Sweetheart Deal

by Linda Joffe Hull

  My head felt like it was going to burst as I rushed back toward our suite. The feeling intensified when I rounded the corner and spotted a piece of peach-colored stationary dangling from a piece of tape on the door to our suite.

  My hands trembled as I ripped the tape from the wood and read the block-letter message:

  STICK WITH THE SCRIPT OR THE FAMILY FRUGALICIOUS WILL BE CANCELED FOREVER.

  32. After being approached by an OPC, you will typically be greeted by a front line salesperson. He or she will treat you to breakfast or lunch, present the benefits and features of the property, answer questions, address all your concerns and reservations, and hopefully convince you to sign a contract, all within a couple hours.

  twenty-seven

  “Did you find her?” FJ asked, looking up from the Xbox that was part of our in-suite entertainment center.

  “Find who?” I managed, hoping the boys wouldn’t notice I was shaking so hard I could barely get the key card in the door, much less walk into the room.

  “The Sombrero Lady,” Trent said through a mouthful of tortilla chips and looking at me like I was mentally challenged.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Is everything okay?” FJ asked.

  “Just a few complications,” I said, not wanting to alarm them. “I’m sure we’ll find her soon.”

  “Too bad,” Trent said. “I was hoping you’d have figured this whole mess out by now.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said. “Hey, did you guys hear or see anything unusual since you’ve been up here?”

  “Like what?”

  “Noise or people out in the hallway. Anything like that.”

  The boys shook their heads.

  “We’ve been playing,” FJ said, pointing to the screen.

  “For how long?” I asked, but without the punitive tone I normally reserved for that particular sentence in relation to my boys’ gaming habits.

  “Not that long,” Trent said. “Maybe half an hour or so.”

  Seeing as I’d only been back at the resort for forty-five minutes, someone had to have been watching my every move.

  “Where’s your dad?” I asked.

  “In there,” Trent said, pointing to the bedroom door. “Taking a little siesta.”

  “Is Eloise still at the salon?”

  Trent laughed. “Nope. She came back with the dumbest-looking braids all over her head.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She and Ivan took off a little while ago.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Jet skiing.”

  “Eloise said they were headed to some island that has an amazing beach and underwater caves and stuff,” FJ said.

  “And you guys didn’t want to go with?”

  “Of course we did.” Trent made kissing noises. “But we weren’t invited.”

  “Frank,” I said, shaking him awake.

  “Wha …?” he said groggily.

  “I need you to get up, now!”

  “Did you find the Som—”

  “There is no Sombrero Lady and you know it.”

  “I—”

  “I know she was your idea, so don’t bother. In fact, I know about most everything you’ve been part of to trick me into this whole investigation disaster.”

  “Maddie.” He sat up. “I swear it was for the sake of the sh—”

  “There’ll be time for swearing later, Frank. At the moment, we have a bigger problem on our hands.”

  I proceeded to recount everything I’d learned from Ivan, Geo, the mayor, and Beti, including the overwhelming likelihood that a ruthless cartel was behind Alejandro’s murder.

  “So you’re saying that Alejandro may have been killed to halt a land development deal, which may have been dependent on his TV show deal and an infusion of funds from some foreign investor, who may or may not be legit, and that Benito agreed to play guilty because he’s Elena’s brother and the mayor’s son?”

  “I’m saying everyone around here is so afraid of this powerful cartel or whatever they are that they set Benito up so we can wrap up our investigation with a killer and go home having restored ‘peace’ in vacation land.”

  “And Anastasia somehow got all of us entangled into the middle of it all?”

  “Clearly she has.”

  “I hear you. I really do,” he said. “But I don’t quite understand a few things. For one thing, how does killing off Alejandro necessarily kill off this land deal, whatever it is? Couldn’t someone else from Hacienda de la Fortuna step in and negotiate in his place?”

  “I agree there are missing pieces to the puzzle, but I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake by trying to find out what they are.”

  I handed him the note.

  His eyes widened in horror as he read the message. “Where did this come from?”

  “It was taped to the door,” I said.

  “Our door?”

  “Someone had to have been watching my every move to know when I came back to the resort,” I said. “Someone who knew when to kill Alejandro, how to scare Ivan, when the security would be down by the pool, and how to time it so The Family Frugalicious was on the resort taping.”

  “Oh God,” he said, rereading the note. “We’re in trouble.”

  “I’m afraid Ivan is in even more imminent trouble for having spoken to me about it at all.”

  “Are the boys still here?” he asked, alarm now punctuating his voice.

  “In the living room. Playing Xbox.”

  “And Eloise is …”

  “With Ivan,” I said, finishing his sentence.

  “We’ve got to get to them,” he said, already halfway across the room and headed for the bathroom where his swim trunks were hanging on a hook. “Now.”

  twenty-eight

  “Bolt the door behind us and don’t open it for anyone or go anywhere,” Frank barked at the boys as we raced into the living area.

  FJ paused the Xbox. “What’s going on?”

  “I think our investigation is causing a problem and we need to warn Ivan,” I said.

  “What if we get hungry?” Trent asked.

