Okay, this an anchorchapter --meaning it's a pivotal plot turning chapter--I've been planning for a long, long time. Ever since Costa Rica was first mentioned...PAY ATTENTION...
Ashlynn
Luis has never been to San Jose. He's amazed at the tall buildings and the traffic. He's very helpful in the stores, and the shopping goes quickly because Leed has a guy's mentality to shopping, especially since money is no object to him.
He stalks into each store, throws his Black Amex on the counter to get their attention and tells Luis to tell the clerk, "They have fifteen minutes to sell me whatever they have that's on the list."
The guy at the Apple store freaks out when Leed buys thirty MacBooks—I guess he just made his selling quota for the year.
"Leed," I chide. "Philanthropy is also about making every dollar count," I remind him. "Less expensive student computers might be a better idea...Chromebooks or something..."
"We're already here and I want to get this done and get to the fun with the kid. Budgets will be your job. Today, I'm just playing Santa Claus," he says cheerfully and buys Luis an Iphone. "So he can text us. Maybe he won't feel like he has to steal if he thinks he could ask us for help, if his mom ever came back." Leed reasons.
"Laurie won't let him have that," Ashlynn chides. "That's favoritism."
"She will if I tell her it's part of the philanthropy deal. That he has to send videos of the other kids and how our money is being put to use."
I shake my head as the Apple guys brings out the cart of Macbooks. "I forget you're an angel with horns and a tail."
"You love me like that," he says and squeezes my ass where no one can see.
Hours later, our shopping is done, we splurged on room service burgers and milkshakes with Luis, and Leed sweet talked the hotel manager into opening the already-closed pool for us. Before I can suggest we see how well Luis can swim, Leed swoops him up and tosses him in a high arc in the deep end. I gasp, but Luis comes up laughing and paddles to the side easily.
"Again!" he demands, climbing out and up Leed like a monkey.
"Again what?" Leed gives him an evil eye as he holds him casually with one arm.
Luis rolls his eyes. "Again, por favor."
Leed grins. "You're right, that's about how much Spanish I have, kid." He throws him in again, and this time Luis swims underwater to the shallow end and performs handstands. As Leed and I ease down the steps I shake my head at him.
"You should have made sure he can swim before you threw him in the deep end."
"Baby, a kid like that learned a long time ago how to keep his head above water," Leed scoffs. "Besides, I would have saved him, if he couldn't."
I wrap my entire body around Leed. "Like you saved me, when I was drowning."
"I will always save you," Leed promises, with a kiss to my cheek.
My gut flip-flops, thinking of "the problem" that awaits us at home. I can't let Leed think he needs to save me from that, because he'll be the one who gets in over his head.
————
Maybe it's because life is slow here, but every day in Costa Rica feels like a lifetime. By the time we have to say good-bye to Luis the next day, it feels like I've known him forever. As he hugs me and tells me again he's sorry from stealing from me, I pick him up, look him in the eye, and say, "I forgive you. You don't have to apologize to me for that ever again, okay?"
His face is very serious as he says. "Will I ever see you again, though?"
"You will. I promise."
He hugs me. I cry. Leed sighs and pulls him off me. "Dude. That one's mine. Find your own girlfriend."
Luis grins. "Okay. I'll get that dating app where you swipe right on the hotties...what's it called?"
I cover my face in silent laughter, the tears changing their flavor from sadness to hilarity.
As Leed tells Luis he's too young for that app and lots of other "shady shrap" he could do with a phone and explains that we got the "parental" oversight options on his phone plan so we can check up on his habits, and then he turns right around and coaches Luis to hide his new cell phone from the other kids until we have a chance to talk to Laurie about it, I realize Leed feels it, too.
Just like Costa Rica, Luis is a part of us.
————
While I unpack all the computers in the morning and in the afternoon have the kids help me unpack all the new toys, Leed spends the day with Laurie, an electrician and a local utilities person, arranging for a multiport charging station to be installed in the classrooms, and setting up the broadband service contract Hogarcita will need for their online classrooms.
"I ordered you a SMART Board, too. It should be here in a couple of weeks with a tech guy to install it," Leed tells her. "It wasn't on your list but you need it," he tells her.
Even the most emotionally hardened orphanage wardens can't resist Leed's charm. He uses that moment where she's near tears to hash out a deal that lets Luis have his new phone a few hours a week. When Laurie calls him in to make him surrender the phone and reminds him he still has double chores for his thieving, I half expect him to call Leed an asshole again for telling about the phone. Instead he says, "Si, Senora."
When he turns to go, he gives me a broad smile. Leed gets the chin tip Luis has already perfected in a day.
As we tell Laurie good-bye, I slip one of the flyers of her daughter into my bag as she and Leed exchange hugs. I'm hoping I'm wrong about where I've seen Megan Davis' picture before, but deep down I already know I'm right.
Leed's instincts never fail him, because as I'm hugging Laurie good-bye, Leed's fingers brush against the stack of flyers, like he can sense my lingering attention there. Or maybe, even though I thought he wasn't looking, he saw me take one.
"Laurie I hate to bring up sadness again...but...what was his name? The boyfriend?"
Laurie's expression changes into a practiced look—like she forces herself to accept her daughter's tragic fate from the outside in. "Rick. Rick von Schlater."
My heart stops and I watch Leed from the corner of my eye, but his face doesn't change. It's still full of sympathy for Laurie. "Do you still...pursue him?"
