The Good Life

By Sarah K. Stephens

“Brilliant, it had me on the edge of my seat and I didn't want to put it down!” —Goodreads reviewer, five stars

A shocking crime during a Costa Rican vacation exposes the secrets of a wealthy, troubled couple in this gripping novel by the author of It Was Always You . . .

Kate and Calvin are on the trip of their dreams in Costa Rica, hoping to heal their marriage after years of difficulty and loss. When they meet a young newlywed couple at their resort, an attraction develops between the two couples that threatens to disrupt both marriages.

After a life-threatening shark encounter, with emotions and adrenaline running high, the couples act on these simmering feelings—and the morning after, Kate awakens to find herself covered in blood, her husband missing, and the young couple dead. As she goes on the run and furiously tries to unravel the mystery of what happened in that hotel room, Kate uncovers connections leading back to her life in New York and the secrets she’s hidden for years. Traveling deeper into the Costa Rican jungle, will Kate find her husband and the answers she seeks—or will her sanity be tested to its limits?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504075152

Book preview

Day 3

Costa Mesa Resort, Costa Rica

1

Kate

Kate woke up in the haze that comes after a long night of drinking and sex and pumping your body full of everything that it wants. Light pierced her skull as she opened her eyes. When she tried to swallow, her throat closed in on itself from the dehydration of the tequila shots and whatever else they’d all imbibed the night before.

Her head was on something hard—Was she sleeping on the floor?—and she shifted her neck so the pain shooting up her left side would ease off. The pounding in her temples dissipated a little and she wiped a lazy hand over her eye to clear out the sleep from the corners.

It had been a wild night.

Kate could count on one hand the number of nights she’d woken with this sense of throbbing satisfaction—mixed with a swirl of regret. There was the night back in college, when she and her sister went clubbing and someone gave them ecstasy, which they’d never done and decided to mix with their Vodka Red Bulls. Rebecca threw up behind a Denny’s dumpster at 3am while Kate picked at a Styrofoam tray of take-out fries. Then there was the time Calvin brokered that huge deal, and they ate and drank their way across New York City until 3am, when they ended up in a hotel room instead of their apartment and made love until the early dawn streaked through the expensive brocade drapes.

Something moved in the corner of the room. Kate turned her face gently. The walls of the room were white, with what her hungover brain interpreted as abstract paintings in bright primary colors. Blues, yellows, and reds.

Later, Kate would realize the walls were decorated with massive blue and yellow flowers. That the reds didn’t belong.

The dark smudge moved again in the corner. When Kate focused, she recognized the long orange beak and sleek body. It was a toucan, hopping in a tangle of bed sheets on the ground. His dense, intelligent eye stared back at her.

A breeze drifted from above. The poor bird must have wandered in through the open window to snack on the remnants of last night’s party. They’d ordered room service to Ashby and Bill’s cabana, their two new best friends at the resort, indulging in burgers and chocolate pudding like teenagers. It’s not every day you have a near-death experience, Bill said, holding his drink in Kate’s direction.

Everyone laughed and toasted each other. To surviving, Calvin replied, his face already pink from the whiskies at the hotel bar he’d slung back after they returned from the day trip gone wrong.

Kate couldn’t remember when the tone began to shift. She was still a little sun-drunk from their day on the water, and she hadn’t eaten much. The tequila went straight to her head, and her movements and those of Calvin and Bill and Ashby started to blur around her, like they were moving in slow motion. It couldn’t have been too late into the night when Ashby leaned in and kissed her, full on the mouth, with their husbands cheering from the sidelines during a game of truth or dare, Ashby insisted on starting up.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Ashby asked when Kate, like an idiot, chose truth for her turn.

Kate avoided Calvin’s eye, and then lied and said it was stealing a purse from Macy’s when she was fifteen.

Ashby’s turn was next, and of course she chose dare and so Bill dared her to kiss Kate. It was like being the star of her own coming of age teen drama, except Kate was almost forty and Ashby was the cool girl, not Kate.

Her lips were softer than Kate expected, and what started off as a chaste pressing together of their lips turned into a deeper kiss, the two women tipsy from the liquor and exhilarated from the events of the day. They kept kissing, Ashby’s hands moving to Kate’s waist and looping around to pull the two of them closer together. Then Kate felt hands in her hair and another pair of lips on her neck, and she opened her eyes to see Calvin looking at her with a mixture of desire and discomfort from his seat on the couch while Bill started to unzip Kate’s dress from the back.

