Joaquin rocked back on his heels, fists pushed into the front pockets of his jeans. Air, so cold he choked on a deep breath, stole under his parka and chilled his skin. But he kept his place. He watched the big guy—Etienne—push the Bobcat out of the garage. He started it and let it idle and then stood back and waited for Joaquin’s father to climb aboard. His father pulled on the helmet and adjusted the goggles over his eyes. His father enjoyed skiing. Downhill or cross-country. He’d been on a snowmobile before, but so few times and so long ago that Joaquin doubted he remembered how to work one. The equipment guy seemed to have the same concerns. As his father approached the Bobcat, the guy—built like a mountain—stepped forward.
“Let’s go over a few things,” he said, and then he pointed to the throttle and explained it. He took hold of the handgrips and showed how fast they responded to direction—like riding a bike. He bent over and pointed out the cut switch.
“And if I need to start it again?”
“No key,” Etienne said. “You just push here”—a red button on the steering column—“and turn the throttle.” He did it and the engine gunned.
His father straddled the snowmobile, and Etienne stepped back. “Machine must be back by eight o’clock.”
Joaquin pushed back the sleeve of his parka and looked at the lighted dial of his watch. It was 7:10. He looked at the landscape. The trees were a darker shade of night against the sky. A sliver of moon cast a stronger glow than expected for its smallness, and a handful of stars were well out of reach. Clear skies finally. No chance of snow. His father would have an easy ride if he kept on the trail.
“What happens if it’s not?” his father asked. “Do you send a search party?”
He’d meant it as a joke, but his voice was tight and Etienne took him seriously.
“We call your room. We look around the property. That’s usually enough.”
His father nodded. “I’ll try to be on time.”
His father’s words were an assurance but also subtly dismissive. Etienne didn’t move. He stood a few feet away from the Bobcat but still managed to tower over Joaquin’s father. And he was troubled. Joaquin noticed the tension in Etienne’s shoulders, the frown growing deeper on his face.
“Beatrice is gone,” he said.
“Yes.”
“She was my friend.”
“I know.” His father sat back on the padded seat and pushed his goggles up. He gave Etienne his full attention. “And you were a good friend to her.”
“You didn’t like that.”
“I was wrong.” He held out his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Etienne looked at his father’s hand but didn’t take it. He seemed confused by the action or by Dr. Esparza’s words as his face clouded and his voice became agitated.
“I miss her.”
“Me too.”
“But she’s not coming back.” Etienne wanted that to be a possibility, and maybe he wanted it so badly that he thought he could make it happen. Like some wishes did come true. Joaquin could tell by his tone, which was mostly wistful but torn in places by grief.
“Beatrice is dead, Etienne,” his father said, and his voice was soft, steady. His father had had to say similar words before, lots of times, probably. Joaquin heard the ache in them.
He nodded. “The police told me that. I didn’t believe them.”
“They spoke to you?”
He nodded. “They found Beatrice on the lake. I told them she was on her way to a party and she looked like a princess.” Etienne smiled with the memory, and Joaquin could tell it was pure. Etienne had thought Beatrice was beautiful. He had seen her heart and been drawn to it. That had happened a lot with his sister. He felt his lips tremble as he realized how much the world would be missing with Beatrice gone.
“Thank you, Etienne. You made her smile,” his father said.
Etienne looked over Dr. Esparza’s head at Joaquin. “You need a helmet and goggles. I’ll get them.”
“I’m not riding.” And then Joaquin did something he never would have done but Beatrice would have. It was second nature to her. He reached out to Etienne. He walked around the Bobcat his father was straddling and came to stand next to Etienne. “My father wanted to shake your hand, to say he was sorry he’d misjudged you. I’d like to shake it for the same reason.”
He held out his hand, and Etienne looked at it, then extended his own. It was an awkward gesture, and Joaquin realized that a handshake was a foreign thing to him, so he closed the gap and took the big hand and pumped it twice, then let go.
“That’s how it’s done,” Joaquin said. “A handshake is important, Etienne. It means you’re equal. The other guy’s no better than you. You’re no worse than he is.”
“Equal is good.”
Joaquin nodded. “It’s the best.”
The big guy nodded and turned back to Joaquin’s father. “You need anything else?”
“Is there a GPS on this thing?”
“No. The trails are marked. Stay on them,” he advised.
Etienne walked away then, his boots falling heavily on the snowpack. Joaquin waited until he was inside the garage and lowering the automatic door before he turned back to his father. He laid a hand on the steering column to get his attention over the purr of the Bobcat and the metallic crunching of the equipment door. His father looked up. His face was pensive but his eyes were lit with question.
“That was a good thing you did, Joaquin.”
“Beatrice would have done it.”
Dr. Esparza nodded. “We can all learn from her,” he said. “We can make changes, even small ones, and that would be carrying Beatrice with us. That would give her life where there is none.”
Joaquin wanted to remember those words. He wanted to sift through them and make sure he understood what his father was saying, but right now wasn’t the time to do it. In forty-five minutes the resort would be looking for the Bobcat. In fifteen minutes his father had a meeting with Callon Pharmaceuticals.
“She’ll be waiting for you,” Joaquin said. “Sanders.”
But his father shook his head. “It will be someone else. Someone she hired. Someone who will try to intimidate me. She doesn’t know it’s not necessary.”
“You’ll go with him?”
“Yes. Freely. I want to see Sanders. I want to watch her face when I tell her it’s too late for her and for Callon. When she realizes life as she knows it is over.”
“She never cared about Beatrice. Telling her won’t change that.”
“That’s not why I’m doing it. She killed my girl, and I want her to know that she has lost everything too.”
But Joaquin wasn’t convinced it was a good idea. “It won’t change who she is.”
“But I will go anyway,” his father returned. “Beatrice will hear my words, and she will know that I’ve changed.”
Joaquin nodded. His father was set on a course. He was going to do this thing—meet with the Big Six winner, show her that he’d betrayed them all by going public with his discovery, make things right with Beatrice. He couldn’t live with himself otherwise. He could die, though, knowing he’d done right by her.
Beatrice should have lived. His father’s discovery was a success and his sister had been living proof of it. His father had thought the world would embrace Nueva Vida. He had not looked beyond his own greed, beyond his own rise to fame, and had been blindsided by the reaction of the pharmaceutical companies. Their game was to sustain life and to do it in the least cost-effective way possible for the patient. Sustain, not cure, and keep the cash cow fed.
“Are you ready?” he asked Joaquin.
“That’s my line,” he said.
His father smiled. “You are filling my shoes already.”
But Joaquin shook his head. “I’ll never do that. If I have to, if things work out that way, then I’ll do what I can, but it will never be enough.”
“You’re wrong. You are more than enough.”