Evil in All Its Disguises

by Hilary Davidson

  But I don’t want to be responsible for her, I argued back.

  You didn’t want to be responsible for me, either.

  That was true, but it didn’t feel like a fair accusation. No one had ever asked me if I wanted to take care of my sister, but I’d done it. Reluctantly, resentfully, reproachfully, and I hadn’t done a very good job of it. When I looked back, I wondered what I could’ve done differently, and if there were a way things could have worked out differently. The thought that crushed my heart as if it were in a vise was a sneaking suspicion that if I’d given up what I wanted in order to take care of Claudia, she would probably still be around. If I’d devoted myself to being her caretaker, that situation might have gone on indefinitely, or at least until I killed myself to get away from it. I was that selfish, I realized; I wouldn’t have been able to spend a lifetime taking care of her.

  The face that stared back at me from the mirror was a lot like my sister’s; with the clammy pallor, it wasn’t unlike Claudia’s when she was sick with longing for a fix of heroin. Are you giving up already? a voice in my head demanded. Only it wasn’t a slithery, guilt-inducing whisper. It was my own conscience. You’re on your own here. Jesse isn’t coming to your rescue. Neither is Bruxton, nor Martin. You’re it.

  I crept back into the dining room, my eyes on the only occupied table. Denny was chatting away again, but Gavin was staring intently at his Blackberry. Ruby was chewing on a piece of fish. Roberta was looking from one end of the table to the other, as if watching a tennis ball in play, and before I got to the table, a waiter brought over a fresh glass of wine for her.

  “This is just a spritzer.” Roberta sounded disappointed. I noted that drinking my glass of champagne hadn’t knocked her out, and I started to feel foolish. She was drunk, yes, a little wobbly—her natural state—but perfectly fine otherwise. My stomach twisted and I realized it was possible that I’d eaten something earlier that wasn’t agreeing with me. It wasn’t easy to avoid Montezuma’s revenge in Mexico, and I’d been traveling so much lately that I could’ve picked up a bug anywhere.

  I was just about to excuse myself to say that I wasn’t feeling well, when Gavin said, “Lily, what’s wrong? You don’t look well at all.” He glanced at Denny. “That’s not a problem with this afternoon’s trip, is it?”

  “No,” Denny answered. “Lily, do you want me to call a doctor?”

  “My, Denny, you are quite the hypochondriac, aren’t you?” Gavin said.

  “I’d rather be safe than sorry, Gavin.”

  Gavin looked at me. “Go get some rest, Lily. We have dinner here at eight tonight. If you’re feeling up to it. Let me take you up to your room”

  With every bit of determination I could muster, I planted a smile on my face. It was irrational and borderline insane, but I was afraid to be alone just then, and I’d be damned if I was going anywhere with Gavin. There was something frightening about having hours stretching out ahead of me with no one expecting me anywhere. I could disappear, just as Skye had. If I did, no one would even know.

  “And miss the zocalo?” I said, fighting to stay upright. “Not a chance.”

  CHAPTER 26

  While everyone else had dessert, I went to the lobby to wait for the minibus. Sitting on a sofa, I let my head drop in to my hands and took deep breaths. What was wrong with me? Skye had been so nauseated that she’d been on medication for it; no wonder she couldn’t keep food down. I felt cold and clammy and was haunted by a suspicion that someone could have poisoned Skye and was now trying to poison me.

  That was ridiculous, I knew. It was on a par with some of the crazy things that used to fall out of my mother’s mouth, about how people would take Claudia and me away from her. Sometimes she would get into such a panic about it that she would lock us in a closet or cellar, telling us it was for our own good. Claudia and I would whisper to each other, her voice in the darkness not unlike the one that lived in my head. That was how I became so good at reciting lines, I realized. We both loved Poe. The angels, whispering to one another, can find, among their burning terms of love, none so devotional as…

  I pulled my mind back from that pit. For a moment, I was certain I was going to throw up again, and I put my hand over my mouth. It took some time for the queasiness to subside. Someone put a hand on my back and rubbed gentle circles.

