team, but by then Francisco and his family were gone. There was nothing but the drilling site and the damn oil flowing like water. The treaty between the two countries meant I couldn’t be prosecuted there-not for what everyone claimed was an honest mistake. I spent months trying to find Francisco. Maybe to say I’m sorry, maybe to let him finish the job. I don’t know.”
She turned to Nick and grabbed his face in her hands. “You have to let it go.”
“Why? I was stupid. I thought I knew better, but I didn’t.”
“Doesn’t that define a mistake? You were wrong. You didn’t mean to be. Yes, it’s terrible that people died. Yes, you have responsibility in that, but you can’t spend the rest of your life paying for it.”
“Why not?” he asked bitterly. “When is it enough? When is it okay?”
“It’s okay now.”
“No, it’s not. After I couldn’t find him, I traveled around the world, looking for something. Maybe peace. Maybe a reason it all happened. Then I came back here. I didn’t know what to do. Ironically, all that oil made me rich. I gave every penny away, but I still had shares in a few companies from before. I bought this place and started hosting a few kids here and there. That’s the point of the place. Aaron thinks the corporations pay the bills, but I use them to make us more legitimate.”
“You offer free weekends to kids who have been victims of violence. That’s wonderful.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Then make it more,” she said. “Do it full-time.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Get a staff. If you need money, find a grant. Or ask around. I wouldn’t know where to begin but Skye could help you.”
“I can’t risk it. What if I screw up again? What if this time I kill a kid?”
And then she understood it all. Nick wasn’t just tortured by the people he’d inadvertently killed, but by the possibility of doing it again. Of making a mistake. He was immobilized by terror. In his mind, he was a walking time bomb, so while he wanted to help, he was afraid of doing the opposite.
Her situation might be different but she knew the quicksand that was indecision. She understood the sense of being trapped by circumstances and fear.
“So instead of taking a chance, you let kids suffer because you’re scared?” she asked, pulling away. “I don’t accept that. You have to face the fear and move on with your life.”
“You’re not.”
“Oh, sure. Throw the surgery in my face. Nice.”
He stood and crossed to the wall, where he pulled open drapes and she guessed stared out the window.
“You don’t understand,” he told her.
She crossed to him. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I didn’t live through what you did. If I had, I couldn’t have made it. Francisco got his pound of flesh out of you.”
“I killed his family.”
“And he tortured you. He knew you’d made a mistake-that you hadn’t hurt anyone on purpose. You’re making a difference. That matters.”
“Not to the people who are dead. Nothing will bring those three back.”
“Neither will cutting you over and over again.”
“He had his reasons.”
She wished she could shake him. “So that’s it? There’s no forgiveness? I believe our entire Judeo-Christian way of life is based on forgiveness and atonement. Is that for everyone but you? Don’t you forgive either?”
“It’s not the same.”
He was haunted in a way she couldn’t understand. Haunted and in pain. If this was what he lived with day after day, no wonder he lived such a solitary life. How could he bear anything else?
