by Derek Milman
“Oh, it’s more than that,” he says, craning his neck to scour the traffic. “Can you make a left here and get us onto Sixth,” he directs the driver, leaning over the seat, “and let’s take Sixth up, thanks.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s almost three,” says Shiloh.
“What time is your dinner?”
“Oh, not for a while,” he says. “I just wanted to get back to the city. Yours?”
“Five.”
“That’s kind of early.”
“My sister has kids. And we have a flight to catch.”
“So you’re an uncle.”
“I am.”
“Uncle Aidan,” he says. It does have a nice ring when you say it out loud.
My nephew, Sam, is three and my niece, Annabelle, is five and a half. I can’t ever remember either of their birthdays, but they’re cute as hell.
“What about you?” I ask.
“Only child,” he replies. “No siblings.”
“Yeah, I know what an only child means.”
I don’t know why, but when he says only child I think of Neil and I get sad again. I’ve been sad about Neil ever since I talked about him earlier to Motorcycle Helmet Terrorist. I feel manipulated. That was a bit of psychological warfare right there.
“Maybe it’s that,” he says, looking at me.
“What?”
“The way you suddenly get sad like that.”
I swipe lightly at my eyes. “I didn’t know I did.”
“Your face.” He’s suave enough not to point directly at me when he says that.
Ten minutes later, we pull up in front of the Mandarin Oriental. A bellhop (not the murderous one I just killed, obviously, but now I have PTSD whenever I see one, and I can probably forget about room service for the rest of my life) opens the door of the cab. I step out onto the street. It’s muggy out, the sky pigeon-gray.
Shiloh pays the driver and hops out as well. He’s tall. I just realized that now, for some reason. I stare at the entrance to the hotel. I turn to him. “I don’t know you at all, obviously, or why you did any of that, but thank you.”
His mouth curls up at the corners. “So what’s next?”
“I’m going to go back to my room,” I tell him, not that confidently.
“It’s that face of yours,” he says.
“What about it?”
“It can’t lie.”
I tap my feet, anxiously. “What is my stupid face saying now?”
He laughs a little. “You just look a little nervous.”
“Yeah.” I don’t know what I’m doing. Coming back to the Mandarin Oriental, the scene of the crime, might be the dumbest thing on earth. But I have nowhere else to go right now, and if the police are eventually going to find me, maybe I can at least change clothes first. I really don’t know. I’m not in this line of work.
“If you wanted to escort me inside,” I find myself saying, “I wouldn’t say no.”
“Let’s do it,” says Shiloh.
Whoever’s looking for me, or might be coming after me, probably won’t expect to see me with a companion. That might delay my arrest or potential murdering. Maybe.
“The lobby is actually on the mezzanine level,” I explain, softly, in the elevator.
“I’ve been here once or twice before.” Shiloh’s smile is refreshingly reassuring, in the manner of an old-fashioned movie star after a car chase that went particularly well. “I love their tea service. And the view, of course.”
“I’m hoping there won’t be an issue,” I say. “But I lost my ID and my keycard. So I’m hoping… I can get all that back… from the desk.”
He leans into me, brushing his shoulder against mine, which makes my stomach jump a little. “You are really staying here, aren’t you?” he says.
“Well.” I laugh a little. “I was.”
He gives me a slightly amused, slightly concerned smile. I can’t imagine what he must think I got myself into.
The elevator opens. I make a beeline for the front desk. The lounge is packed, but the lobby isn’t too crowded, only a small line of people checking in. My heart is beating so fast. I’m relieved I don’t immediately get jumped by a bunch of police officers, their handcuffs out, or dudes wearing motorcycle helmets. But then:
“AIDAN!”
I whirl around at the sound of my name.
Tatiana bounds toward me from the lounge. A harried waiter runs after her, holding a check and a pen. “Miss! Miss! You forgot to sign.”
“Oh, sorry,” she says, turning, quickly signing the check, then coming toward me. She is clearly in a state.
“Tats?”
“I’ve been here… waiting for you,” she says. I can see she’s been crying, but she still looks amazing in this cute summery striped top and matching navy-blue skirt ensemble. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to overdo it and show up at your room or anything.” She looks at Shiloh. “Now I feel foolish.”
Shiloh steps forward, hand outstretched. “Shiloh.”
Tatiana shakes his hand. “I’m what’s left of Tatiana,” she says with a small laugh, fighting back a sob.
“Nice to meet you,” says Shiloh. “What’s left of you sure is pretty.”
She shoots me a look, like, Who’s the charmer? and nods at him, holding out one hand as if hailing a cab, thanking him for the compliment without words.
“Tats. Are you okay? Were you… drinking tea here by yourself?”
She looks back at the lounge, hoisting her purse higher on her shoulder, like she may have forgotten something. “Lame, right?”
“No, not at all.”
She dabs at the corners of her eyes and nods. “I’m really sorry. I thought Jackson might be with you. I couldn’t reach you. He won’t answer my calls or texts.”
“I lost my phone.”
“We had a fight,” she says.
I feign surprise. “Oh, no.”