  “Are you sure you’re well enough to do this, Lily?” Denny asked.

  “Yes,” I croaked. But I wasn’t. My head swam when I looked up, and my eyes could meet Denny’s apprehensive gaze for more than a second. “I just need a minute,” I whispered.

  “I’m worried about you. I really think we should call a doctor.”

  “I’m fine. Or I will be in a few minutes. Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. Um, any requests?”

  “Talk about something that won’t make me dizzy.”

  “I can tell you what we’re going to see this afternoon. You’ll love Acapulco’s Cathedral. It was originally a movie set from the 1930s.”

  “Really? What movie?”

  “No idea. I think it was Mexican, so maybe it’s one you haven’t seen.” She was quiet for a moment. “It’s funny, how Acapulco came up. The city only grew when people started building hotels. There was a businessman from Texas, Albert B. Pullen, who built up much of what is now Old Acapulco.”

  “Like Bugsy Siegel in Las Vegas?”

  “I don’t know if he was a gangster,” Denny said.

  “Sometimes, there’s little difference between businessman and gangster.”

  Denny was quiet, and I thought of Martin. How little difference there was between entrepreneur and criminal, in that case. His face blurred into the image of another man’s. That was Leonard Wolven, whom I’d encountered in Peru. Even now, the memory of him sent a shiver up my spine. There was a strain of ruthlessness that was required to succeed on a grand scale, the way they’d both done. I didn’t know enough tycoons to generalize about the species, but the ones I’d come across were sociopaths. They both had a soft spot in their hearts for their own offspring, but that seemed to be where their human qualities ended.

  “When did you start to feel sick?” Denny asked.

  I’d felt unwell since I’d arrived at the hotel, I realized. Pretty as the place was, there was something unhealthy about it. Early on, I thought it was nerves. Now, I knew something more tangible was at work. The nausea and headaches had come in little waves before, but they’d gotten much stronger.

  “Last night,” I said. Lifting my head took a lot of effort, but it helped me tamp the crazy notions down. Getting sick while traveling was an occupational hazard. Why was I stuck on the idea that someone was trying to make me sick? I blamed Martin for planting paranoid ideas, and—to a lesser extent—Skye, for disappearing in the first place.

  “Did you eat or drink anything before it started?” Denny asked.

  “I had a drink at the bar, then dinner in my room.” When I thought about it, it was after dinner that the first uncomfortable sensations had crept into my head. That memory was interrupted by Gavin.

  “How is my guest of honor?” he asked.

  “She needs a doctor, Gavin,” Denny answered for me.

  “Nonsense. It’s unfortunate, but many travelers get sick in Mexico. It’s often from ice in drinks, you know. That’s rarely made from bottled water. Antibiotics won’t help. All you can do is stay hydrated.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sure a lie-down would be helpful. Let me take you up to your room, Lily.”

  “Good idea, Gavin. You take Lily up to her room while I call a doctor,” Denny said.

  “You will do no such thing,” he barked at her. I caught an expression of fury in his eyes, but his face quickly rearranged itself into serene blandness. “Why are you harping on about this, Denny? People who work for me need to learn when to hold their tongue when I’ve made up my mind.”

  I waited for Denny to snap back and remind him that she didn’t work for him, but all she said was. �
�I’m just worried about Lily.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine when she gets some rest,” he answered. “Let me take you upstairs, Lily.”

  “No,” I said.

  There was a stunned silence. Guests could disappear from the Hotel Cerón, but rudeness wasn’t allowed. “You’re welcome to sit here as long as you like, of course.” Gavin sounded hurt.

  “Denny, will you take me up to my room?” I asked.

  Gavin’s eyes shifted from me to Denny and back again. “I’m happy to—”

  “Thanks anyway, Gavin.” I willed myself to stand. The effort drained me. I was not so much dizzy now as completely drained. Just breathing was an effort.

