Montana had never been on their list. In the past, vacations had been all about getting outside and breathing in nature. Here, skiing was okay, but there were better places for it. The resort was rustic and one of the better places they’d ever stayed, in Joaquin’s opinion, but he knew his mother and father both felt that it was less than they’d expected. This was not a hot-spot destination. Hard to even find on a map.
They were in Blue Mesa for one thing. And it had failed them. Failed Nueva Vida.
Now Montana would always be stained with losing Beatrice. It would be about mistakes, bad decisions, and greed.
“Sometimes, Joaquin, the desire to live life to the fullest clouds our vision.” His father had admitted that he had been blinded by the need for more.
His father was remorseful. He’d cried for Bea. He’d sobbed, his shoulders shaking and his nose running, and in that moment he hadn’t cared what the world thought of him. And it was in that moment that Joaquin realized that he loved his father, even though he despised his weaknesses. It was possible to feel both ways at the same time.
The thick carpeting absorbed his footsteps, and so he arrived at the second-floor conference room unannounced. His father sat in a chair facing the windows. Night was early and pressed against the panes. His laptop and cell phone sat in the chair next to him. His head was down and his hands were folded in his lap, but Joaquin could see that he was thinking. Small lines deepened around his eyes and his lips were pursed.
He looked up and caught Joaquin’s reflection beside his in the window. And he smiled. It was soft and slow and it reached his eyes, and he opened his hands and invited,
“Come here, Joaquin. Come sit next to me.”
He walked around the chairs and stood in front of his father, and he took the hand his father offered, not knowing what was going to happen next. His father was not a physically affectionate guy. He didn’t demonstrate emotion.
“I know this is a fine time to say such things, but better too little too late than nothing at all,” he said. He turned their hands so that Joaquin’s was over his, larger, younger, stronger. “You are at a crossroads. Great things are expected of you, and you will make big decisions too soon. You will choose wisely, learning from my mistakes. That’s the way these things happen. And I will be proud of you. You will respond from your heart. That is the biggest thing about you, Joaquin. Your heart. There is beauty in your care for others and in your sense of right and wrong. And as you grow, you will become less rigid in that. You will bend as the boughs of a tree, but you will not break. Because there is strength in there too.”
Joaquin felt his hand tremble in his fathers. He sat down beside him, and he turned his hand so that he could grip his father’s. It sounded like his dad was saying good-bye. His father sensed his emotions and spoke to them.
“I’ve had another call,” he told Joaquin. “Geneva Sanders, Callon Pharmaceuticals. She wants to meet with me and I’m going.”
“You’re going to give them Nueva Vida?”
“Never. We will meet where Beatrice died because I want them to know the true reason we are together. They will expect the final notes on Nueva Vida. They will expect me to arrive, suitcase in hand, ready to roll with them. Instead, they will receive devastating news. An end to many dreams.”
“You’ve destroyed Nueva Vida?”
“No. Beatrice would not have wanted that. But I am giving it away. As she asked me to do.”
He nodded toward his laptop, closed and silent now.
“I’ve downloaded it on the laptop,” he said. “I’ve attached it to an email that I sent to a small pharm company with a big reputation for integrity. I’ve given all to them, except the final sequence in the code that opens all possibility. I’ve written a second email to a different pharmaceutical company. They will have to work together. They will have each other for checks and balances.”
He opened his hand. A small SD media card rested in the center of his palm, and lines radiated out from it. Long life, as Beatrice had never had.
“If I give this to you for safekeeping, they will come for you too.”
“They’ll never know.”
But his father shook his head. “If they think it’s possible, they’ll come.”
Joaquin felt a heaviness lean against his throat. “I’ll take that chance.”
But his father shook his head. “If I destroy this, than there is no reservoir of knowledge. Nothing to go back to. The puzzle is incomplete. Scientists are good at chasing leads, but I wonder, have I left enough clues?”
He looked up at Joaquin, conflicted, and said, “Your sister can’t have died for nothing.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Joaquin said. “You can answer their questions. Guide them through it.”
There was a long silence that grew heavy and made the air thin, and before he even said his next words, Joaquin knew what they would be.
“Today I will die, Joaquin,” he said. “I don’t want you to be surprised by that. You will need to keep your mind clear, your actions precise. I am counting on you.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“They will stop at nothing else.” He lifted his hands, palms up, and gazed at them as though watching the highlight reel of his life. “I played the game. The stakes were high. I knew that going in, but was distracted by the payout. It would have been huge. Not just financially, but Enrique Esparza, he would be remembered by many here and many to come as the maker of miracles. I wanted everyone to know that. That I did it. That I rose to a position of power, that I was giving the world what no one else could—new life.”
This Joaquin understood. Finally. And not because his father said the words, but because he’d given up the dream. “Don’t meet with them. Tell them you gave it away.”
“They won’t wait. If I didn’t agree, they would come for me. They would be here right now. They don’t like liability, and they are big on canceling debts.”
“With the knowledge public, they would have no reason to kill you. You said so yourself.”
“I was wrong. All loose threads must be tied off.”
“Fight this.”
“I am fighting for Beatrice now,” he said. “She will not have died for nothing, and that is the most important thing.” He looked at Joaquin. “You will live your life, and you will have mountains and valleys, and you will be tested and true. I have no doubt about that. Look forward,” he said. “That was my biggest problem, I was always looking over my shoulder. And the past was always gaining on me. Don’t let that happen to you, Joaquin.”
He opened his hand again, and the media card, a tiny piece of plastic and metal, rested in his palm.
“I’m giving this to you, Joaquin, not to keep but to carry. They are my notes, all my failures and triumphs on my way to Nueva Vida. Twelve years of work. Put it in your pocket as a piece of lint, but remember it when you get to the police. Sheriff Cobain—I like her, Joaquin. She is smart, determined. When you give her this, tell her what it is. Tell her it is not so much evidence as it is life.”