Evil in All Its Disguises

by Hilary Davidson

  “So, you havin’ fun without me in Acapulco?” My friend Jesse’s warm, deep voice made me smile, in spite of everything.

  “I hate it. It’s horrible. Everything about this place is a disaster.” I was dimly aware that I sounded like a particularly petulant thirteen-year-old. “I’m just about to make a run for the airport to get the first flight home.”

  “Holy moly. I knew you’d be missin’ me, but never reckoned it’d be that much.” He dropped his exaggerated Oklahoma accent. “So, I’ve been readin’ the latest news from Acapulco, and it’s got me more than a little unsettled. There’s a lot of decapitation goin’ around in those parts, Lil.”

  “I don’t even know where to start. I should have run last night, when I discovered Pantheon bought the hotel.”

  “What?” Jesse yelped. “Pantheon? Your ex owns the hotel? Get the hell outta there, Lil!”

  “I’m going to, believe me. Only Martin’s not even the real problem right now.”

  There was a scream, and a woman ran into the lobby, sobbing. “Ella está muerta. Ella está muerta,” she repeated, over and over. She’s dead.

  “Jesse, can I call you back?”

  “Sure thing. Just get outta Dodge, okay?”

  The woman’s sobs were so loud they seemed to be reverberating throughout the entire building. Was this some kind of trick? I’d come to the realization, much too late, that Gavin Stroud was capable of anything.

  The clerk was trying to comfort the maid. Out of the corner of my eye, something slithered along the tile floor. When I turned my head, I didn’t see anything. I’d missed it, or it had been a mirage. I had no way of knowing.

  “What happened?” I asked the clerk. He stared at me blankly, until I repeated the question in Spanish.

  “La mujer desaparecida…” The woman who vanished. He took a deep breath. “They found her.”

  CHAPTER 34

  When I got to the fourth floor, I found that the lights were off, just as they had been the night before. The maid had wailed that the dead woman was in 423, but before I saw the number I saw the glow of artificial light spilling into the hall from a lone doorway. That gave an illusion of warmth, but as I stepped inside, it was as if I were entering a refrigerator. Someone had turned the air-conditioning on full blast, and for the first time since I’d arrived in Acapulco, I was chilled by something other than dark thoughts.

  The first person I saw was Apolinar. He was just past the long entryway to the room, with his back to the door. His right arm was extended, and as I got closer, I saw that his hand was on Gavin’s shoulder. “I’m so very sorry, my friend,” Apolinar was saying.

  As if he had eyes in the back of his head, hidden under his sleek, pomaded black hair, Apolinar dropped his arm and turned around. “What are you doing here?” he whispered, his expression genuinely stunned as he stepped toward me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Is it really Skye? What happened to her?”

  “Gavin instructed the maids to enter every guest room in the hotel. He wanted to be certain no one was hiding out. When a maid came in here, she found Skye McDermott dead.” Apolinar crossed himself. “That is all I can tell you. Not because I don’t want to tell you more, but I don’t know anything else.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “Can’t you leave anything alone?” he hissed, blocking my entrance. “Go away.”

  I tried to brush by him but he grabbed me, holding me back firmly, but not roughly. He leaned so close his lips touched my ear. “Don’t be stupid, Lily. Get out,” he whispered. His voice was so soft I could barely hear him, but his eyed flicked over to Gavin, who wasn’t paying any attention to us.

  Before that moment, my desire to see Skye had been watered down by fear. Apolinar’s refusal to let me inside the room crystalized my determination. I was hopelessly contrary. “Take your hands off me or you’ll be looking to get your old cliff-diving job back.”

  I don’t know who was more surprised by my threat, Apolinar or me. “You are making an enormous mistake,” he breathed, but he let me by.