"No," she shakes her head. "I met with him a few times after Megan disappeared. He seemed genuinely devastated, even though they had not been dating very long...just a few months before she disappeared. I kept tabs on him for about ten years.
"His family were diplomats...German, but he finished college in the US, became a US citizen and he started using a derivation on his name—a trendier, Americanized derivation. The alias did make me suspicious, but he's never even had so much as a parking ticket. He worked in contract intelligence after college—I think he was part of some elite interrogation unit, because he had several languages. He was commended several times for bravery.
"When he returned to the US, he went into some kind of Silicon Valley business with his brother, who had also remained in the US after their diplomatic parents moved on. That was about...twelve years ago...about the time I opened this place. I had to let obsessing over him go. I've accepted I will never know what happened to Megan. I can only hope...she's at peace."
Leed sighs and hugs her for a long time. "I'm very sorry for your loss, but I'm very glad to have met you, Laurie. I hope I can help you save other children."
"Thank you. Me too."
I can hardly makes words in my good-byes with Laurie, I'm so overwhelmed and racked with guilt.
Leed turns on loud local music on our drive back to San Jose and then we are busy making our way through the airport to our waiting private jet. I almost convince myself that it will be okay—that in the overwhelm of everything that's happened, Leed didn't pick up on what seems so obvious to me.
Once we are airborne and our vacation has officially come to an end, Leed's mood still seems quiet. He asks the attendant for a tequila. I'm a little surprised by that—it's his first drink since the Vision Party nearly a month ago, but he smiles at me and tells me he wants me to know how much he loves me and how he will always cherish our first vacation together. We recap a little, but Leed's mood is growing more solemn with each sip of tequila. When he asks me what my favorite part of our vacation was, I tell him my favorite adventure was the waterfall rappelling, but the favorite takeaway was meeting Luis.
"And Laurie," he says quietly.
"I feel terrible for her," I admit quietly. "She's been going through what I put my own parents through. Until Dawes put their worst fears to rest, and they thought I was safe and happy with Trace."
"Yeah, your parents got a happy ending. I don't think Laurie ever will."
Leed asks for another tequila. He gulps it in one swallow, his eyes on me.
I know all my deception is on thin ice when he asks the flight attendant to bring the bottle and give us the cabin.
He pours another tequila, drinks it quickly, then leans over and reaches for my bag, pulling the missing flyer out. He hold up the picture of Megan Davis. I can hardly look at her. It's just too painful.
"I've always believed nothing happens by accident. But I never knew it for sure until today," he says mildly. "What do you know about Megan Davis?"
"Nothing." That part is true. I've never heard her name, never knew anything about her. Certainly not that she was missing, probably dead. But I have seen her picture.
I'm expecting the next question now.
"Okay, then. Tell me about Rick von Schlater."
"No, I do not know anything about him, either. Why would you even ask me that?" I say calmly. "It's a very sad story, though," I say lightly, trying to deflect.
"Yes, very sad. But do not fucking play me, Ashlynn," his tone is sharp.
He drains his tequila and slams the glass down the table. His face is pale and his eyes are burning like Greek Fire. He's angrier than I have ever seen him. Everything inside me is twisting and burning as he makes two V's with the fingers of both hands and merges them until they become a W. "Goddamn, all this time, and we've been looking in the wrong direction."
I feel like I might pass out. I can feel my vision going blurry and I hear my blood rushing in my ears "What does that mean? Who's been looking in the wrong direction?"
Oh my god. Oh my god. "The problem." Leed is causing "the problem." He's been digging into my past and he must be close to the truth.
"Leed, what have you done?" I hiss at him.
He's on his feet at once, jerking me out of my seat. "No. You don't get to be angry. I'm fucking pissed, Ashlynn! You fucking swore to me you would tell me if he contacted you. I knew the guy was at the Vision party, but I had no idea he approached you. You fucking swore and you fucking lied!"
I try to turn away from his anger, but he keeps hold of my arm. He swipes the picture of Megan Davis from the table and thrusts it in my face, forcing me to look at her. "Look at this girl, Ashlynn. He murdered her! That could have been you!" He screams at me. "Christ—there could be...more."
He lets me go, and the way he stares at me hurts worse than any abuse I've ever taken—even the cuts I took in my flesh. He stares at me the way I always feared he would. He stares at me with fury and disgust. He picks up his glass and the bottle again, and then he loses it.
"Fuuuuuuuckkk!" he screams and throws the glass, following it with the bottle of tequila. The flight attendant opens the door from the cockpit.
"Mr. Lawson, please...there are rules for flight safety..."
"I'm sorry. You're right. I'm sorry," he tells her. "It's all good."
She speaks over her shoulder to the captain for a long moment as Leed paces the cabin, and finally she nods and closes the door.
I cover my face, trying to hide from his anger and his disgust. My head swims, and I can't believe this is happening. How can every thing turn so horribly wrong by chance?
But I know he's right. This is not by chance. The Universe wants justice for Megan Davis, and I might be the only person who can give it to her. If I try to, it might cost the person I love the most...everything he is.
He's talking to me again, still angry but a little calmer. "Ashlynn, a girl is probably dead. You just met her grieving mother. A woman who's heart has been bleeding for almost as long as you have been alive. This is not just about you anymore. So you are going to sit your ass down and you are going to tell me the fucking truth about Varrick Von."