I leafed through her passport. No airline in the world would let you board a flight to the U.S. without proper documentation, because that airline was responsible for the cost of deporting you when American immigration barred you from entering the country. Skye had to be in Mexico.
On impulse, I pressed reply and typed a hasty message:
Skye, Where the hell are you and what are you doing? I’m worried about you. I know you didn’t fly back to the U.S., because I have your passport. Where are you?
There were a hundred other things I could have added. What’s the story you’re working on? Why did you say I could help you? Is this just some crazy game you’re playing? But I kept those thoughts to myself and pressed send.
I went back to my inbox. There were plenty of other missives to distract me from the worry spiraling through my mind. There were already a half-dozen emails from my friend Jesse, who liked to send along anything I might find amusing, as well as advice about health, gossip about people we knew, and assorted style questions and advice. The most recent one read:
What do you think of this shirt? It’s great, right? But if I get it, everyone will know I shop from the L.L. Bean catalog. What to do?
There was a lone email from Bruxton, an NYPD detective I’d met in January when I was searching for my sister. I’d seen him while I was in New York, right before flying to Acapulco. The only trouble was, we hadn’t been alone; Jesse had been there the entire time, like a chaperone. His message had no subject line and contained only two words: Miss you. That was enough to make me smile and reach for my phone.
“Hey,” Bruxton said when he answered.
“Hey yourself.” Even long-distance, I was shyly self-conscious with him. “Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah. Everything okay?” His voice was harsh and ragged around the edges, but his concern still registered.
“I’m fine. It’s just… something’s going on and I don’t know what I should be doing about it.”
“You only call me when you have ulterior motives, Lily.”
“That’s not true!” I chewed on my lip. Hmm, maybe he was right.
“Whatever. I’m used to it. What do you want?” In the background, I heard a lighter snap and hiss, and that made me crave a cigarette. It was ridiculous, being that suggestible. I’d made some rules for myself, and one of them was no smoking before noon. Instead, I picked up a pen and twirled it around.
“There’s another writer on this trip, someone I know fairly well. Her name is Skye McDermott. I ran into her in the lobby last night, and we had drinks in the hotel bar. Then she said she’d be back in a minute, and she never came back.” When I paused, he didn’t say anything. It was a cop trick, sitting back and letting the other person fill up the empty air; even though he wasn’t interrogating me, it was second nature to him. “She left her bag with me. I thought it just had beach shoes and junk in it, but later I found it had a false bottom, and her wallet and passport and other things were hidden inside.”
“I love how you said that,” Bruxton said.
“Said what?”
“You ‘found’ her bag had this stuff in it. Like you didn’t snoop through it looking for evidence.”
“I was worried about her!” My face felt warm; Bruxton had made me blush. I almost spilled the fact that I’d only discovered the false bottom of Skye’s bag because I’d kicked it in a fit of rage, but I managed to keep that to myself. There were certain things Bruxton didn’t need to know.
“I know you were, Lily.” Under the harsh rasp of his voice, there was a hint of amusement that was almost sweet.
“Anyway, the point is that she vanished. Denny—that’s the public-relations person who set up the trip—and I went to Skye’s room last night, and her suitcase and most of her things were gone. This morning, all of her stuff is gone. I just got an email from her that says she went home, but she couldn’t have gone home because I have her passport.”
My words picked up speed as they tumbled out. I’d expected Bruxton to get as worked up as I was, but his voice was skeptical. “Who’s the guy mixed up in this?”
“The… guy?” I asked. My mind went to Martin and I snapped it back, like an unruly dog on a leash.
“What you’re telling me sounds off. Half the time, people who are reported missing are actually shacking up with someone. Call it the horizontal mambo theory. She could be with some guy right now.”
“Why wouldn’t she just say that?”
“Maybe she’s too embarrassed to say it. Look, people do all kinds of shit without a second thought. You know what makes them feel bad? Having to admit what they did. People spin all kinds of explanations for what they do in their heads. It can seem legit until you actually have to say the words to another human being. Then they have to admit they’re full of crap.”
“I guess that makes sense. It’s just that this isn’t like her.” But that wasn’t true. I kept thinking that Skye hadn’t been herself the night before, but all that meant was that she wasn’t the way she was when I normally saw her.
Bruxton’s next words made me feel as if he were reading my mind. “Lily, by now you’ve learned people never really know someone as well as they think they do, right?” His voice was almost too gentle, as if he knew his words carried thorns deep inside. The more I saw of people, the less I knew about them, it seemed. Wishful thinking had a tendency to override my instincts. I braced myself for a pointed example, but when Bruxton failed to deliver one, I nudged those thoughts aside. This wasn’t about mistakes I’d made; this was about Skye.
“There’s one more thing I have to tell you,” I said. “Skye told me she’s working on a story. Not a travel story, a real one. She said I could help her with it, but she didn’t say how. She said she was going to tell me what she was working on, but she had to check with someone first.”