“Spare me. You know full well. You and Jackson were at that ridiculous warehouse party in Bushwick last night. He posted pics of it all over Instagram. He tagged you in all of them.”
I stare at her. “Jacks posted images from last night on Instagram and tagged me?”
What is wrong with him?
She nods. “Look, I don’t want to get in the middle of your friendship. I don’t want to cause drama. Although that’s totally what I’m doing, isn’t it?” She laughs to herself, blowing her nose with a wrinkled brown Starbucks napkin. “I’m in love with him. And I think it’s over. I’m afraid it’s over. I don’t think he wants to be with me anymore.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I say, balling my hands into fists, knowing precisely it’s completely true.
“It’s my fault. I put too much pressure on him,” she says, for some reason addressing this to Shiloh. “That was wrong of me. I guess I was always afraid of losing him, him going off to college, things changing… and who can do the long-distance thing forev—”
“You’re both going to be in Cambridge,” I interject.
But it doesn’t seem like she’s heard me. “I just wanted more than he could give, and I wound up chasing him away… not that I haven’t done that before, and then my stupid parents, I…” she looks at me, frowns, blinks back tears, and takes a step back, her ugly crying warping into total bewilderment. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I got into some trouble.”
Tatiana shakes off her heartbreak like an old quilt so she can focus on me. She dabs at her lips with the napkin, straightens her skirt, and takes me in with newly clear eyes. “Aidan? Are you okay?”
“He’s okay,” says Shiloh.
“What happened?” she asks Shiloh.
“Oh, I really don’t know,” he responds. “He won’t tell me.”
“Who are you?” she asks him.
“We met on the train,” I tell her.
“What train?” she asks me, looking back and forth from me to Shiloh.
I clear my thr
oat. “A lot’s happened. The hotel took my keycard and my ID and I need that back. First off.”
“You don’t have your keycard?”
“No.”
Tats straightens her shoulders regally, her this shit wouldn’t fly in Singapore so give me some space attitude ready to annihilate whoever gets in her way.
Tatiana and Shiloh march me to the check-in desk.
“Yes, this is absolutely unacceptable,” says Tatiana, her perfectly modulated tone of voice suffused with just the right amount of dismay, to the meek-looking blond guy with bad skin who asks what he can do for us. “This,” she gestures at me, like I’m a snorting creature made out of disparate body parts by a mad scientist in a small Swiss village, “is a guest of this hotel. Of this hotel, okay?”
“Yes?” The check-in dude looks afraid. “Is something wrong?”
Tatiana makes a show of looking all around. “Is this the Mandarin Oriental? This is the Mandarin Oriental, right? Because please tell me I didn’t just pay fifty bucks for a bunch of stale scones at the Radisson.”
He bristles at the word Radisson. It’s amazing.
“This is the Mandarin Oriental, ma’am,” he replies hotly.
Tatiana does this violent-nodding thing. “He needs his keycard. His keycard.”
“Well, of course,” the guy says, confused and startled. “What’s your name, sir?”
I lean in and speak politely. “Aidan. Jamison.”
He looks at his screen. “We’re so sorry, Mr. Jamison, there must have been a mix-up on our part. We have this waiting for you.” He reaches behind his desk and hands me an envelope. I rip it open: inside is my keycard and my two IDs. I almost cry. This is at least one wrong thing that just righted itself. I’m so amped up I accidentally drop everything onto the floor. Shiloh bends down, picks everything up, and hands it all to me.
“What was the source of this mix-up?” Tatiana asks the desk clerk, hands on her hips. She’s overdoing her outrage by a mile, but I love her for it.
“I’m not certain. It seems there was a computer glitch and Mr. Jamison’s information was briefly mixed up with another guest’s.”
“Which guest?” I ask.
The guy holds up a finger. “Actually,” he says, “we have a message for you… from the other guest.” He hands me a folded piece of paper.
“From who?” I ask.
“A… Mr. Preston,” says the check-in guy.
Every time I hear that name now, my heart skips five beats.
My hand closes over the piece of paper. “And where is this Mr. Preston now?”
He consults his computer screen. “Looks like he checked out this morning.”
I frown. “This morning?”
“Correct.”
“Do you know his full name? Any forwarding address?”
“It looks like it’s all been wiped from our system.”
Tatiana opens her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off. “Okay, thanks.”
“You’re welcome, sir. Please let us know if you need anything else.”
“Oh, I will,” I say, stepping away from the desk, motioning to Tatiana and Shiloh to follow me toward the elevators and up to my room.
I open the door to my room, cautiously, expecting anything.
My room is made up, but apart from that everything is just as I left it. My luggage is untouched. My laptop is on the desk. My iPad is on a chair by the window. I instinctively look for my wallet and phone, then remember those were lost back at Swan Headquarters.
So much has changed since I was last in this room, lying in bed, and I would do anything to get my life back the way it was before I met Benoît. A couple of swipes on my phone and now I’m living in a different reality.
Tatiana throws her purse down on the bed and opens the curtains. “The world is going mad,” she says. “Have you seen the news? Cyber-warfare. Three people dead.” She sighs, looks at her nails. “I mean, the world is better off without them, but still…”
Yeah, that’s the conclusion I came to as well, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. The Swans see me as their enemy now. I am in the way of their cause. A cause that part of me respects and supports.
