Stealing Phin (18 page)

As I drifted to sleep, Byron gathered me into his arms. His lips pressed against the top of my head. My breathing slowed and deepened. For the first time in a very long while, I felt completely safe, content, and at peace.

And just as I fell into the arms of sleep, I felt Byron breathed a sigh onto my hair. A sigh that carried with it a barely audible whisper. “I love you.”

When I woke up again, the first thing I registered was the scent of Byron. Except this time, it wasn’t from his pillow.

I was still wrapped in his arms. He was sound asleep. His face looked as peaceful as I felt. My throat was parched, and I desperately needed a drink of water. So I peeled myself slowly from his embrace, careful not to wake him. He was so deep asleep, I wondered if he’d gotten any sleep at all since last night or if he’d stayed up all night to watch over me. I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t want to wake him, so I blew him a kiss instead. I quietly slipped back into my dress and left the bedroom.

As I filled a glass from the tap in the kitchen, I glanced out the window over the sink. The sky was a dusty rose swirled with orange and purple. It was turning to dusk.

“Oh my God, what time is it?” I muttered. “I gotta call Dez.”

Realizing that Dez must be worried sick about me, I went into the living room to find my purse. I spotted it on an end table where Byron must’ve put it last night when he laid me on the couch. I took out my cell phone.

“Damnit.” The battery was dead. I looked around the room and saw a phone on the desk next to Byron’s laptop.

As I slid into the chair and reached for the phone, my hand accidentally hit the laptop. It must’ve have been on sleep mode because suddenly the screen came on.

My breath caught when I saw the photo that filled the screen. It was a gorgeous close-up shot of a Guaria morada orchid growing in the wild. He must have used a macro-lens because he’d somehow managed to make its shimmery petals appear like a vast landscape of pink and purple hues dusted with crushed diamonds.

“Wow,” I breathed. Admiration welled up inside me for Byron. He was an unbelievably talented photographer. And he was right about people never failing to surprise you. If this was an example of what he was capable of with a camera, then I had no doubt that he’d land his dream job.

Wanting to see more photos of the rare flower, I tapped on the mouse pad to scroll to the next picture in his folder.

But instead of an orchid, the next photo was an exterior shot of a place that looked familiar.

“The Lava Lounge?” I murmured as I recognized the red tube lights. Unlike the sharp focus of the orchid photo, this one was grainy, as if it’d been taken from far away with a high zoom in low light.

I tapped the mouse pad again. The next photo was clearer and taken from inside the bar. The angle of the photo also looked familiar—it was taken from the area at the bar where Byron had been sitting. There were two people in the foreground of the shot. A couple who was sitting a few seats down from Byron. But they were blurry because the focus was on a point beyond them. I tapped on the zoom feature on the screen, enlarging the center of the photo.

I gasped. The person in the distant background that the shot was focused on was me!

I tapped quickly through more pictures. There were several more of me at the Lava Lounge, drinking, talking, and laughing with Carlito. Pictures of me at the Volcano Villas breakfast buffet, chatting with Dez as I sipped coffee. Of me waiting in front of the Villas for the canyoneering shuttle. Of me souvenir shopping in La Fortuna.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want to see more, but I couldn’t stop from scrolling through more pictures. It was as if a part of me hoped that I’d come upon one that would make all of this make sense. And maybe even make it all right somehow. But the more I looked, the more apparent that the opposite was true. When I got to a picture of me floating in the pool, my sundress strewn along the pool’s edge, bubbles on the water’s surface from the rain, I stopped.

“It’s not what you think.”

I spun around in the chair to see Byron standing behind me. How did he manage to move so quietly? “What the fuck, Byron.” I stood up and pointed to the laptop. “What is all this?”

“Just let me explain.” He moved toward me slowly, as if I were a frightened deer he was trying to approach.

“Have you been stalking me?” I stepped to the side and moved away from the desk. My eyes flicked to the front door as I tried to figure out the quickest route out.

“You don’t understand. I was going to explain when the time was right—”

“I’m so stupid,” my entire body shook with fear and anger. “You played me out. I can’t believe I actually believed you weren’t a creep. What—are these some sick trophies you keep of your conquests? Am I going to wind up on one of those websites where guys post pics of their vacation hook ups?” I kept moving for the door while keeping my eyes on him.

“Calm down. I’ll explain everything.” Byron moved along with me, taking a step toward me for every step that I took away from him.

“Stay away from me.” I lunged for the door.

“Phin, stop.” I felt his hands grab my arm.

“Don’t touch me!” I flung the door open and ran out. Byron was on my heels as I cut across the lawn between his building and the pool. My head spun with fear, and my vision went blurry for a moment. My foot struck against a rock hidden in the grass, and I went down. Byron hurried to me and tried to pick me up.

“Get away,” I screamed. “Let go of me!”

A few of the tourists on their way to dinner stopped and looked. Others came out onto their balconies to see what the raucous was about.

“Hey!” yelled a burly man who stepped out of his ground floor suite in front of where I lay. “Qué diablos está pasando?”

The man must have seen the panic on my face. His eyes widened and went to Byron next. Seemingly assuming the worst, he said some threatening words to Byron in Spanish and stepped toward him.

A couple of other men from ground floor suites also took notice and began to approach.

Byron put his hands up defensively and began to speak to them. “Todo esto es sólo un malentendido—just a misunderstanding, mis amigos.”

“Phin!” a voice came from my left. I looked over and saw Dez sprinting toward me. Her face was ragged with worry and fury.

Following her were several men dressed in uniforms. Across their hats was the word
Policía
.