She could have stopped it, easily. Kate could have said no and pulled the straps back over her shoulders and grabbed her husband by the hand and returned to their cabana, where they could have made love together in an old married way. But she didn’t. Kate let what was happening keep happening, and so did Calvin.

Kate blinked. Her hip bones ached. The toucan rapped his beak against the wooden post of the bed.

Finally, Kate felt coordinated enough to sit up. The room spun for a moment in front of her and then settled into a crisp image.

But what Kate saw didn’t make sense, even though the colors and edges were all forcing their way in through her optic nerve and her brain was telling her what she was seeing. And smelling. The lush, flowery acidity in the air wasn’t coming from the exotic flowers gathered in a vase on the coffee table.

It was blood. Her friends’ blood.

Ashby lay across the room, her eyes closed. Streaks of red marred her forehead, along with mottled browns where the blood had dried already. Her neck gaped open like an animal had been tearing away at her perfect, smooth skin. Bill was crumpled in the corner by the bar, his face buried in the floor and his head bashed in from behind. Kate was certain she could see the soft tissue of his brains spilling out along the edges, with white ribbons of his skull framing it like a portrait. Both were naked, their limbs sprawled out in strange, unnatural angles.

Bile rose in Kate’s throat. She vomited onto the plush grey carpet. She was naked, too, and she instinctively checked over her own body, trying to feel if any part of her had been attacked, but she was intact. Save for the injury on her leg from yesterday’s encounter in the water, Kate wasn’t hurt at all.

Calvin. She needed to find Calvin.

He would know what to do.

He did it once. He could do it again.

Before

New York to San José, Costa Rica

Day 1

2

Kate

I believe you’re in my seat.

Kate turned her gaze from the specks of dust floating in the air. The speaker was a woman—girl-woman, really, her face smooth as an apricot skin—with glossy hair and the body of a whippet.

Calvin shifted next to Kate. His thigh pressed into hers, despite the relative spaciousness of their first-class seats.

This is 2A and B. The woman smiled, baring her teeth. Maybe you should be over there. It was a statement, not a question. Her body was like liquid mercury in her white silk jumpsuit, all smooth curves filling the close space between them. A man stood behind her, their hips touching.

Next to her, Calvin cleared his throat and threw on a kind smile. I don’t think so. Check again. He shifted and put a hand on Kate’s knee to replace the weight of his body.

I don’t know what my wife is talking about. The man in the aisle reached up and gripped the woman’s arm, a little too tightly Kate thought, but then again he was the best kind of solid man, so anything he touched probably looked roughly handled. We’ll leave you alone.

Calvin nodded as the couple sat down in the seats that were always clearly theirs to begin with.

Kate fidgeted, her matching lilac twinset and black pants ill-equipped for dazzling, even if they were Chanel. She knew her clothes hung off her, making the expensive fabric look cheap. There was a time when Kate loved fashion and looked forward to her monthly meeting with her stylist, but now it was just another chore on her to-do list, like brushing her teeth or having sex with her husband. She got it done, because it was one of her responsibilities, but she didn’t enjoy it.

Which was exactly why they were taking this trip. When Calvin showed Kate the tickets for the five-star resort in Costa Rica, he’d been almost giddy. We can recharge, soak up the sun, go zip-lining in the jungle canopy. Be happy. He’d come closer to her, his lips so near her own that his breath tickled her skin. Reconnect with each other. And then he’d kissed her, fuller and more tender than he had in months. Come on, Katie. We need this.

More passengers filed in, but Kate couldn’t stop staring at the man’s hands. She thought about what it would feel like to have him grab her, even harder than he grabbed his wife just moments ago. Calvin was always so careful now. He held her like a piece of broken mirror, one wrong touch shattering everything into bad luck.

The woman had the aisle seat, just like Kate, and so Kate shoved her hand out across the space, ignoring the soft bustle of the other passengers surrounding them. I’m Kate Whitaker. Their hands intertwined into a firm handshake. Kate felt a pinch as wedding rings dug into her fingers. A stack of Bulgari chokers decorated the woman’s long neck.

Ashby Garcia. She flipped her hair over her right shoulder, one shiny curtain of good grooming. This is my husband, William.

Call me Bill, he said, looking up from his phone.

