Naya smiled, nodded. ‘I’d like that.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I just couldn’t see it at first, you know? Ben and Hannah, in a relationship. But I think he really did love her.’
‘And I’m sure she really loved him too,’ said Scott. Mira had to resist rolling her eyes at that; in spite of everything that had come out about Hannah since her death – her history of alcohol and marijuana abuse; the lethal danger of some of her advice and claims – Scott was resolute in his loyalty towards her.
‘And Scott, what about you? Have you thought what you’ll do with the payment from the interview?’ Mira said.
Scott shifted in his chair, looked suddenly uncomfortable. Mira wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have asked – was she being intrusive?
‘Ah, yeah – there’s a conservation project actually, over in Europe, that I’m hoping to get involved with,’ he says. ‘They’ve got an opening for someone to take over the management of it – so if I do that, the cash will come in handy to help me move and everything—’ Mira wondered why telling her this would make him feel so awkward, as if he were keeping some big secret he didn’t want her to know.
She decided not to ask any more. Her eyes flickered across the screen towards Naya, but her gazed seemed to shift away from Mira, over to the side of the room.
What’s going on? Are they trying to hide something from me?
She looked at Naya again; her cheeks had turned a gentle shade of pink. And in a flash, Mira understood.
Of course – how could I have missed it before?
Mira smiled. ‘I see. And would that conservation project happen to be based in France, I wonder, Scott? Somewhere in the north?’
Scott laughed. ‘Naya, it looks like we’re busted,’ he said. Mira glanced at Naya; she was beaming.
‘Yes. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and we’re going to spend some time together,’ he said. ‘See how things go.’
As Scott spoke, Mira saw on his face an expression of such sincerity, such depth of emotion, that her heart seemed to swell in her chest, filling her ribcage. It had been like this for her in all the months since she got back from Costa Rica – feeling everything more intensely, more deeply. Pain and joy, both amplified.
Behind her, Ezra called her name.
‘Coming,schatzi. I’ve got to go – we’ve got family coming over for Shabbat,’ she said.
‘It was so good to see you, Mira,’ Scott said. ‘Let’s stay in touch, all of us?’
She smiled at them both, nodded. ‘We will,’ she said. ‘We’re in each other’s lives now – for good, I hope.’
Then she waved goodbye, closed her laptop and headed to the kitchen, where Ezra was waiting for her.
EPILOGUE
CARLY
Carly checks the view behind her in the computer’s camera. This is the biggest risk she’s taken since she’s been here; she needs to make sure there’s nothing in the cafe that might give away where she is.
To be fair, the likelihood of her being recognized – with the silver-grey pixie cut she’s now sporting, coloured contact lenses and her skin several shades darker after so many months this close to the equator – is fairly slim. But she can’t take any chances.
As she takes in the line of white sandy beach and the steep cliffs that line the Pacific coast outside the cafe’s window, she feels her familiar pang of yearning for Wales. She misses home every day. Even the grey skies, the drizzly cold of winter. In Ecuador, there only seem to be two types of weather: rainy and hot, and dry and hot. Today, especially, she is longing for the dreariness of February back home.
You’re lucky to even be here.
And it is true; it was a decent amount of luck – plus somereasonable wilderness survival skills – that led to her ending up here. Hiding inside a giant kapok tree in Hannah’s rainforest for three days, living off insects and rainwater collected in those giant leaves. Waiting until the biggest flurry of police and rescue workers had given up on finding her, presumably deciding she was dead and swallowed up by the jungle.
Then following the stream in the opposite direction to Hannah’s house, making her way out of the rainforest to one of the local villages in the dead of night; bribing a local farmer to drive her to the bus station near Rincon where she gave herself a haircut and bought a change of clothes.
And then the treacherous journeys facilitated by drug dealers and smugglers, using up the last of her American dollars, in the backs of trucks and lorries, sneaking across the border to Panama, then into Colombia – and finally, months later, she arrived here, a tiny fishing village in the Manabi province of Ecuador.
For months she’s lain low, barely leaving her beach hut, making some quick dollars helping harvest coffee beans at a nearby farm. None of it is ideal; her hands are torn to shreds, and some days she barely makes enough to eat.
But what choice does she have?
She is a murderer. Perhaps if she’d just confessed when she’d knocked Hannah down – if she’d called for help, instead of dragging her further into the rainforest – she’d have been forgiven; she could be back home right now, in her dead-end job, but at least she’d be free.