There was a pause, during which Bruxton’s calm tone fled. “You got any idea what she’s writing about?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m trying to figure how much danger she’s in.”
I dropped the pen. “What do you mean?”
“You got any idea how risky it is to be a journalist in Mexico? Something like fifty journalists have been murdered or disappeared in the past five years. Any chance your friend was working on a story about drugs or the cartels?”
If anything, you’re the person who could help me with the story. That’s what Skye had said to me on the balcony. Drugs and the cartels that sold them weren’t my area of expertise. “I think the odds of that are pretty much zero. She did say she had been seeing someone, someone evil, and she was going to bring him down.”
“This girl sounds like she was looking for trouble. What’s the guy’s name?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” It would be wrong to tell him that I thought the man in question was Martin; that would make Bruxton blow his very short fuse and it wouldn’t get us any closer to the truth. Bruxton had a rough manner and was easily annoyed, but he rarely got angry at me. Still, the mere mention of Martin Sklar made his eyes bulge and his skin flush red; that much, I’d seen for myself. If anything, it would keep Bruxton from looking at other possibilities, and that would be a terrible mistake. That was what I told myself, to justify holding Martin’s name back. “I got the impression that he works in the travel business, but I could be wrong. Skye was determined to give me as little information as she could.”
“You want to hear the truth? Your pal was involved with something sketchy and rotten and she knew it. She wanted to drag you into it because she was scared.”
“She was crying last night, Brux. She told me she’d been sick, and she definitely looked unwell.”
“Drugs?”
“I don’t think so. She was painfully thin, but she wasn’t spaced out and there were no marks on her.”
“Lily, I get why you’re worried. It sounds like something the local PD needs to hear about. Wait, let me translate that for you: get the hotel to talk to the police. You
don’t want to get dragged into this.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I was already involved, emotionally speaking. That was the part of the story that I was leaving out.
“Does the hotel have security cameras?” he asked.
“Yes.” There had to be; that was a given in a Pantheon property.
“Okay, the police should look over the tapes, make sure your friend wasn’t taken from the hotel against her will. They can also do forensics on the message, to figure out where it was sent from.”
“Forensics on email?”
“I’ve seen them narrow it down to an apartment in a giant building. They’re magicians.” He coughed. “Look, you can send the email to me. One of the techs owes me. I’ll make him take a look at it.”
“Thanks, Brux.”
“I’ll add it to your tab. You want to do me a favor?”
“Name it.”
“Stay the hell away from trouble. Don’t go anywhere looking for this girl. There are professionals to do that, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Plus, she’s probably screwing some guy and having a great time.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“I need to get back to work. I’ll call you or email, okay?”
“Thanks, Brux. Oh, by the way…” I stopped speaking and let the silence stretch on until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What?” he demanded.
“I miss you, too.”
I hung up the phone as soon as I said it, which simultaneously made me feel daring and about thirteen years old again. Bruxton was so abrupt, especially on phone calls, that he usually hung up without saying goodbye. I found that jarring, but was mildly amused with myself for hanging up first this time. He was probably staring at the phone, wondering what had happened.
Putting my cell down, I turned to my laptop and refreshed the inbox. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of a new email from Skye. I wasn’t expecting that. My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Hey Lily,
I’m fine! Stop worrying and ENJOY ACAPULCO!!!
xox Skye
It looked and sounded like something Skye would write, making me wonder if she wasn’t holed up in one of those white towers that ringed much of Acapulco Bay. That was a comforting thought, in a way. Otherwise, I had to wonder who else had access to her email account. I forwarded that email to Bruxton, along with the first.
A few minutes later, Denny called my room. “Can you meet us in Gavin’s office at nine?” she asked. “I’m trying to get him to call the police, but he wants to talk to you first.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, good. Lily, please bring Skye’s passport with you, and anything else of hers you still have.”
That remark made me flush. I’d known I was doing wrong by holding back Skye’s passport, and now Gavin would hear about that, too. I couldn’t regret my bad decision completely; if I hadn’t kept the passport, I would have taken Skye’s email at face value. The only other things I had of hers were the books. Skye had given me the Mexico guide, telling me to look at it, so I didn’t feel obliged to return it. There were several hotels marked with asterisks in that book, but they were all over Mexico, so they offered little information as to her whereabouts.
The other guidebook was something I’d held back out of curiosity and a vague sense of it being out of place. It still struck me as odd that I’d found Frakker’s Eastern Europe in her bag. Why bring that to Mexico? I leafed through the book, noticing that Skye had scrawled asterisks next to a few hotels. Looking closer, I realized that the hotels she’d singled out all had something in common. Wherever they were located—Hungary, Poland, Ukraine—every single one was owned by Pantheon.
