When we left Thailand, we went to St. Louis for Kate Lewis’s funeral. It was a horrible, horrible day. So much sadness.
Tommy was glued to me throughout the trip. I figured he was thinking of us as John and Kate because it could’ve been me that was killed.
And I could see how sorrowful he was for his friend, John. John was a shell of a man, surrounded by six gorgeous children that all looked like perfect combinations of John and Kate. The kids were in shock. Their world had been turned upside down. It was a day I would never ever forget.
From St. Louis, we flew to our house in Costa Rica to get that closed up. And take a little break from reality. We figured we’d come again a few months after our baby was born and bring the whole family for a little holiday.
We had a nice few days there with lots of relaxing, a little bit of packing, and a lot of vanilla sex.
We had an argument on day three, though. I’d bought him a silver cross necklace in an open air market. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry and it looked an awful lot like the necklace he’d had when we met. That necklace was what his mother told him would help him remember he was a good boy and when it fell down a sewer when Tommy’s dad beat up my Dad and Tommy intervened, I had seen the pain on his face, felt it in my soul.
I presented it to him after I bought it, he’d been standing off to the side while I shopped, making a work phone call.
He rolled his eyes when I gave it to him.
“You think this’ll protect you from me? Really?” He threw it in a trash bin.
I was taken aback. I physically moved back at the aggression coming off him.
“Let’s go.”
I reached into the trash bin and pulled out the necklace box and put it in my pocket, showing him with my expression that he was hurting my feelings.
“Let’s go back to the house.” He grabbed my hand and impatiently walked, back to our car (we’d bought one when we were here a few months back) and opened my door for me.
I looked at him, a little stupefied.
He scowled and slammed the door after I was inside.
When we got back to the house, I gave him his space and busied myself. But then I heard a car outside.
I looked out the window and saw a red car pull in the long driveway. We were outside of the village, on the water, and it was rare for someone to show up.
A young and handsome guy in a suit got out of the passenger seat and his eyes went right to the window where I was standing. My hair stood on end. The driver was an older guy. They were both well-dressed, in suits. They approached the door casually.
Tommy, a moment later, came into the bedroom, where I was packing my clothes.
“Stay up here. Yeah?” He was tweaked.
“What’s wr---”
“Stay here.” He pulled a gun from under the bed and put it on the nightstand, “Anyone comes in here but me, shoot to kill.”
He put his cell phone on the table beside the phone.
“Shoot to kill and call Dare.”
“Tommy, you’re scaring me.”
“Just stay here. I’ll be back. But if I don’t come back…”
“What the fuck?” I started to shake.
“Love you. Sit tight.” He kissed me hard and quick and left the room closing the door behind him. He had another gun stuffed in the back of his pants.
About fifteen minutes later, that felt like fifteen hours, the two men left in the red car and he was back.
“Who was that?”