  The walls of the room were tangerine and the carpet was scarlet; together, they gave the effect of standing inside a fire opal. A pair of cast-off black skyscraper heels lay under the table; they were small enough—and high enough—to be familiar. An open bottle of wine sat on the coffee table, accompanied by a pair of wineglasses that had rusty red stains in them. Near the door to the bedroom was a leopard-print suitcase with clothes spilling out of it. I recognized a pretty pink cardigan with bows at the neckline. It was vintage, and I remembered coveting it when I’d seen Skye wear it on another trip. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

  From the doorway, I looked into the bedroom. Gavin stood at the foot of the bed, hands clasped in front of him. Skye lay prone on the floor, frozen and beautiful; her head was turned to one side, and I could see her red lips, parted as if she were about to speak, and her wide eyes staring ahead. She looked like an angelic doll, her platinum hair fanning out like a halo.

  From behind me, Apolinar said, “Please do not touch her, or anything else. The police will be examining the room.”

  “She’s wearing the same dress I saw her in at the bar,” I said. No one answered me. I swallowed hard. “Has she been dead since last night?”

  “No one knows,” Apolinar said.

  It wasn’t until I knelt beside her face that I noticed the blood. Because the carpet was red, it was hard to make out, but as I leaned closer, I saw that someone had bashed the left side of her head. I must have made a little sound, because Apolinar was suddenly beside me, pulling me back. “Don’t look too closely,” he said. “It is awful.” I smelled his cologne again, that woodsy, musky scent, and I was oddly glad of it, because I thought I’d throw up otherwise.

  I looked around the room, needing to focus on something—anything—but Skye’s body until I caught my breath. “What is that?” I asked, pointing to the nightstand. There were a couple of glassine envelopes lying there, next to a razor blade. It made me think of the drugs I’d seen in Pete’s room.

  “The police will investigate,” Apolinar said. “Please, let me take you out of here now.”

  “How did she get in here?” I asked.

  “Either she had a key or someone else—”

  Gavin spoke softly, but his words silenced us. “I thought she ran away because we’d fought. She told me she hated me. I thought…” His voice trailed off.

  “It’s a tragic accident,” Apolinar said. “She must have fallen down and hit her head.”

  His suggestion was so ridiculous, I couldn’t even answer it. I leaned forward again, close enough to touch Skye but holding my hand back. I’d confronted a dead body before—more than once—but it hit me with a rush that I’d never been near Claudia’s. There were good reasons for that, given what had happened to her, but, emotionally, it was painful. I didn’t know what closure was supposed to be, but I hadn’t had any. My sister was in the world, and then she wasn’t, and even though I knew she was gone, all I had to hold to were strangers’ accounts of what had happened. Now Skye was gone, too. The woman I’d seen less than twenty-four hours before, whom I’d known for years and traveled with so many times, this woman who’d talked and smiled and been as full of life as a person could be, was gone. What was left was this broken shell, suddenly so disconnected from the soul that had inhabited it.

  A familiar voice whispered, Would things really be different if you’d seen my body, Honey Bear?

  Probably not, I admitted. But that impulse to touch her skin and her hair, and to kiss her cheek was still in me. The sensory memories, good and bad, lingered as well, deceiving me into feeling, sometimes, that if I put my hand out I’d be rewarded with a familiar touch.

  Now, I put my hand forward, toward Skye, and no one said anything. It was as if they were all holding their breath. My hand hovered in the air near her, and I blinked. Touching a finger to her arm, I shivered. Skye hadn’t just died; she was practically frozen. />
  “Don’t,” Apolinar said.

  But it was too late. I’d already seen that her painted red nails were broken, as if she’d tried to fight off her attacker. A fleeting image of Skye screaming and trying to save herself flitted through my head. It was so vivid it made my heart palpitate. The fourth floor had been dark when I’d accidentally stopped on it the night before; if I’d stepped off the elevator and started down the hall, would I have heard her screams? It was shattering to think of her fighting for her life and losing. Skye was so slender and so tiny; the odds were stacked against her in any face-off.

  Apolinar handed me a handkerchief. When I touched my face with it, I found it was wet. I hadn’t realized I was crying; I was still too much in shock.

  “Come on,” he said. “Stand up.”

