I considered these questions in the days that followed the tragedy, as investigators tried to make sense of what had happened.
Most of the crew survived. Mr. And Mrs. Brown had gotten out in time and hadn't been injured. Bridgette was recovering and was still pregnant. But the death toll was big.
Ashton and Louise Davenport.
Maxwell Fisher.
Professor George Cavin
Detective Aaron Gray.
And Jon Davenport, though his name would be missing from all official accounts.
So much loss and heartbreak. I modified the truth to spare Ash more pain, and I laid the guilt of what happened on Professor Cavin. He would carry the public weight for everything, and I would live my life being the only one left alive who knew the truth—the whole truth.
It was a burden I would gladly bear to spare my husband and best friend more pain.
***
Months later, Ash surprised me with a honeymoon to Bali. "Do you remember when you were Cat and we used our phone calls to go to exotic locations and make love?" he asked as we boarded our international flight.
"Yes." My heart skipped every time I looked at him, at his smile and the dimple in his chin. At how he looked at me with such love and devotion. The secrets I carried in my heart lightened when I remembered why I carried them instead of sharing them. This man was worth anything and everything to me.
I got a text and read it, smiling. Hurry back. I don't want you to miss the baby being born. ~Bridge I replied. We'll be back in plenty of time. I can't wait to meet my niece or nephew.
She had chosen not to find out the sex, and I knew she mourned for Jon more than all of us. But she'd recovered for the baby and had even gone back to med school at the same time I rejoined law school. I’d had Ash teach me how to invest the small trust my parents left me so I could be more self-sufficient financially, and I'd reframed the one portrait I had of me with my parents and hung it in the living room. I still had mixed feelings about my mother, about what her choices had led to, but I'd taken Bridgette's advice and remembered the mother I knew and loved. The kind, funny, caring woman who had raised me. She would live in my heart forever and I would let the other woman, the criminal I didn't know, rest in peace at the bottom of the ocean with all the other drowned secrets.
I pulled my attention away from my phone, dropping it into my purse, and looked up at my husband. "You were saying?"
"Yes, well, remember that hotel in Ubud I told you about?"
I did—but when we arrived in the little town in central Bali, it took my breath away. My imagination could never have filled in the details of this majestic place, surrounded by a rainforest. We checked into our hotel and enjoyed the scattering of tropical flowers on the bed and the warm breeze blowing through the white gauze curtains on the window overlooking the Ayung River.
In the distance, monkeys chattered in the coconut palms and we could hear the waterfalls crashing against rocks.
We stood on the balcony and admired the cocoa and coffee trees blending with bamboo, flame trees and orchids. The lush color overwhelmed me.
We didn't waste time and soon stripped our clothes off and waded into the private cascading pool overlooking the forest. The warm water pulled me in and I sank into it, enjoying the feel of the sun on my bare flesh.
Ash joined me, our bodies coming together as he kissed me. His hand explored my body and found itself between my legs, pushing into me as I wrapped my legs around him in the water. He pushed me against the edge of the pool, water streaming over us as he spread my legs wider and placed his cock between the folds of my pussy. His tip teased me as he held me up against him. "Tell me you want me."
"I want you." I rubbed closer to him, trying to force him inside me, but he controlled my hips.
"Tell me you need me."
"I need you."
He sank deeper into me, filling me and stretching me, but didn't move.
"Tell me you love me."
"I love you, Ash."
He shoved himself into me, rocking me against the edge of the pool, fucking me so hard I cried out, screaming his name.
In the jungle, the monkeys screeched in a cacophony of sound as we both climaxed together under the heat of the Bali sun.
Chapter Forty
Goodbye
THE NIGHT OF THE CRUISE
I STOOD, SHAKING, bits of Professor Cavin smeared into my hair and on my face, and I dropped the gun and sobbed. I'd just killed the man I thought of as my protector. My mentor. I covered myself with my shirt and adjusted my pants, disgusted and terrified by what he'd been about to do.
Angry at what he'd done to my mother and father.
Shaking, I searched the cabin for my mother's research, the last bit of evidence that any of this had happened. I hadn't wanted to leave the research behind. It seemed somehow fitting to have it here as I completed my revenge. I took it in my hands and lit a match, setting the bundle on fire as I dropped it into the tin trash can in the corner.
The flames danced in my eyes as I watched this chapter in my life end for good.