  “Eat what’s in the mini bar,” Frank said.

  “Seriously?” FJ asked. Mini bars were notoriously expensive.

  I nooded. “Don’t leave the room,” I said. “For any reason.”

  “Liam is going to come up here, and we were going to—”

  “No!” Frank said, far too insistently. “You are not to open the door, answer the phone, or go anywhere. You hear us?”

  “Okay,” FJ said, looking both angry and glum. “But I want to know where you’re going and what it is you’re so worried about all of the sudden.”

  “We’re going to find Eloise and Ivan,” Frank said.

  “Once we’re back and have them safely here with us, we’ll tell you everything,” I said. “We promise.”

  “I think I saw him leave on a jet ski,” the man working at the dock said in heavily accented English.

  “Was my daughter with him?” Frank said.

  “Muy bonita, curly hair and blue eyes?”

  “That’s her,” Frank said impatiently.

  He nodded. “She with Ivan.”

  “We need to find them,” I said waving a prescription bottle I’d grabbed on the way out of the door to explain our urgency to anyone who might be watching. “She has to take these.”

  “My sons said they were headed to an island,” Frank said. “Where would that be?”

  “Which island?” the man asked.

  “How many are there?”

  “A few.” He pointed off into the horizon. “They all out that way.”

  Fifteen minutes, $200 American dollars (half of which went toward silencing the man as to our whereabouts), a series of safety

  instructions in heavily accented English, and one questionably worded release form33 later, and we were off to try and find Eloise and Ivan.

  We flew across the impossibly bl
ue, if slightly choppy, water with the sun on our shoulders, sea birds chirping us on from above, and the wind in our hair.

  Living the dream-turned-nightmare, you could say.

  As we headed that way at full speed, I prayed we were going the right direction for whatever island Ivan and Eloise had gone to before anyone else reached them. My postcard handsome hubby, who couldn’t drive because he hadn’t thought to wear his motion sickness bands, clutched my waist hard enough to leave marks.

  Over the sound of the motor, I could hear him praying not to throw up.

  Worse, as we neared what did indeed appear to be land in the distance, I realized the rental guy’s definition of a few meant a long string of islands.

  “What are we going to do?” Frank said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to make him toss his cookies just by telling him I’d already decided the best way to look was to figure eight my way in and around the seemingly endless locations for the ideal secluded beach.

  What I couldn’t decide was what I was going to say to Ivan, assuming we found them in time.

  I’m so sorry I’ve put your life in jeopardy …

  I tried to find you before I went to the timeshare office to track down Beti …

  I should have known that if the mayor himself was so scared that he’d offer up his own son, things had to be more perilous than I could manage …

  Oh God, why hadn’t I just stuck to the script?

  And then something I hadn’t thought of occurred to me:

  Why hadn’t Ivan ever mentioned that Elena was the mayor’s daughter, and that Benito and Elena and were brother and sister in the first place?

  As we sped past the beach of one tiny scenic island and around toward the other side of the next, I had another troubling thought:

  Why would Ivan even mention, much less consider, exploring another underwater cave given his and Eloise’s recent experience at the water park?

  While I had to assume he thought the best way to deal with trauma was to get right back on the horse, I couldn’t help but feel increasingly traumatized myself. Whoever killed Alejandro had to have been aware that the security camera was down by the pool where Alejandro was found, had to have been at the water park at the time Geo was injured, and had to have known how to time the whole scenario around The Family Frugalicious taping schedule. Other than the fact that he was a victim, and an almost fatal one at that, wasn’t Ivan the only person I knew of who actually fit that bill?

  The thought was entirely too ridiculous to consider.

  That was until we’d whizzed past islands number two and three and were approaching a mostly nondescript (where stunning Caribbean islands were concerned, anyway) but larger land mass that appeared to be primarily rock outcroppings. It seemed to lack the rolling jungle appearance of anything else we’d passed thus far.

  “Go faster,” Frank shouted over the engine. “The fuel smell makes me extra queasy when you slow down.”

  “The odor is the same unless I’m idling, and I have to slow down,” I yelled back, pointing to something that appeared incongruously red and blue beside a rock jutting out from the shore.

  “A jet ski!” Frank exclaimed.

  I headed toward what appeared to be the same make and model as ours.

  And Ivan appeared atop a nearby rock.

  Waving.

  We waved back and he motioned us around, over to a makeshift natural dock, and directed us to park our jet ski beside his.

  As we neared him, I swore I could smell patchouli. With one look at what he was doing, however, I definitely smelled fuel, and it wasn’t coming from our jet ski.

  33. Jet skiing can be great fun but be careful of scams, especially abroad. People often don’t pay attention to what they’re signing, or to the damages already on the equipment, and then get charged for misusing the equipment upon return. Jet skis can be tricky to operate and easily damaged. By not showing people how to properly work them, operators know things will go wrong. They can and will collect for damages. They even have their own claims adjusters.

  twenty-nine

  “What are you doing?” Frank asked as we got off our jet ski.

  “He’s siphoning the gas,” I said, my heart was growing heavier by the moment.