Calvin tried to catch Kate’s eye as he joined in. Their shoulders touched, and Kate wanted to stand up and go anywhere else but there, sitting next to her husband while he introduced himself to these gorgeous strangers.

Chatting politely while the plane prepared to take off, they soon learned they were staying at the same luxury lodge outside Costa Rica’s capital.

Oh, what good luck! Ashby clapped her hands together and turned to her husband. We’ll have friends now!

We’re on our honeymoon, Bill added. Ten days of paradise. He reached out and rubbed Ashby’s back, moving a little further down with each flick of his arm. Kate blushed.

How about you two? Honeymooners as well? Ashby swatted playfully at Bill’s hand and he pulled it back into his lap.

No. Calvin leaned over Kate towards them. Just a romantic getaway.

Oh, well, we wouldn’t want to intrude, Bill offered.

Kate started to say something, but Ashby cut in.

"Everybody needs friends to hang out with, even on romantic getaways. She reached out and squeezed Kate’s hand in hers, the same rings biting at Kate’s soft flesh above her knuckles. You’ll see. We’re going to have so much fun together."

3

Kate

When they landed in San José, she felt the difference in the air as soon as the plane’s cabin opened. It was hot. Very hot. But there was another element transforming the heat. It wasn’t humid or murky, as it felt in New York in the summertime. This heat was tighter somehow, the sun more insistent that you appreciate it.

After some friendly conversation on the flight, Ashby and William—Bill, Kate corrected herself—excused themselves to take a nap and Calvin and Kate settled into their own distractions. Kate barely touched the in-flight meal of filet mignon and button mushroom risotto, but the bottomless champagne went down easy. Calvin ignored how much she was drinking, and Kate pretended not to watch Ashby and Bill when they went up together to the first-class bathroom and didn’t come back for thirty minutes.

Kate squinted in the brightness of the terminal, her head aching from drinking too much on the flight and the ensuing dehydration that always plagued her after air travel. Calvin stopped at a kiosk in the terminal and bought her a bottled water, which she gulped down greedily.

They made it through customs without any issue, and their bags were collected by a porter Calvin arranged when he booked the trip. Light streamed through the open glass canopy of the central area of the airport, and as they descended the escalator to the street level and taxi queue, the honeymooners caught up with them.

Ashby’s red lacquered nails wrapped around the handle of a miniscule hard-shelled suitcase she pulled behind her. Bill carried a small leather duffel bag.

Bikinis and sex toys. The thought skimmed through Kate’s mind, and she pushed down the irritability of her hangover.

Kate spotted a young man in the crowd, his white button-down shirt and black pants matching several other young men holding signs. His read Whitaker in tall, block letters.

That’s us. Calvin walked ahead to speak to the driver. Years of business dealings in Mexico and South America had given him a level of fluency in Spanish. Kate didn’t speak a word, although she’d promised herself she’d learn some before the trip.

I don’t see our guy anywhere, Bill said to Ashby before glancing down to tap on his phone.

Ashby threw Kate a conspiratorial look. Is that so? she said, keeping her gaze on Kate. It’s not that you forgot to book somebody?

The warmth of the afternoon beat down on Kate. She unbuttoned her sweater and slid her arms out, watching Calvin gesturing in his conversation with their driver.

No, I did. It’s right here on my phone. Bill glanced around the terminal, holding his phone in front of him just as Calvin rejoined them.

All ready to go? he asked Kate.

I don’t think my new husband booked us a car. Ashby wheeled her suitcase back and bumped it into her husband’s tan loafers. Bill startled with the collision and almost dropped his phone. So maybe we could get a ride with the two of you? Would that be all right?

Without waiting for Calvin or Kate to respond, Ashby strolled away with her long legs framed by her jumpsuit’s flowing fabric and handed her suitcase to the driver.

You’re a lifesaver, Kevin. Bill clapped his hand on Calvin’s shoulder.

Kate stiffened.

It’s Calvin, her husband clarified, but Bill had already walked over to the car and was climbing into the air-conditioned back seat.

4

Rebecca

Rebecca wondered how her sister was doing on her marital reboot.

That’s how Kate had described the trip. Marital reboot, like a reality show pilot or something. It took all Rebecca’s self-control not to rebrand it for her sister. Couple’s retreat or domestic recharge. Something that didn’t sound like a grueling workout. But Rebecca knew better than to comment on her sister’s marriage. Kate told her more than once that it was impossible for anyone to understand a marriage from the outside looking in. And Rebecca wasn’t married, had never been married, and had no immediate or long-term plans to ever do so.