All this is so complicated. I just wanted a spring break. Watch YouTube, listen to a lot of Taylor, maybe have some good sex, visit my burned aunt…
“Aidan, baby, something’s happened…”
A Christmas card being shoved under my bedroom door.
“You’re not my goddamn brother…”
“Ugh,” I say, holding my head, in response to the rush of awful memories.
Tatiana doesn’t notice my fresh heaping of distress; she’s shaking her head, lost in her indignation: “… and I just cannot fathom a five-star hotel in New York mixing up information, losing people’s keycards! If this was in Singapore—”
“Okay, Tats,” I say, suddenly exhausted.
Shiloh is looking at me more closely, frowning slightly, lingering by the door, adorably unsure where to place himself in the room.
“You can come in,” I tell him, with a laugh, waving him inside, and he smiles, shyly, and sits down on the chair by the desk.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, gently.
“Yeah, why?”
“You look a little… I don’t know… pale.”
“He’s just stressed out,” Tatiana explains.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I tell them. “I have to meet my parents for dinner.”
“Not like that,” says Tatiana. “What happened to your throat? Are those bruises?”
“I was strangled. And then almost drowned. More like simultaneously.”
There’s a brief pause. I tap my knuckles against my forehead while they both stare at me.
“You were…?” she says, her head sliding to one side.
I sit heavily on the bed and try to quickly explain the sequence of events: from when I first met Benoît, being on the run last night, meeting up with Jacks, escaping the warehouse party, crashing at Kibbutzeteria, being kidnapped this morning, then nearly being murdered in the Merrick Gables slightly after lunchtime.
There’s another, longer pause.
“Are you serious?” says Shiloh.
“We have to call the police,” says Tats, starting to dig through her bag.
“I don’t want to do that! If they’re not looking for me, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I may have broken a few laws.”
I mean, now I actually did kill someone, so…
“Don’t you think it’s strange,” says Tats, waving her phone around, “that they’re not looking for you?”
“Right now I think everything is strange.”
She points at the TV, which isn’t on. “Do you think… are you telling me you think you’re involved with the terrorist attacks that made international news today?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks at me like I’m insane. “Are you even safe here?”
I hold out my hands. “I don’t know. But I have to meet my parents. I have to talk to them. I need to do it in person. I worry about them having heart attacks over me or something. I worry about that a lot. They’ve been through so much shit, and there’s no room to deviate from any of their plans. We are having dinner. I have to be on time. That is happening and is non-negotiable.”
“What does the note say?” says Shiloh.
Right—the note from Mr. Preston himself. I forgot I had it in my hand.
It’s handwritten on hotel stationery. Neat block writing in black ink:
SORRY FOR THE MIX-UP. THEY’LL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE UNTIL THEY GET THE ITEM. LET’S MEET AND WORK THIS OUT. IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO END THIS.
—MR. PRESTON
There’s a phone number written at the bottom of the paper.
“Uh. We should call the number, I guess,” I say, not feeling good about any of this. My stomach is in knots. “But I lost my phone. Should I use the room phone?”
“Ugh, they’ll charge
you a fortune,” says Tats.
Shiloh stands up, taking out his phone. “I’ll handle this for you. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” I’m too freaked out and exhausted to argue, but also I can’t stomach the idea of talking to any more pernicious strangers on phones right now. No more veiled threats, weird riddles, dropped hints, or psychological probing.
Shiloh grabs a piece of paper and pen from the bedside table, motions to the bathroom. “May I use your bathroom?” he asks me.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Shiloh goes into the bathroom and closes the door. I hear his voice, muffled from behind the door, then the sound of the sink running.
Tatiana sits on the bed, gestures at the bathroom with her head. I still can’t get over how quickly she regained her composure; not twenty minutes ago she was an emotional mess. “What’s the deal with that cutie pie?” she asks me.
“I don’t know. He helped me escape from the train. Just sort of swooped in.”
“You always like them older?”
“Well, last night was…” I stop and look at her. “Wait. Did Jackson tell you?”
She looks caught. “Tell me… what?”
I tap my foot. “About my past?”
She presses two fingers to her lips.
“He did, didn’t he?”
Tatiana crosses her legs and slips off one of her high heels, clearing her throat. “He may have told me something about… that you were involved with someone…”
“He wasn’t supposed to talk about that. It was a secret.”
“You’re his best friend,” she says. “And I was his girlfriend. There’s crossover. He probably shouldn’t have told me, you’re right, but he worries about you.”
“Why does he worry about me?”
She laughs a little. “I guess he thinks you get yourself into trouble.”
I’m not having any of that. “I feel like trouble tends to find me.”
“In some cases, though, you’ve gone looking for it.”
“Tats, this isn’t entirely my fault—”
“I’m not saying it is—”
“But, yeah, I see what you mean, I get it.”
Shiloh returns from the bathroom, pocketing his phone. “Why did you need to go in there to talk on the phone?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I had to pee. I wasn’t lying about that on the train. I can multitask.”