27
The phony Australian accent had been Damian’s idea.
When they decided to come to Cadaqués to confront Curtis, he’d made the suggestion.
Bianca and Damian had lived with an Aussie roommate for a couple of years.
He had been from Fremantle, a port city near Perth, Western Australia.
The Aussie had fallen for an American girl and followed her home.
They’d broken up soon after, but he had chosen to stick around until his visa ran out.
The guy had talked at length about his isolated hometown: the beaches, the creepy-crawlies, and his job as a commercial diver.
Damian and Bianca had mimicked him often and easily for laughs.
Damian was confident they could pull it off.
“Why do we need to use an accent?” Bianca had asked.
“It’s disarming,” he’d told her. “No one will suspect a couple of Aussie travelers. And if we’re not from the States, they’ll have no reason to think that we know who they really are.”
“What if we slip up?” Bianca was biting the edge of her thumb, a sure sign she was feeling stressed. “What if they ask us questions about Australia that we can’t answer?”
“We won’t be there long enough for them to ask much. And we’ll say we’re from Western Australia,” Damian advised. “No one goes there. It’s too far. They’ll have no way of knowing if what we say is true or not.”
Bianca had acquiesced, and they’d practiced at home.
It had seemed easy at first, even fun. But once they got to Spain, once it counted, it seemed less convincing.
Damian could hear himself slipping into British while Bianca leaned Kiwi.
There were brief moments when they forgot to use it at all.
He’d caught himself using Americanisms like “senior year” and heard Bianca say “green pepper” instead of “capsicum.” Fortunately, Curtis and Sydney were too wrapped up in their own drama to notice the inconsistencies.
It feels surprisingly good to drop the accent now, for Damian to speak in his authentic American voice. Almost as good as watching the fear and confusion take over Curtis’s features.
“Who are you?” Curtis asks, his voice a whispered growl.
“Let’s just say we have a mutual friend.” Damian smiles. “We thought we’d come see how your new life is taking shape. You’ve done well.” He indicates their surroundings with a sweep of his hand. “But you didn’t really think you could get away with what you did back in New York, did you?”
“What are you talking about?” Curtis is trying to sound impassive, but he’s pale. Clammy. His eyes are wide and full of fear.
“Do you want me to spell it out for you? Your wife could walk out here any minute.”
A pronounced vein throbs in Curtis’s temple, and he speaks through gritted teeth. “What do you want?”
Damian could tell him, but he’s enjoying watching Curtis squirm.
While he’s played the perfect host, cooking and mixing drinks, Curtis’s condescension has always been there, just under the surface.
He thinks Damian is less intelligent, less sophisticated, less worldly, but he’s wrong.
Because Damian knows what Curtis is hiding.
He wishes Bianca were here to watch this.
She hadn’t wanted to toy with Curtis for this long.
In fact, she hadn’t wanted to toy with him at all.
They had come to the Costa Brava to find Curtis Lowe and make him pay for what he’d done.
So they’d parked their van on the nearby hillside and Damian had pulled the fuel pump relay.
When they knocked on the door, armed with their dead phones and cheerful accents, they’d planned to lure Curtis out to look at the van.
They just needed access to him, to tell him what they knew and what they wanted.
But then Sydney had invited them in, invited them to stay.
And Damian saw an opportunity too good to miss.
“It’s basically a free holiday,” he’d told Bianca, out of earshot of their prospective hosts. “We’re here, babe. We finally made it to Europe.”
“I’m not going to spend my vacation with that piece of shit,” Bianca had hissed.
“But it’s the perfect opportunity to fuck with him before we go in for the kill,” Damian had added. “To make him suffer before we destroy him.”
Bianca had been unsure at first, but soon she saw the beauty in Damian’s plan.
She’d loved watching him taunt, torment, and emasculate their host, but so subtly that Curtis couldn’t ask them to leave without sounding like a crybaby.