Dez pointed at Byron. “There’s the creep! Arrest that man!”

Before I knew it, the policía blew their whistles and descended upon Byron.

“You should’ve called me.” Dez seethed as she paced around our suite. “I looked everywhere for you!” She was livid at me, and rightfully so.

“I can only say sorry so many times, Dez.” I sat on my bed with my arms wrapped around my knees. I’d been in our room for almost an hour since the policía took Byron away, and I was still shaking. “But I’ll say it again—I’m so sorry I made you worry.”

“Worry? I was freaking the fuck out!” Dez’s voice cracked. “I thought you’d been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.”

“But I wasn’t.” I kept my voice low, hoping to calm Dez down. “And I’m here—safe and sound.”

Dez took a few deep breaths. “Well, fine then,” she said after she’d settled down a smidge. “You should hurry up and shower.”

“Why?” I watched as Dez went to my suitcase and started going through it.

“Because we need to get you down to the policía station to formally press charges against that asshole.” She tossed a fresh T-shirt and jeans onto my bed, presumably for me to change into after my shower.

I felt my head shaking from side-to-side before I realized why. “I’m not going to press charges,” I said quietly and held my breath for Dez’s response.

“Of course you’re going to press charges.” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a stern look. “The policía found the creepy photos he took of us. Of
you.
He’s a sick freak. And he’s going to rot in Mexican jail. Serves him right.”

“There are no Mexican jails in Costa Rica.”

“Oh right. Well, whatever.” Dez went to the closet and got a pair of sandals for me since I’d run out of Byron’s suite barefoot. “As long as he’s rotting in a jail cell somewhere.”

I chewed on my fingernail as I tried to understand my own feelings about the situation. My gut felt so unsettled. “Dez, Something’s not right.”

“Are you feeling sick? Do you want to go to the hospital?”

“No. I mean, none of this makes any sense.” Abruptly, I jumped off the bed and grabbed my purse, which Dez had retrieved from Byron’s room.

“What are you doing?” Dez asked as I headed for the door.

“I need to talk to Byron.”

Just as I reached for the doorknob, Dez jumped in front of me, blocking my way. “Are you high?” She grabbed my purse from me. “Have you been sniffing yucca powder? The guy gave you a roofie, abducted you from the club, did God-knows-what to you, stalked you this entire trip, and you want to go ask him to explain himself? Here’s your explanation—the guy is a fucking psycho.”

“That’s not what happened.” I felt my own eyes widen as I realized the seriousness of the trouble Byron could be in if the policía saw the situation the way Dez did. “
He
didn’t give me the roofie. The Argentinian did.”

Dez gave me a funny look. “Right, okay. We need to get you to the hospital. That roofie hit must’ve been strong because you obviously hallucinated.”

“I didn’t hallucinate! The Argentinian’s name is Marco. He was there with another guy—Pablo, or something like that. Byron came in just in time to save me. They were going to…”

“Look, honey.” My friend softened her tone as she took me by the shoulders and sat me on the bed. “You were under the influence of a really strong roofie. It makes sense that you don’t remember things the way they really were—that’s how roofies work. They fuck your mind up.

“How do you know Byron wasn’t working with the Argentinian? Don’t you find it at all suspicious that he happened to be show up at that exact moment? Or that he happened to be at the Lava Lounge the same night we were there? And then the pool later that night?”

When I responded with silence, Dez continued with her rationale. “He’s been following you since he met us at the airport. I’ve watched plenty of
Dateline
episodes to know that’s how stalkers work. They set their sights on a target and that person becomes their obsession. He wasn’t going to stop until he had you. And he was going to use whatever means necessary to satisfy his obsession.”

I didn’t know what to say. The pictures didn’t lie. Byron had been following me. Tracking my movements. Recording them and storing them on his computer. I’d seen them with my own eyes. He had a reason for doing this. Maybe this was what he’d planned on explaining to me. Except, what reasonable explanation could there possibly be for this that would make what he did okay?

Although I already knew what the answer had to be, still something niggled at the back of my head. There was a missing puzzle piece to all of this.

And then it hit me.

I turned to Dez. “We need to talk to Carlito.”

“For the thousandth time, he didn’t rape me.” In the small interrogation room at the policía station, where Dez dragged me after I’d changed, I held my head between my hands.

The detective who questioned me, a portly man with a weathered face that made him look much older than he probably was, leaned back in his chair and scrutinized me. He flipped open the lid of the metal lighter he held in his hand.

“It is common for kidnapping victims to feel sympathy for their captors.” He put a thick cigar in his mouth and held the flame from his lighter to it. He drew on the cigar until its end burned orange. “But, amiga,” he said through the cloud of smoke he exhaled, “this man did a very bad thing to you. You should not defend him.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped.” Annoyed, I coughed and waved away the smoke that floated toward me. “And I’m not defending him. I’m telling you the
truth
. Now are you going to write this down in your report or what?”

My voice grew shrill as my patience wore out. This interrogation had been going on for more than two hours, and we were getting nowhere. I’d not only repeated the same facts over and over again, but each time I felt as if the detective believed fewer and fewer of them.

He gave me a sad sort of smile, as if he sorry for me. I could sense that this was all just a formality. The “victim’s report” to put away in the file. It seemed as if they’d already made up their minds about Byron’s guilt. Like Dez said, they had all the evidence they needed on Byron’s laptop. Not to mention the fact that he’d taken me from the club while I was drugged and that several witnesses had seen me running away from him. There wasn’t much I could say to change the policía’s mind. It all looked bad.