“Because it’s Thanksgiving,” he replied.
“It is?” Cassidy replied, feeling even more off-kilter. “Today?”
“No, it’s Tuesday today. Thanksgiving isn’t until Thursday.”
Cassidy was so annoyed at herself for needing to ask such a stupid question that she swung her legs out of the cab and strode off toward the beach. After following a narrow path through the scraggly trees and ground scrub, she kicked off her sandals and waded into the black water up to her hips. Though the water felt warm, it still gave her a chill. The waves pushed and the current swayed down-shore—not powerful but she would have to be careful not to get swept away. In a moment she was underwater. Maybe I should get swept away, she thought. I could crawl out of the ocean in some new place and forget all about this.
And then Mel’s head popped up near hers, his look marked with concern.
“When we were in San Juan, I found out that Reeve had rescued a girl from the sex trade,” she said, bobbing.
“Whoa,” Mel said, his arms paddling to keep him upright, his breathing audible over the sloshing of the waves.
“But I must have triggered something, and some men came after me.”
A shadow passed over Mel’s face.
Cassidy bobbed over a lump of swell. “And Bruce, well, he was there. He helped me escape. He even brought me back last night to make sure I was safe.”
They dipped into the trough of the wave, and it crashed onto the shore. “Like I said, I’m sure that rumor isn’t true,” Mel said. “People like to talk, that’s all. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Cassidy nodded and told herself that it wasn’t true. How could Bruce be involved with something illegal? Wouldn’t I know if Bruce was some kind of criminal? But something had shifted in her mind. Little details that had bugged her were surfacing. Like the way he had jumped her on the boat. That he had a gun. Then there was what he had said to the intruders: then you’re going to have to kill me. She had assumed that he had been protecting her, but why would he die for her? It was entirely possible that the encounter had been about something else, like a job he was doing, or refusing. She remembered the envelope he had handed to the hotel owner on that first day at the hotel in Playa del Coco. What if that had been some kind of payoff? A cold, sick feeling spread through her insides.
Back on the shore, Cassidy wrung out her hair and stood with her arms crossed, shivering.
“Listo?” he said.
Cassidy nodded.
At the hotel, Mel hoisted her backpack and walked her in to the small, brightly-lit lobby. A half-dozen college-aged kids milled about, talking loudly, with generous use of the F-bomb. Beyond the desk, Cassidy saw a rectangular pool, with rooms lining its edge. She counted five people in the pool, one lounging on an air mattress, and heard reggae music thumping low and steady from an invisible speaker. The layout reminded her of a motel her family used to stay at when her dad had driven them back and forth to Ventura while dating Pamela.
Cassidy turned around and walked out of the hotel.
“Tell me what you need, darlin’,” Mel said at the curb, his eyes warm and kind, like she was the only person in the world.
“Somewhere quiet. Something to eat. A soft bed,” she said, and it felt so good to finally find her voice, to take charge.
“I have a friend who’s out of town. I’m sure he’d let you stay a night. I could call—”
The thought of being alone crashed down on her. She shook her head.
Mel looked thoughtfully at her, as if he could read her mind. “Of course, you can stay with me,” he said. “As long as you don’t mind the frogs, it’s quiet,” he added.
Cassidy smiled.
Mel lifted her pack into the back of the jeep then paused, his eyes sparkling. “How do you feel about treehouses?” he asked.
She laughed. “You live in a treehouse?”
“Best view in town,” he said.
She stepped into his arms, and he stroked the back of her head. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t been home in a few days. The geckos might have taken over the place.”
Twenty-One
If Cassidy hadn’t been so hungry, she would have fallen asleep in the jeep. They stopped at a roadside restaurant where Mel had dashed inside then returned with two Styrofoam boxes of something that smelled divine. They continued on, eventually turning onto a winding road that crested a hilltop. A handful of nicer homes peppered the vast jungle, sharp corners or brightly colored paint poking out of the trees, one with a giant metal gate and guardhouse. She saw a few SE VENDE signs posted on trees or rusted barbed-wire fences, but otherwise the area looked shut off from the rest of the town, even though they had only been driving for less than ten minutes.
Mel turned down a muddy, rutted driveway lined with purple flowering trees. After a short distance, the shape of what looked like something out of a storybook emerged. Tiny lights on a long stairway illuminated the outline of a square home with a large, covered porch area high up off the ground. Mel parked at the base of the stairway and removed the takeout boxes from her lap. “Wow,” Cassidy breathed as a shiver of anticipation tingled her skin.
Without the sound of the jeep’s engine, the noises of the night assaulted her ears with the humming, buzzing, chirping coming from every corner of the canopy.
She stepped out and grabbed her pack while Mel scooped up the tiny plastic bags of groceries with his other hand.
“Let’s go up,” he said with a grin, and led her up the stairs.
Cassidy shouldered her backpack and followed. Once through a thick, heavily polished door with a