  I could feel Gavin’s eyes on us as we slowly made our way out of the lobby and to the elevator. As I stepped inside, I started to lose my balance and grabbed her arm, making her shriek.

  “I’m sorry.” I steadied myself against the wall. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t,” Denny said. “I was just terrified you were going to fall.”

  The elevator started moving upwards. “Why does Gavin think you work for him, Denny?”

  She looked away, as if suddenly embarrassed. “He offered me a job.”

  “Working for him in Mexico?”

  “Not exactly.” She gave me a sheepish look. “He said I’d be perfect for vice president of marketing and publicity at Pantheon.”

  “Is that his come-on line?” As soon as I said the words, I felt awful, because Denny looked stricken. “Of course you could do the job,” I corrected, “but someone is already in that job, and that’s not going to change without Martin’s approval.”

  “I know. Maybe…”

  The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. “Maybe what?” I asked.

  “Gavin’s got a lot of pull. Maybe he thinks he can influence Martin.” Denny looked up from the floor and changed the subject. “Are you okay walking?”

  “Yes.” I wasn’t ready to drop the Pantheon conversation. “I thought you loved running your own business. Didn’t you tell me you’d rather have your freedom than a job at a big company?”

  “I go back and forth about it,” Denny admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Things haven’t been going well lately.”

  “What happened?” This conversation was like pulling teeth. Clearly she didn’t want to talk about her business troubles with me.

  “It’s no one thing. There are just a lot of things that have piled up. People think PR is one of those easy, fun jobs where you get to travel and write press releases. They don’t think about screaming clients refusing to pay you because you didn’t get them featured on a TV show.” Her expression was grim. I didn’t think she was speaking hypothetically.

  When we got to my door, Denny asked if I wanted her to come in and get me settled. I said no, and watched as she retreated down the hallway. With her head bowed, shoulders stooped and arms crossed, she looked as if she were shrinking into herself. The poisonous gloom of the Hotel Cerón had worked its way into her veins, too.

  CHAPTER 27

  Alone inside my room, I kicked off my shoes at the door and staggered along the hall, touching the wall for support. I made it to the bed, where I curled up in a fetal position. I didn’t feel sleepy, just headachy and frail. Thinking about Skye made it worse, but I couldn’t help it. The thing is, I know how to get even with him. I’m going to destroy him professionally, and he’ll never even see it coming. This isn’t about revenge. This is about righting wrongs. Illegal wrongs, Lily. I can deal with my hurt feelings, but he can’t be allowed to keep on doing the things he does.

  I couldn’t see how Martin taking Skye out to dinner a couple of times wouldn’t give her such an appetite for revenge. Even if he’d slept with her and never called again, would she really devote herself to destroying him? I didn’t believe that. Yet Skye’s craving to get even had consumed her.

  My cell phone rang. I rolled over and pulled it out of my bag. “Bad news,” said a rough-edged voice.

  “Brux?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. I’m calling to tell you I suck.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Remember how I had you forward me those emails this morning? Tech guy laughed his ass off when I showed him.”

  “I don’t understand. Can’t he do it?”

  There was a pause, and I knew he was dragging furiously on a cigarette. That would normally have set off my own cravings, but the swirling sickness had knocked those out.

  “Stupid, lousy computers,” Bruxton said. “So, it turns out, if you want to find all the info I thought you could get, you actually have to do it from the computer receiving the email.”

  “You mean, I’d need to send my laptop to New York for the tech to look at?”

  “You got it a lot faster than I did.”

  “There’s nothing they can do?” Every time I turned around, there was another problem, another puzzle, another wall. I couldn’t get anywhere.

  “The tech had a couple ideas. One was that you can remotely turn over control of your computer to him.”

  “What?” The note of alarm in my voice was so obvious that Brux let out a low growl that was his attempt at a chuckle.