CHAPTER 14
Gavin’s office was spacious and luxurious yet almost devoid of natural light. The lone rectangular window had a white Venetian blind pulled over it. The walls were a stark, bright white that wanted to compete with the hotel’s facade; it was so freshly painted that a harsh, acrid smell still lingered. Recessed lights dotted the ceiling, casting a cool, clear glow over the space. Mahogany bookcases lined two walls, and they were already filling up with an extravagant collection of art books. That didn’t surprise me at all; I remembered Gavin accompanying Martin to a couple of art fairs, eager to get close to the masterworks. His taste was nothing like his boss’s though, and while Martin gravitated to works by grand masters—for his personal collection—and to contemporary artists better known for creating controversy than art—for his hotels—Gavin sought out romantic nineteenth-century painters with names like Dicksee, Rossetti, Waterhouse and Burne-Jones. I’d never heard of the Pre-Raphaelites before that, and I owed Gavin a debt for introducing me to their work. His taste, at least when it came to art, was superior to Martin’s.
There were two small, framed sketches on the wall behind his desk, flanking it. As I got closer, I realized that they were studies of women’s faces, made in the same evocative, dreamlike style of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. The room also held a conversation area with four chairs and a beautiful rug that looked as if it had been imported from nineteenth-century Persia. The grandiosity of the room felt like every other Pantheon-owned hotel I’d been inside, but the details were very different from the aesthetic I was used to and associated with Martin.
Denny was staring out the window through a slit in the blinds, her arms crossed in front of her chest. When she turned, I saw she was frowning; whatever was going on in her head was grim. Gavin, by contrast, was unruffled. His angular, grave face seemed too sharp to hold a smile for more than a nanosecond, but he didn’t seem perturbed by the things that had upset Denny. He was wearing a charcoal suit with a faint pinstripe, and his cufflinks bore a coat of arms.
“Good morning, Lily. Don’t you look lovely this morning? Thank you for making time for this.” He pulled back one of the chairs in the conversation area, holding it for me to sit in. It was a formal gesture, which was in character for Gavin.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m worried about Skye.”
Gavin cleared his throat, as if readying himself for some grand pronouncement. “I suspect she rather enjoys having people fussing over her, actually. I know she’s a friend of yours, Lily, but in my experience, she’s rather high-strung.”
“Even if she is, Gavin, I think it’s important that we make sure nothing is wrong,” Denny said. “That’s more important than the press trip.”
Gavin’s gaze shifted to Denny, and it was cold enough to frost the air between them. “I’ve always thought you professional, Denny. I would hate to be disappointed.”
I hoped Denny would say something to puncture his arrogance and ego, but instead she answered, “I am professional, Gavin.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, why don’t you go back to doing your job while I speak with Lily.” Gavin turned to me. “Our head of security will be here in a moment. He would like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.”
“I’d like to stay for that,” Denny interjected. “I’ve known Skye for a long time. It might be useful if—”
“No.” Gavin’s voice was sharp. “Please do us the favor of shutting the door on your way out.”
His rudeness toward her startled me. I’d never really seen Gavin outside of Martin’s shadow; in its shade, he was ingratiating and unctuous. But I was starting to see that without his boss hovering nearby, Gavin was a different man. Martin, for all his many faults, never spoke brusquely to the people who worked for him. The lower you were down the totem pole, the kinder Martin was; he was famous for chatting with waiters and bellmen, and remembering them by name. It was a trait he shared with Frank Sinatra, and it had impressed me when we’d met. Clearly, Gavin had a different role model. Bruxton’s words came to mind. You’ve learned people never really know someone as well as they think they do, right?
His last remark to Denny made her straighten her spine. “I’ll be happy to, Gavin. Please excuse me, Lily. I’ll be making ar
rangements for us to move hotels later today.”
Gavin bristled at that, but he didn’t say a word. Clearly, the two of them had been arguing before I’d come in, and the tension between them was palpable. Was it only because of Skye, or was there something more? Denny had told me she’d worked in Pantheon’s London office years earlier; Gavin had worked there, too. I wondered if their antipathy was new, or if it stretched back more than a decade.
Denny shut the door with a soft click, and Gavin gave me his brief, rueful smile. “I apologize for that, Lily. Denny and I have some differences of opinion about Skye.”
“Which are?”
“Denny is her friend. By contrast, I tend to look at everything through a rather critical, skeptical prism. It’s a family trait, I’m afraid. My father was very much like that.”
Before I could say anything, there was a knock on his door. “Come in,” Gavin called.
The man who opened the door was wearing a well-cut black suit with a lavender shirt, open at the neck. His skin was deeply tanned and his hair was a wavy dark brown. He wasn’t as tall as Johnny Weissmuller, whose image hung near the elevator, but he had the athlete-turned-actor’s broad shoulders and narrow waist, the build of a swimmer.
As the man came toward us, I got a whiff of his cologne, and I realized where I’d seen him last. This was the man who’d stepped out onto the balcony the night before, moments before Skye vanished. Listen to me, Lily. You don’t want to know that guy. Before I could say anything, Gavin spoke.
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