As opposed to Elizaveta—and no doubt myself—Pepper and Rosa appeared none the worse for wear. Pepper wore his purple blazer draped over his shoulders again, and now that his bug was marching a hasty retreat, he almost seemed refreshed. He complained of being weak and tired, but you couldn’t tell this by looking at him. And Rosa was, well, Rosa. She had the glow and resilience of youth. Her brother was dead, and she’d just survived a night of hell, but she seemed as though she could spring up and run a marathon, or bake a cake, at a moment’s notice.

“I hope not too,” Elizaveta said. “But she killed two people.”

“She won’t go to prison,” I said, thinking even if it turned out she had indeed committed a double murder, forensic mental health professionals would almost certainly deem her mentally unfit to stand trial. “They’ll make her plead guilty but insane,” I added. “She’ll end up in an asylum somewhere.”

“I don’t think those exist anymore,” Elizaveta said.

“In Mexico they do,” Pepper said. “I researched them for one of my shows—”

“You guys are as dumb as that retard bitch.”

We all turned as one to see Jesus standing some ten feet away.

He gripped the pistol in his hand, which I’d left on the bank on top of our bags, and he was aiming it directly at me.

3

We stood very quickly. Jesus was bare-chested and scowling and watchful. He’d sliced up his white button-down shirt and used the material to bandage up his shoulder. His hair was greasy and messy, his once-fashionable stubble now slovenly beard shadow. He looked like a refugee that had escaped some third-world disaster.

“You didn’t leave the island,” I said.

“And leave behind witnesses to contradict my version of events?”

“Where’s the canoe?” Elizaveta asked.

“In the reeds. Sunk in shallow water.”

“You pull that trigger, Jesus,” I said, “it’s murder.”

“You murdered Pita!”

“She was going to kill Eliza.”

He shook his head. “I’m not here to talk, Jack. I’m here to kill you.”

“You’re not God!” Rosa said. “You’re the devil!”

“The devil doesn’t exist, cariño,” he said. “Haven’t you learned anything?” He returned his attention to me. “I’d tell you to say hi to Nitro for me, Jack. But fortunately for you, I don’t think hell exists either.”

He squeezed the trigger.

4

The pistol clicked. Jesus’s eyes widened. He squeezed the trigger again and again.

I stuck my hand in the pocket of my shorts and produced the cartridges I’d removed from the pistol’s magazine earlier. I tossed them into the canal.

“Figured there was a chance you might have stuck around, Jesus,” I said. “You know, to clean up your mess. And what better lure than a gun left serendipitously in the open.”

His surprise metastasized into hatred. “You motherfucker!”