No Hair gave up.
“What’s the bank, Jessica?” I stepped in.
She threw her hands in the air. “Elima. Bank Elima.”
Just like that. As if we knew, should have known, or should have figured out by now that with Max the DeLuna half of DeLuna-Elima Securities, she was the Elima half.
Hers was never a marriage; it was always a merger.
“Jessica?” I was on the edge of my sofa. “Did you not think to mention that your father owns Bank Elima?”
“No.” She ran her hands down her long brown legs. “Because he doesn’t.”
“You just said he did, Jess.”
“So.” She picked at white linen. “My father died.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She found a white linen thread and pulled it.
“Jessica, who owns the bank now?” No Hair asked.
She looked up. “Me.”
Just like that. And that’s why she was with us. She owned the bank.
Jessica the Bank Owner hit the hay. Or the white linen, as it was.
No Hair scratched his bald head.
My eyes dropped to my lap, where, in the shuffle and shock of Jessica’s news, I’d accidently opened the mailbox on Max (dirtbag) DeLuna’s V2. My mail was sitting in my lap. My Probability email had been forwarded to DeLuna’s V2 and it was front and center on the small screen.
* * *
Thirty excruciatingly slow minutes had passed since Mother and Arlinda left 704 for the casino when I found my email. Fantasy returned wearing clothes that fit. “What’d I miss?”
“Jess owns the bank and I found my email.”
“Jess owns a bank?” She looked at Sleeping Beauty. “That’s hilarious.”
“For real,” I said. “Jessica owns the bank in Hawaii.”
“I’ll be damned. That solves the mystery of why we have custody of her.” She sat beside me and leaned in to peek at the V2 screen. “Look at that. Davis, it’s your email.”
“I know. I have mail.” I shook the V2. “This is how he was taking care of correspondence for me. On his own V2.” I scrolled to find four. I skipped the three from Bianca to read the one from Bradley that hit my inbox at four thirty on Saturday. We’d barely said goodbye, he’d just boarded the plane, and we’d just lost our V2s.
Davis,
I think we forgot something. I think we missed something.
Stay safe for me and I’ll stay safe for you. I love you.
He knew as soon as Bellissimo One took off.
I traced the words with my finger, back and forth, then forced myself to move on. I clicked open the first email from Bianca. It arrived Saturday evening at seven when I should have been prancing around in her Vera Wang jumpsuit at the Welcome Aboard party. “Listen to this.” I read it aloud to No Hair and Fantasy. And Jess, who owns a bank, but she wasn’t listening because she was asleep.
David, you have ABANDONED in my hour of need. I have dialed your number no less than two hundred times. You’re fired. Don’t even waste your breath trying to save your or your husband’s jobs. Which is not to say I don’t fully expect you to fulfill your obligations between now and your certain UNEMPLOYMENT. The photographs of me had better be Life Magazine cover caliber, every single shot, or not only will you be unemployed, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a breach of contract lawsuit YOU WON’T WIN.
In the meantime, I insist that you contact Dr. Durrance on my behalf. I am too ill in general, and especially with her, to attempt civil conversation. She claims I am not progressing toward dilation or effacement. Whatever in the world that means. Dr. Durrance also claims Ondine is floating. Whatever in the world she means by that. You refusing my telephone calls leaves me with no one to run INTERFERENCE for me in these, the final hours of my gestation. You have FORSAKEN me. I am left without a soul on this planet who has MY BEST INTEREST at heart.
There’s Richard, of course, but my marriage is none of your business.
Not that I’ve seen a TRACE of him because he is too busy doing YOUR HUSBAND’S JOB. Which is YOUR FAULT.
I need you to call Dr. Durrance immediately. She is demanding I have an ultrasound. Something about covering all the bases and by that, I’m certain she means covering HER OWN bases, which aren’t my concern. I researched this MYSELF, as you are NOT TAKING MY CALLS, rather, I assigned the task to this slovenly nurse you saddled me with, you know the one, the unibrowed holistic healer Buddhist tofu person with the thick calves and bulbous earlobes, and she concurs that medical imaging is NOT NECESSARY as all my vital statistics, as well as Ondine’s, are PERFECT and there’s no need for alarm or RIDICULOUS IMAGING PROCEDURES. David, you know I won’t let myself be subjected to ULTRASONIC VIBRATIONS unless LIVES ARE AT STAKE, and although you’ve chosen to ignore me, for which you will pay dearly, I INSIST you contact Dr. Durrance and explain this. You know barbaric and unnecessary imaging leaves me with blurred vision and a metal taste in my mouth for days. I refuse to put myself through it this close to Ondine’s birth. I simply don’t have the energy and my nerves can’t take it.
I mean every word of this, David.