So over time Rebecca bit down on her witty repartee, took her sister out to lunch, helped her pick gowns for the charity events she didn’t want to go to, and did whatever else she could to help Kate know that she loved her. Growing up they’d only had each other—their mother was there as they grew up, but not really there—and it was an adjustment when Calvin came into their lives. But Rebecca was anything if not adaptable.

That was what her clients paid her for, after all.

Rebecca clicked out of the spreadsheet she was reviewing and stood up from her desk. She had plenty of A-list clientele who needed regular social media managing and a little of Rebecca’s PR magic every so often, but the client proposal she’d just read was for a C-list fusion chef with fewer than 500,000 followers on Instagram. It all came down to the numbers—followers, likes, dollars and cents.

Her stomach growled. She’d review the budget again after lunch. Nothing good comes from reading budgets on an empty stomach.

She dialed out to her assistant and gave him her order. Niçoise salad from the deli down the street, Greek dressing on the side, and a perfectly foamy skinny latte from the café around the corner. One of her clients had a serious Starbucks addiction, but Rebecca hadn’t secured an ad campaign with them yet, so the local café on the corner it was—while it lasted, at least.

Rebecca’s phone lay on the desk. She could open her email and check Kate’s itinerary. Her sister forwarded it to her, like they always did for each other when one of them was traveling. Just in case. Rebecca couldn’t remember when the flight got in, or how long it took to get to the resort afterwards.

Instead, she checked her schedule for the afternoon. Three client meetings, a staff all-hands check-in, and an appointment with her dermatologist at the very end of the day. Rebecca didn’t recall what she was having done. She’d be the first to admit that it took an incredible amount of timing and coordination to keep up with today’s standards. Waxes and colorings (after a certain age, both up top and below), dermabrasion, eyelash extensions, private barre classes and group Pilates, monthly on-trend makeup and stylist meetings, nutrition consultants twice a month, vitamin supplements that came in a little white packet for each day like some sort of well-branded contraband, and a moisturizing routine that required a full hour in the evening (if she did it right) and at least twenty minutes of her morning. And that was just to keep her where she needed to be before she set foot in the office.

It was all totally exhausting.

Rebecca loved every minute of it.

She’d made her firm from the ground up, starting off doing ad-copy for one of the midtown firms and slowly and carefully building a name for herself by having brilliant ideas and great people skills. And making her measly paycheck stretch just enough to buy a pair of Prada calfskin wedge boots that were timeless and went with everything, and a leather jacket from a secondhand shop in SoHo that read Burberry on the tag.

There was a knock on her door. Her assistant, all six feet four inches of him, eased the door open with his hip, carrying her food on a polished silver tray. It had been Jack’s idea to stop delivering her lunch in the brown paper sacks they arrived in.

You’re the boss. You shouldn’t have to eat out of a bag, he’d told her privately, his voice that unmistakable upspeak of metro-raised Millennial man.

She thanked him as he set the tray down.

Rebecca had to admit—the tray was a nice touch.

I’ll bring your latte in for you in a few minutes. He nodded towards Rebecca’s desk. You should sit down and eat something. Nothing good happens when you’re hungry. He gave her a wicked smile that Rebecca was sure made all the boys melt and turned on his polished brogue heels towards the door.

I will. Rebecca sat down and unfolded the cloth napkin tucked in the side of the tray. He really was a great assistant.

Oh. He turned back around. Some reporter called earlier this morning, asking about your sister. I told him to die in a gutter, but meaner. Just thought you should know.

Rebecca nodded. She felt the skin of her forehead pulling into a furrow and tried to relax her face. She already paid her dermatologist enough.

Sounds like you handled it perfectly, she told Jack. He closed the door behind him, and Rebecca took a bite of artichoke. The salty flesh melted on her tongue.

The press took less and less interest in her sister as years passed, but close to the anniversary they came out of the woodwork from the different tabloids, digging through old stories hoping to find a new angle or get an easy couple of columns with a supposed update on where her sister was now.

She’d need to call her friend at the Star and plant a competing story—something about Calvin and Kate’s charitable work. They were always donating to one charity or raising money for another. A little puff to distract from the trash being slung her sister’s way. Kate had paid enough already for what happened.

Rebecca picked up her phone. Her lunch would have to wait.

5

Kate

The cool air washed