  “Yeah, see, I knew you’d say that. Miss Lily Moore doesn’t like anyone poking around her business. Especially me. She’s got secrets.” The way he said see-krits with his upstate New York accent sounded like a schoolyard taunt.

  “Be quiet. You said he had a couple of ideas.”

  “Next one’s even better. You could do the search yourself.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “He emailed you instructions. I told him there’s no way you’re that big a nerd.”

  “I love a challenge,” I said. “I can’t believe you think I’m as dumb as you are.”

  “I’d love it if you proved me wrong.” There was a pause. “I think we should make a bet about it.”

  “What kind of bet?”

  “You’re coming back to New York after this, right? So, if you manage to do it, I’ll take you out to dinner wherever you like.”

  “And if I fail?”

  Even though I couldn’t see him, I could picture him, in the silence that followed, blushing to the roots of his close-clipped blond hair. “I’ll think of something,” he muttered.

  “I know you will,” I teased. Bruxton, for all of his macho posturing, was prone to get flustered whenever we segued from caustic banter to flirting. I still felt a little off-balance when I was around him, but mostly because I’d finally let myself enjoy his company. I hadn’t let down my guard, not completely, but I let myself enjoy him. We hadn’t slept together, and he’d barely even kissed me—unless you counted a quick clinch two days ago that Jesse had accidentally interrupted. But it felt, more and more, as if it were just a matter of time.

  He changed the subject abruptly “So, what’s Acapulco like?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve barely left the hotel. It feels like a big, exotic prison.” I didn’t want to talk about the Hotel Céron itself; Bruxton wouldn’t react well when Martin’s name came up. I had a fleeting image of Brux storming over to Martin’s apartment in the Dakota; he would shake the truth about my ex’s relationship with Skye out of him, but then Brux would be suspended and sued, if not jailed. Part of me wanted to confide in him about how fearful I felt, but another side of me worried that he’d want to run from me if he discovered how crazy and paranoid I really was. “Could you check something else for me?” I asked instead.

  “What is it?”

  “Has Skye McDermott ever been arrested?”

  “Sorry, you have to fill out a form and cut a check to the Criminal Records Section.”

  “What if I buy you coffee instead?”

  “That’s bribery. But it’ll work,” Bruxton said. “Also, I’m way ahead of you. I already checked her out. She was arrested in April for driving under the influence. No jail time, just rehab and communi
ty service. She was lucky.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath. Part of me had wanted to believe that Pete was right and Denny was wrong about Skye. But Denny had been telling the truth about Skye’s DUI.

  “Lily? You still there?”

  “Yes. Just in shock, though. Could you look up one more thing for me? Please?”

  “You like pushing your luck?”

  “There’s a photographer named Pete Dukermann on this trip. I know him going back years, and he’s a creep.”

  “Violent creep?”

  “More like an octopus. He’s always coming onto women on press trips. He likes to brag about his open marriage. He and Skye spent yesterday together. Today, I discovered he’s trashed his hotel room, and he has Skye’s necklace and a pile of cocaine.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I know. It’s crazy. And then he told Denny—”

  “No, Lily. What were you doing in his room?”

  “I wanted to know if he had email from Skye. Then he showed me photos he’d taken of her yesterday.”

  The silence on the other end stretched out. “Let me get this straight. You want me to check into Pete Dukermann to see if he’s got a rap sheet, see if he’s dangerous. Meanwhile, you’re hanging out in this guy’s room.”

  Inhale, count to three, exhale. “I know you’re saying that because you’re concerned about me, Brux. I know you’re not trying to suggest something repulsive.”

  Now the silence stretched out on the other side. Bruxton’s ex-wife had cheated on him with his best friend, and I knew he had his own issues as a result. He was also a hothead who was prone to flying off the handle. Those facts had given me pause about him, but his brilliant NYPD partner had taken me aside one day. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever met, but his heart has been stomped to pieces, she’d said to me. You’re not going to add your footprints are you, Lily?

  Bruxton exhaled loudly. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it at all.”

  “I know.”