New Year Island (84 page)
She traced the back of his hand with her thumb, and a sudden emptiness spread inside her. She looked away.
“What now, Juan?” she asked. “Are you going to disappear?”
“No,” he said. “I’m done running away.”
She squeezed his hand, blinking, unwilling to trust herself to speak.
“Things will be different for you, too, now,” he said. “You’ll be recognized anywhere you go. Celebrity will take some getting used to.”
She nodded, thinking of Avery. She would go see him as soon as she could. Maybe even today, if she could get away from the media long enough. She would hug little Avey and hold him tight—to reassure herself just as much as him that everything would be okay.
“We’ll have our moment of fame, and then it’ll pass,” she said. “But I’m not going to waste mine. I’m going to make something good come of it. I’m going to use it to help my foundation kids, and Veronica’s shelter.” She gave a sad smile. “I bet I can raise a lot more than ten million after
this
.”
Juan smiled grimly. “Interview with a double survivor: unkillable woman gets buried alive twice, defeats mass murderer, and returns to rescue orphaned children. I think you’ll get more money and publicity than you want.”
“Brent was wrong to single out survivors,” she said. “My kids are all survivors. Every person is a survivor.”
She felt Juan come alert at her side. A wide grin spread across his face and he said, “Some more than others.”
She followed his gaze past the ruined houses, to where a small figure in a gray hoodie was coming out of the storage shed.
Camilla’s heart leaped with surprised joy. “Brent lied.”
She hugged Juan hard, and he winced.
“Behind the false wall in the shed,” she said. “She was hiding this whole time.”
Natalie raised a hand in a shy little wave. Camilla waved back.
“Veronica had it right all along.” She watched Natalie walk away, headed toward the boats at the dock. “There’s the true survivor.”
The sun gleamed silver on the water. She leaned back against Juan, and together they watched the rescuers converge across Año Nuevo Island.
Thank you for reading New Year Island!
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Thanks for taking the time to read this afterword, too. I’m thrilled to hear from any of you, any time. Hit me up by email, tweet, or on Facebook and say hi.
Talk to you soon.
—Paul
I am indebted beyond measure to my fantastic editor, Michael Carr. He saw potential in an early draft of New Year Island, and was generously willing to help a new writer over the hurdles necessary to shape the prose into something readers might actually want to read. Working with an editor of Michael’s caliber is a dream come true for a writer, and it has helped me up my game substantially. Thanks, man! I owe you big-time.
I have also been very fortunate in having a couple dozen wonderful critique partners in my mystery writer’s critique group and my local writing group—so many excellent writers who gave unstintingly of their time and advice to help a newbie! I would humbly like to thank the following brave souls who gave up substantial amounts of time to critique New Year Island in part or in full: Tom S., Kirsten S., Carolina A., Brian M., Donnell Ann B., Bob A., Jane F., Alice G., Chas B., Ron V., Norma H., Mike B., MaryAlice M., Dorsett B., Andrea D., Mark S., Rosemarie S., Henya D., Aggie Z., Jeanne A., Misuk P., Tony P., Julie M., James C., Tom B., Joyce K., Kent S. Without your detailed critical feedback and encouragement this book would not have happened. Their feedback keeps me grounded and helps curb my excesses—yeah, I know… But seriously, you should have seen how I originally had it.
Donnell and Aggie, in particular, were kind enough to allow a new and untested writer into the groups they ran. I am eternally grateful for that.
Any technical mistakes (I’m thinking of the climbing scene in particular) or linguistic howlers that the reader stumbles over belong to the author alone. I’m betting those are also the places where I obstinately refused to listen to Michael’s guidance and adopt his well-honed editorial changes. Sometimes, you can lead a horse to water…
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, who was my first reader, and who works in the medical field. She planted the seed that grew into New Year Island. After almost two years of living New Year Island with me, I’m sure she regrets ever bringing up “survivor types,” but one day she mentioned how ninety percent of people freeze up or under-react in an emergency while a small minority somehow manage to beat the odds time and time again. I was fascinated. After researching the psychology of the “survivor personality,” devouring tons of real-life survival stories, and reading scholarly articles by psychologists studying the game show Survivor, I was left with three burning questions that sunk their hooks into my brain and wouldn’t let go. Two of those questions are answered by the fictional lecturer in Chapter 7.
The third—and stickiest—question grew into this book.
Paul lives in Palo Alto, California, with his wife and three daughters. An avid scuba diver, he has spent much time underwater in Palau, Yap, Honduras, Thailand, Hawaii, the Florida Keys, the cenote caverns of the Yucatan, the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, Caicos, and the "Red Triangle" off California's coast. He also enjoys skiing, swimming, and windsurfing, and has had extensive tactical training in firearms. After one too many high-speed motorcycle crashes, he is no longer allowed to own open-class sportbikes, which is probably a good thing for him and everyone else.
Paul has worked in the aerospace/defense industry on a variety of classified and unclassified programs for the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and DARPA, ranging from strategic national missile systems to technology augmentation for small-team tactical infantry units. He has also led a Silicon Valley technology startup delivering massively-scalable custom Internet software to Fortune 500 clients including Hewlett Packard, and headed a leading videogame studio developing mobile games for top-tier publishers such as EA, Disney/Pixar, Sega, Warner Brothers, THQ, and Glu. He holds advanced degrees in electrical and aerospace engineering from MIT, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley. This broad-ranging engineering expertise lends impeccable technical authenticity to his stories.
This book is dedicated to
Carolina, Madison, Kaitlyn, and Sophia.
My family lived, breathed, ate, and slept this story with me for a year.
Sorry about all the nightmares, girls.
Copyright © 2013 by Paul Draker.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Mayhem Press LLC
380 Hamilton Ave #1319
Palo Alto, California 94301
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
New Year Island / Paul Draker. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-940511-02-3