by Blake Crouch
Smelled his exotic cologne a half second before she noticed Javier sitting at the small table by the window.
She brought her hand to her mouth.
The door whisked closed behind her.
In a night of being chased and shot at, none of those horrors could touch the sheer terror of seeing Javier Estrada sitting like a demon in her hotel room.
She stood frozen, wondering if she could get out the door before he stopped her.
“You wouldn’t make it,” he said. “Please.” He motioned to the bed. “I’m sure you’re very tired.”
Letty sat down on the edge of the mattress and put her face in her hands.
She said, “Oh god.”
So many times tonight, she had thought she was going to die and didn’t.
Now this.
After everything.
It was too much.
“What do you want to ask me?” he said.
She made no response.
“Nothing? How about…am I surprised that you are not dead?”
“You son of a bitch.” She muttered it under her breath.
“Ask me,” he said.
She glared over at him. “Are you surprised I’m not dead?”
“I am not,” he said.
“Good for you.” Her eyes were filling up with tears. “Good. For. You. Why didn’t you just let Fitch’s men kill me? Wanted to clean up this last little detail yourself?”
“I like you, Letty.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re deranged?”
Javier opened a laptop sitting on the table beside a Slimline Glock.
He said, “You may choose to believe I betrayed you. I don’t see it that way.”
“Really.”
He began typing, still watching her out of the corner of his eye.
“There were reasons I couldn’t tell you the true nature of the job. It partly had to do with promises I made to our client, Mr. Fitch. But some of it just came down to my faith in you.” He stared at her. “Two times before this, we worked together. I’ve seen you in action. Simply put, you’re a survivor. I believed you would survive tonight.”
“You had no right to—”
“And yet I did. Next topic. Part of my agreement with Mr. Fitch was that if you survived, if you killed him, his men were not to touch you. I went so far as to promise him that if anyone other than him laid a hand on you, I would kill his men and his sons too. Was a hand laid upon you?”
“Why didn’t you just let me in on this?”
“Because you might’ve said no. Come over here. I want to show you something.”
Letty stood, slowly, awkwardly. Already her legs had gone stiff.
Three feet away from him, she stopped.
“What?” she asked.
Javier was pointing at the laptop. “Do you see this?”
She leaned over his shoulder, squinting at the screen.
It was an accounts page on a website for the First National Bank of Nassau.
“What’s this supposed to be?” Letty asked.
“It’s an account I opened for you. Do you see this?”
Javier was pointing at a number.
$1,000,000.
“Is that…”
“Yes. That’s your balance. Do you remember the first thing I asked you when we met back in Atlanta?”
“You asked if I’d risk my life for a million-dollar payday.”
“And do you recall—”
“I said yes.”
“You said yes. I know I said four million, but I wasn’t even paid four for this job. I’m giving you fifty percent. You earned it.”
Javier stood.
He stared down at her through those alien-blue eyes.
“You know to keep your mouth shut about Fitch.”
Letty nodded.
Javier lifted his Glock and jammed it into the back of his waistband. He picked up his leather jacket, slid his arms carefully into the sleeves.
“Why are you giving this to me?” Letty asked.
“Who can say? Maybe we’ll work together again.”
“You still sold me out.”
“You’ll get over it. Or you won’t.”
He walked out.
Letty sat at the table and stared at the computer screen for a long time. She couldn’t take her eyes off that number. Light was coming into the sky. The lights along Duval Street were winking off. She couldn’t imagine falling asleep now.
Letty raided the minibar and stocked her purse. Headed out still wearing John Fitch’s clothes.
The roof of the hotel was vacant.
The bar closed.
Letty eased down into one of the east-facing deck chairs.
Drank cheap champagne.
Watched the sun lift out of the sea.
Something Jav had said kept banging around inside her head. It’ll buy you enough crystal to kill yourself a thousand times over. Already she was feeling the itch to score. A pure craving. Is that what lay in store? Three months from now, would she be living out of another motel? Ninety pounds and wasting away? Now that she had enough money to finish the job, would she use until her teeth melted and her brain turned to mush?
Until her heart finally exploded?
She told herself that that wasn’t going to happen, that she wouldn’t lose control again, but she didn’t know if she believed it.
The sun climbed.
Soon there were other people on the roof and the smell of mimosas and bloody marys in the air.
Letty ordered breakfast.
As the morning grew warm, she thought about her son.
In better times—mostly while high—she had imagined sweeping back into Jacob’s life. Saw them in parks. Parent–teacher conferences. Tucking him into bed at night after a story.
But she didn’t want to entertain those fantasies now.
She wasn’t fit.
Had nothing to offer him.
She couldn’t get the hotel concierge out of her mind. Wondered if he could assist on scoring her a teener and a pipe.
Three times, she started down to the lobby.
Three times, she stopped herself.
It was the memory of the Atlanta motel that kept turning her back. The image of her skeletal reflection in that cracked mirror. The idea of someone someday having to tell her son how his mother had od’d when he was six years old.
In the afternoon, Letty moved to the other side of the roof. She passed in and out of sleep as the sun dropped. In her waking moments, she tried on three promises to herself, just to see how they fit.
I will set up a trust fund for Jacob with half the money and make it so I can never touch it.
I will check myself into the best rehab program I can find.
If I’m still clean a year from now, then, and only then, will I go to my son.
The next time she awoke, there were people all around her and the sun was halfway into the ocean. Letty sat up, came slowly to her feet. She walked over to the edge of the roof.
The people around her were making toasts to the sunset and to each other. Nearby, a woman mentioned a news report concerning the death of John Fitch. The group laughed, someone speculating that the coward had taken his own life.
Letty clutched the railing.
She couldn’t escape the idea that it meant something that she’d stayed up here all day. That she’d watched the sun rise, cross the sky and go back into the sea. She hadn’t felt this rested in months, and those promises were looking better and better.
Like something she could own.
Keep.
Maybe even live for.
She knew the feeling might not last.
> Knew she might fall down again.
But in this moment, Letty felt like the tallest thing on the island.
Blake Crouch has published ten novels, as well as many novellas and short stories. His stories have appeared in Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies. His novels Fully Loaded, Run, and Stirred have each earned spots in the top ten of the Kindle bestseller list, and much of his work has been optioned for film. He lives today in Durango, Colorado.