No headlines here. Bianca fired me. Again. This time with a twist—she’d fired Bradley too. She was furious at me for not being at her beck and call when she was the one who’d sent me on this prison cruise. And ultrasounds, of which I’m well into the double digits on at twenty-four weeks, because watching twins grow is a big job, I knew for a fact didn’t hurt a bit or blur anything. Bianca’s another story—good grief, don’t get me going—and ultrasounds were just one procedure on a long list she refused to participate in. Her prenatal team strongly advised her to have an amniocentesis when she was sixteen weeks along. Because of her age. She wouldn’t even hear of it, Mr. Sanders couldn’t even talk her into it, and three doctors were fired over it. She’d had two face lifts, two breast augmentations, liposuction on her ankles, several eyelash transplants, butt implants, practically injected her own face with Botox as part of her morning beauty routine, but refused to have ultrasounds.
“What is wrong with her?” Fantasy asked.
“Not my problem anymore,” I said. “She fired me.”
“Why won’t she have an ultrasound?” she asked.
“You heard it.” I shook the V2. “It rattles her teeth. She had one early on, was sick for two days, blamed it on the ultrasound, and has refused them since.”
The second email from Bianca hit my inbox Saturday night, just before midnight.
David,
I need you back here immediately. Something has happened to your husband and Richard was forced to LEAVE ME to replace him halfway across the world. I don’t know if your husband has fallen ill or the plane crashed, and frankly, I don’t care. What I do know and care about is the fact that I HAVE BEEN DESERTED. Both by you, and now because of you, by MY OWN HUSBAND.
I will NOT be left alone at a time like this. It’s INHUMANE.
Pack my bags in a hurry. And don’t you dare pack haphazardly and damage my Louis luggage. May I remind you that each of those pieces was COMMISSIONED, and in addition to my wardrobe you are traveling with, you have my new luggage I HAVEN’T EVEN LAID EYES ON? Do you understand, David? You are using my new luggage BEFORE I AM?
Now, David, I have unsettling news. Brace yourself. Unless there is notable progress very soon, I will be preparing myself to undergo a Cesarean section to bring Ondine into this world. SURGERY, David.
In addition to the TRAUMA you have landed in my LAP impeding my very ability to DELIVER MY DAUGHTER INTO THIS WORLD IN THE WAY GOD AND I INTENDED, according to Dr. Durrance, my BLOOD PRESSURE has SKYROCKETED. As you can well imagine, I’m devastated and your vacation is over. Be at the ship’s helicopter pad at seven Sunday morning to be transported to the plane I’m sending. I need you here immediately, and be ca
reful with my Louis. Not a scratch on the trunks, David. Do you hear me? Not one scratch. I will see you mid-morning Monday. –B
I’d missed the helicopter ride by a country mile.
Then I opened the third email sent two hours ago.
Well, David, I hope you’re happy. If Ondine or I don’t make it through this, our blood will be on your hands. Be ready. Have my wardrobe, my photography, and my luggage ready.
I dropped the V2 like it was on fire.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fantasy asked. “What’s she saying?”
“I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means,” No Hair said.
“What do you think it means?” Fantasy asked him.
“She’s on her way,” he said. “She called a jet, she’s out of that bed, and she’s on her way to pick up David.”
Fantasy turned to me. “David?”
“Surely not,” I said. “She wouldn’t travel. She hasn’t been out of her bedroom in six months!”
“Davis,” No Hair said, “Richard isn’t there to stop her. You aren’t there to stop her.” He looked at his watch. “It’s less than an hour in a jet between here and there and I bet you money she’s either on her way or already on this ship.”
“She can’t,” I said. “If she sets foot on Probability, DeLuna will think she’s me.”
We sat quietly, contemplating what Bianca would and wouldn’t do (the woman had no boundaries whatsoever) when DeLuna caught on.
At some point, he had to catch on.
I’d say we reached that point.
I’d say fifty jackpots hitting sent him over the edge.
(She did it! Mother did it!)
I’d say he blamed 704.
He cut the power at eight minutes after four on Sunday afternoon—lights, air, appliances—everything electrical ground to a lifeless stop. It was the loudest quiet any of us had ever heard. The quiet was so profound it woke Jess. “SO? SO? SO?”
The good news was Mother’s pot roast. We hadn’t even thought about turning it off and we’d have never remembered. The bad news was DeLuna’s V2 went down with the power, leaving us with no contact whatsoever with the world outside of 704. The worst news was Mother and Arlinda were on one side of 704 and we were on the other.
Where was Mother? Where was Arlinda? Where were Bradley and Baylor? The most immediate where of them all—where was very pregnant Bianca Sanders? The most terrifying—where was Max DeLuna?
TWENTY-FOUR
What now?
Since the minute I stepped aboard Probability, it’d been an ongoing question of what now.
Anderson Cooper, the air around her having changed, wandered out of my stateroom and onto my lap. She opened her little mouth and let out a wail of protest at this newest development. We clapped our hands over our ears as it echoed around the salon.
“Oh, dear God, Davis, your cat.”
“We have more to worry about than my cat, Fantasy.”
“She’s got something stuck on her fur.” No Hair pointed.
It was a chip of gray gauntlet paint. Which is when I remembered. “The tools!”
I tried to get up.