  As I did, I heard a ragged gasp escape from Gavin’s throat. But when I looked at him, his face was a pitiless mask that was devoid of emotion. The only hint of a feeling was in the tightness around his eyes and mouth. Whatever feelings he had were shunted aside.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin,” I said.

  When he turned his head, the darkness in his face frightened me. “Why are you apologizing to me, Lily?”

  “You were involved with her, Gavin. Don’t you feel anything?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop and reconsider them.

  “Tell me, Lily. What am I supposed to feel?” Gavin spoke coldly, but there was something crackling underneath. He made me think of a lake covered in ice that was on the verge of shattering. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, leaving Apolinar and me alone with Skye’s body.

  CHAPTER 35

  I watched and waited from the hallway for a long time, even though there was nothing that I could do. The paramedics who finally arrived approached the suite slowly, wheeling a stretcher with somber determination. They already knew there wasn’t anyone to be saved.

  Skye was gone, and I found that impossible to accept. Less than an hour earlier, I’d been reeling, almost sick with a desire to punish her for what she’d put me through. Now that I knew she was dead, I was guilt-ridden. Why hadn’t I gone through the hotel to look for her? Why didn’t I insist on bringing the police to the hotel immediately? I’d thought I was helping her by prodding Gavin and Apolinar and Denny, by calling Martin, by calling the police in New York. Everything I’d done had been futile. Skye had been dead since the night before. For all I knew she’d died minutes after I saw her. Or was it an hour or two later? Was she meeting someone she knew, or was she surprised by a stranger?

  “Perdón, Miss Moore.” A man’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Mr. Stroud would like to speak with you downstairs, in the bar.”

  “All right,” I answered, without thinking. Moving on autopilot, I got myself downstairs and through the lobby before I realized that the waiter was still beside me.

  “It is a sad day for all of us,” he said.

  “It is,” I agreed, but I didn’t have anything to add. My mind was whirling in other directions. Why would Gavin want to talk to me at the bar? Had he discovered something about Skye’s attacker? Part of me was already convinced that he was Skye’s attacker. Tell me, Lily. What am I supposed to feel? He barely seemed human.

  The waiter and I were both quiet as we walked along the final, curving passageway. He held the door open for me and I walked inside. The lights were on, and beyond the glass of the balcony doors, the sky was dark gray. The rain was coming down so hard that the balcony was a blur. I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone sitting at a table. The only face I saw was the monstrous plaster one above the bar, the one Skye told me was copied from the ruins of Xochipala. Its fanged, screaming mouth was even more terrifying by day.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Down one level, miss.”

  I walked to the railing, then turned back. An eerie sensation shivered through me, as if someone were about to push me over the wrought-iron railing. But the waiter was nowhere near me. He was fussing over a table with a half-empty water glass on it. I looked down again, but the place seemed empty. I brushed against the railing and jumped back. For the first time, I noticed that its ironwork was shaped into intertwining serpents with sharp forked tongues.

  “I don’t see him,” I said.

  The waiter came over and looked down. “This way,” he said, heading toward the staircase. I followed him down, and we circled around to a table that had one chair pushed back. The napkin was on the seat, as if someone were coming right back, and two flutes of sparkling wine, untouched, sat on the table.

  Surely Gavin wasn’t drinking champagne just then.

  “Perhaps he has been called away,” the waiter said. “Let me check.”

  He moved off, and I turned, staring into the shadowy corners of the room. My skin had been crawling since I’d stepped into the bar. My mind was crowded with twisted thoughts, possibly influenced by the ghosts I didn’t believe in. I didn’t want to be there. It was all wrong. I rushed up the stairs, and to the door. Just as I was about to touch it, an arm wrapped around my neck from behind. The screen, I thought. He was hiding behind the screen.

  “Don’t fight me,” he said in Mexican-accented English. “Let’s make this easy.”

  I screamed as loud as I could and he tightened his grip around my neck. His forearm was braced against my windpipe.

  “Are you going to be good?” he asked.

  The next sound that came out of my mouth was choked and weak.

  “Is that a yes?” he whispered, loosening his grip slightly.

  “Yes.” I whispered back.