A pussy. They’d both flirted with Sydney, luring her into a physical encounter last night that Curtis had been powerless to stop.
Even the physical abuse they’d inflicted on their target was so indirect that they couldn’t be accused.
Bianca had kicked it all off with the jellyfish.
When she’d sent Curtis into the water teeming with invertebrates, Damian had thought the smaller man might be killed.
He had no idea if the floating purple blobs were harmless or deadly, and neither did Bianca.
How could they know? She’s a graphic designer in landlocked Indiana, and Damian sells major appliances.
At least, he did. He’s never going back to that mundane career.
When Curtis started screeching like a toddler, Damian was sure that was the end.
But the stings were only mild, and his shrieks were just dramatics.
Damian had seen the satisfaction flit across Bianca’s features, though she’d quickly masked it with concern.
“We need to scrape out the stingers,” Bianca had ordered, which was a nice touch.
She’d told Curtis and Sydney she was a nurse (everyone loves a nurse), but she only knows the most basic first aid.
And yet she’d sounded so legit that, for a second, Damian wondered if she was really trying to help Curtis.
But it soon became clear that raking the plastic credit cards over those welts was torture.
Almost as bad as the boards and shingles Damian had stomped down on Curtis’s head.
An involuntary smile of satisfaction curls his lips at the memory.
“If it’s money you want, I don’t have much,” Curtis says.
Damian snorts as he takes in the house, the pool, the acres reserved for grapevines. “It looks like you’re doing just fine from where I’m standing.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Curtis growls. “Most of my money’s tied up.”
“I suggest you untie it.”
“Or what?”
Damian leans his back against the hot metal of the van. It’s time. Finally. “A woman is dead because of you. And we’ll tell Sydney all about it.”
The color drains from Curtis’s face, leaving him waxy and corpse-like. He opens his mouth, but no words come. As Damian watches him gawp and splutter, he worries Curtis is having some kind of breakdown, even a stroke. But finally, Curtis finds his voice, low and raspy.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Yes, you have. And we’ve got proof.”
“What proof?” But he’s grasping, his eyes wild and fearful. Because Curtis knows what he’s done. He knows who he was, back in New York.
“We’ve got video evidence,” Damian says with a cruel smile. “Let’s just say you come off in a bad light. And if you don’t pay us, Sydney will see it. We’ll send it to all your contacts. Your wife, your family, and all your business associates will know who you really are.”
“How do I know you have the video?” Curtis whispers, and Damian chokes back a smirk. They don’t have the video, but they know it exists. And so, clearly, does Curtis.
“You don’t. You’ll have to trust us.”
“Show it to me,” Curtis demands on a surge of bravado, but his voice is reedy.
“Happy to.” Damian glowers. “I’ll post it on your Facebook wall. You can watch it there, along with Sydney and everyone else. The cops will find it interesting.” He smirks. “A guy like you will be really popular in jail.”
The other man’s voice is low and defeated. “How much do you want?”
“Five million US in crypto,” Damian replies.
It’s the number he and Bianca had come up with—a sum that Curtis could scrape together, but an amount that would leave him desperate, in debt, forced to sell his Spanish dream house.
And it’s enough money for Bianca and Damian to buy a place on a Greek island—finally—to retire, to do some traveling, to live the life they deserve.
“I don’t have that kind of money lying around.”
The response is expected. “You can get it, though,” Damian says. “If not, we’ll invite Sydney to our short film festival. I’m sure she’d love to see you in all your glory.”
“Don’t,” Curtis snaps. “I’ll need some time.”
“You can have a week. If you deliver, we’ll say the fuel pump has finally arrived and we’ll be on our way. Your wife will never know what you really are.”
Curtis nods slightly and walks away, headed toward the steep path that leads down the mountain toward town. Damian watches him go, high on the successful delivery of the message, the fruition of their plan. They’d plotted and strategized for over a year, and now it’s in motion.
He can’t wait to tell Bianca.