  “Why do you need to—”

  “I hope it wasn’t too hard to find the island,” Ivan said by way of answer, inserting a hose into the gas tank of his jet ski. “Sorry I couldn’t give more specific instructions, but I’m sure you understand.”

  “Instructions?” Frank asked.

  “I figured I’d left enough of a hint with the boys that you’d figure out how to come find me.”

  “What’s going on?” Frank asked.

  “I made an even bigger mistake than I thought,” I said. “We fell right into his trap.”

  Frank looked thoroughly confused. “What?”

  I took a deep, centering breath before stating what was quickly becoming clear. “The someone who killed Alejandro, attacked Geo, and timed everything to happen while we were on the resort taping our show is Ivan.”

  “Yes,” Ivan agreed. “And I’m afraid I’ll need to take the keys to your jet ski off your hands.”

  I clutched them firmly and tried to gauge whether I could hop on and race away for help.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Not if you want to see your daughter again.”

  “Eloise!” Frank shouted, then coughed from the noxious gas fumes. “Eloise!”

  “Don’t bother. She can’t possibly hear you from here.”

  “What have you done with her?”

  “She’s perfectly safe,” Ivan assured us. “In fact, she’s waiting for me to come back with the surprise I promised her.”

  “You mean me and Frank?”

  “Plus a picnic lunch,” he said, reaching for the keys.

  Frank responded by throwing up in the sand.

  “Why?” I asked, as Frank puked his guts out.

  “I didn’t want to,” Ivan said, “But I couldn’t let Alejandro get away with ruining even one more life.”

  “Like you almost ruined Geo’s, you mean?” I asked. “Ivan, he nearly died!”

  “I wouldn’t have let that happen.”

  “You were ahead of Geo in the tunnel, weren’t you?” Frank managed. “How could you have—” Then he spun around to vomit up more of his last meal.

  “That was one of the trickiest parts of all this,” Ivan said. “But I had to get suspicion off myself.”

  “It worked to mislead everyone,” I said. “I assume the anonymous threat via the police department and the note on my door were both from you?”

  “I called the police right before I walked in the door, and I made sure the note was taped to your door by a worker who didn’t speak any English just after I took off for this island.” He smiled. “Isn’t it amazing what people see or don’t see when they’re led in a certain direction?”

  “So there’s no cartel or mafia?” I asked.

  “Cartels are a very real problem down here—so real that no one doubted that Alejandro had gotten himself into something he couldn’t slither his way out of. The Hacienda de la Fortuna isn’t so squeaky clean where mob ties are involved either, so no one really wanted to question what happened. If you and your family hadn’t started to investigate, I could have easily gotten rid of the scourge that was Alejandro Espinoza.”

  “Never mind that Benito would rot in prison for a crime you committed?”

  “That would never happen,” he said. “A little money changes hands and problems resolve themselves, especially when you’re the mayor’s son.”

  “Which you conveniently didn’t mention.”

  “And you inconveniently sniffed out. Believe me, I never wanted it to come to this,” Ivan said, turning to siphon fuel from his jet ski into ours, then proceeding to pry open the hull of his machine and pull out its inner workings.

  As he prepared to upend his jet ski
into the water, Frank stopped throwing up long enough to jump him from behind.

  I screamed.

  They tussled.

  But it was over as quickly as it started. Frank, who spent far too much time toning and strengthening at the gym, was in a chokehold in less than thirty seconds, courtesy of the younger, stronger, and more naturally fit Ivan.

  “I didn’t want to kill Alejandro, or harm Geo, and I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Ivan said, twisting Frank’s arm behind his back. “So how about not making this any harder than it has to be?”

  “Give me a break,” Frank said.

  “Don’t make me,” Ivan said, holding him tighter and guiding him around some bushes. “Both of you be quiet, and Maddie, you stay beside me where I can see you.”

  I did as I was told, staying in his view while he led us out of the cove, over a hill, and through some dense brush.

  “We’re here,” Ivan finally said, stopping by a stand of trees.

  “Where’s Eloise?” Frank looked around frantically. “Eloise!”

  “You’ll see her very soon,” Ivan said. “But I need you to promise me there’ll be no more funny business from either of you.”

  We both nodded.

  “Don’t move,” he said, letting go of Frank.

  Ivan disappeared around a nearby boulder and returned a second later with two full backpacks. He put one on and gave the other to Frank. Without another word, he led us toward a stunning white sand beach and stopped about twenty-five feet from the shore beside a clear cenote the size of a large Koi pond.

  As we looked at the water-filled cavern at the edge of the pond, Ivan pulled a rope from the tall grass beside the water.

  “What are you going to do to us?” Frank asked.

  “If you’d just gone down the investigation path I laid out for you, I wouldn’t have had to any of this,” Ivan said, not answering the question.

  “Meaning what?” I asked.

  “I promise I’ll explain everything,” he said, making a slipknot of some kind at the end of the rope.

  “But first you’re going to tie us up?”

  “I’m tying us together,” he said. “So I don’t lose one of you underwater.”

  Horror filled Frank’s face and my soul. “Underwater?”

  “Eloise is waiting for you in the coolest underwater cave you’ll ever see.”