  He moved one hand and I felt something sharp against the back of my neck. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll…”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m your best friend,” he answered. “I’m giving you a muscle relax—”

  Before he got all the words out, I screamed as loud as I could and clawed the side of his face. He gasped and stabbed my neck with a needle. A current of heat ran through me, searing pathways from the top of my spine to the tip of each finger, and deadening everything in between. My head was suddenly disconnected from the rest of me.

  “We could have done this the easy way,” he said. “You chose this.”

  Whatever poison he’d injected me with was slithering inch by inch through my body. His arm held my throat too tightly to breathe. At that moment, I wanted air more desperately than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. Air meant staying conscious. I thought of Skye lying dead on that floor upstairs. Air meant a chance to fight back.

  “What do you want?” My voice had withered away. The sound I made was broken in unnatural ways.

  He didn’t answer. His silence haunted me. He felt no need to threaten me, and that was more terrifying than any words he could utter.

  He was holding me just a little more roughly than a lover might, and waiting for me to fade to black. My thighs were growing numb, and it was getting harder to stand. I tried to turn my head, but he held me fast. I could turn my gaze up or down, but not to the side. Up, there was just the wash of color, which was fainter than I’d thought. Muted, almost pastel now, but with wavy lines drizzled across it, like the reception my old television set with the rabbit ears used to get. Down, and I could see my feet, toenails painted red, one foot twisting in my shoe sideways, as if it had already gotten bored and dozed off.

  “Stop,” I said, but no sound came out. His arm around my midsection suddenly looked like two, as if this attacker were an insect with multiple limbs. The only thing I was certain off was that my consciousness was going to cave in on itself, buried under the onslaught of a drug that was turning off my nervous system piece by piece. I couldn’t run; I couldn’t scream. He was lowering me to the ground and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

  There were footsteps running in the hallway.

  “Me lleva la chingada!” he cursed. He dropped me and ran. I heard him running but I couldn’t turn to look. I closed my eyes
for what I thought was a moment, but when I opened them, the man who’d attacked me was gone and Apolinar was kneeling in front of me.

  CHAPTER 36

  “I don’t understand how this happened,” Gavin said.

  He stood in his office, appraising me with the same robotic detachment he’d shown toward Skye’s body. I tried to remember how I’d gotten there. Closing my eyes, I had a fleeting memory of Apolinar carrying me in and gently depositing me on a sofa, as if I were some Victorian maiden who’d just suffered a fainting spell. I must have been slipping in and out of consciousness; I’d heard Apolinar speaking, but couldn’t remember what he said.

  “Why would anyone attack you, Lily?” Gavin demanded.

  “I don’t know.” My mind retreated from the memory of what had happened in the bar. I didn’t want to think about it, or Skye, or the Hotel Cerón. Instead, I let my brain wander, trying to come up with an Ava Gardner film in which she played a sick person, laid out on a sofa like I was. My favorite actress was a vamp, a seductress, frequently a bad girl with a heart of gold, but I couldn’t think of any roles where she was ill. Ava wasn’t like Bette Davis, who played dames with ailments both mental and physical—think of Now, Voyager, or Dark Voyage—or Olivia de Havilland, who played such otherworldly good girl roles that she was often viewed as too good for the one she was in. Ava was too worldly, and earthy, to be painted that way.

  “Don’t go swooning off again!” Gavin barked at me. His jagged voice jolted me back to the present. I remembered that I didn’t want to be there.

  “She may need more rest,” Apolinar said.

  Even in my zoned-out state, I caught the searing look that passed like a shadow over Gavin’s face.

  “Let me see if I understand what you and Apolinar have told me,” Gavin said. What had I told him? My mind wanted to drift away, but his voice kept forcing me back into his airless office. “You were told that I wanted to meet you in the bar. Preposterous as that must have sounded, you went along. Then a man you didn’t see grabbed you and injected you with what he said was a muscle relaxant, but he ran off when Apolinar came to your rescue. Did I miss anything?” He stared at me before turning to Apolinar. “For the first time, I understand why Goethe called earth the mental institution of the universe.”