“The tools!” Fantasy shot off, No Hair on her heels, and Jess hauled me up.
“What happened in here?” No Hair looked around the dark dressing room. “Did someone forget to tell me about the bomb?”
It was a little messy.
He dangled the bottom half of Arlinda’s Skipper uniform by a finger. “What have you ladies been up to?”
I grabbed the bikini from him.
“What the hell happened to the wall?”
“About that.” I took a deep breath.
“Don’t.” He stopped me. “Tell me later. Or never tell me. Just find the tools.” He took two steps forward, bent over, and raised up with something sinister. “What did you think you were going to do with this, Davis?”
It was large, a little oily, and had a Frisbee-sized brown middle. “I’m not sure what it is.”
“It’s a floor sander. And you see this?” He dangled a thick yellow cord with a three-prong plug. “Even if we wanted to sand through a lead door, we have no power.”
“So, does anyone smell something? It smells like a Christmas tree. Or church. Or rainbows.” She tipped her head back and sniffed. “So, it smells like rainbows on a Christmas tree at church.”
“It’s pot roast, Jess,” I said.
“It smells so delicious.”
“Don’t look at it.” Fantasy was holding a nail gun.
“Why? Will it hurt my eyes?”
Maybe DeLuna had his wife locked in 704 because she owned the bank processing his illegally obtained millions. Or maybe he wanted her out of his hair and in ours.
“Jess?” I asked.
Her head spun around. “So?”
“Who regulates banks?”
“The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.”
Fantasy’s jaw dropped.
I said, “The pot roast won’t hurt your eyes.”
“But don’t look at it,” No Hair said.
She scratched a rhinestone shoulder strap. “So.”
“Davis?” No Hair opened a box of something and pulled out a silver disk with sharp teeth. “These are miter saw blades. I don’t see a miter saw.”
“No Hair.” I fell down on the ottoman. Something cold rolled to my thigh. “We were exhausted. We were in a hurry. We just grabbed. Sorry if we grabbed the wrong tools.”
“Give me that.” He pointed. I passed him the something at my thigh. “Now this,” No Hair said, “we can use.”
We were running through the salon to blaze through the front door of 704 with a blowtorch when we saw it—dry land. No Hair came to a sudden halt, Fantasy ran into him, Jess ran into her, Anderson Cooper and I landed on top. I could barely hear No Hair from the bottom of the heap. He said, “You ladies get off of me. I’m going back to the submarine.”
* * *
Probability slowed as we approached the Cayman Islands.
“What is that?” Fantasy asked.
“It’s West Bay. The tip of Grand Cayman.” We were miles from shore. “We won’t go much farther.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“The ship will drop anchor soon, Jess,” I said.
It was almost five o’clock and Probability was arriving in the Caymans as scheduled. Cool trade winds blew across the deck, the late afternoon sun hit me with warmth and promise, and I could see tourmaline water lapping sugar sand beaches at the shore. The sky was stellar, a color that went so far past blue Crayola didn’t even know the name of it, and I felt a trickle of calm at the sight of dry land. Consular agencies. Telephones. Dishwashers. Telephones! Mother’s portable phone! I’d forgotten all about it!
The doorbell rang and I forgot about it all over again.
We didn’t know 704 had a doorbell.
There was electricity on the other side of the door.
It rang four more times before we made our way inside, through the salon, and into the foyer that led to the door. I was first in line. “Mother!” I rattled the knob and beat on the door with my fists. “Mother!”
“She can’t hear you.” No Hair brought up the rear, having stopped to retrieve the blowtorch.
“How do we know it’s your mother?” Fantasy asked. “It could be anyone. It could be DeLuna.”
“So. No.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Give me the gun.” No Hair held out a hand. Fantasy pulled the Hi-Point 9mm from her hip and passed it to him. He popped out the magazine, checked it, slammed it back in, clicked off the safety, tucked it, then said, “Stand bac
k.”
We shuffled in reverse.
“This is a tabletop blowtorch.” Show and Tell. “It runs on butane or propane and I don’t know how much juice it has. For all we know, it’s empty.”
The doorbell rang again.
“The door is strongest along the perimeter.” He said it more to himself than us as he knocked all over the door with his knuckles. “I think getting through the doorknob and keypad is out of the question.”
“Burn a smaller door,” Fantasy said. “Just…” She traced a frame through the air with her hands. “You know. A smaller door. Like a doggie door.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “If we burn an opening large enough for us to get out it will be large enough for someone else to get in.”
Think, think, think, Davis.
I turned to Jess. “Can you get into a bank vault with a blowtorch?”
“No.” She tapped her chin. “You’d need a thermal lance. Just know it will reduce anything in the vault to ash. You’ll get in, but you’ll lose everything: currency, stock certificates, deeds.”
Fantasy’s jaw dropped. Again.
“How would you break into a vault if you only had a blowtorch?” I asked Jess.
“You’d burn a small circle halfway through, then knock it out.”
“So you could reach in?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jess said.
“I’m not even believing this,” Fantasy mumbled.
“So, what?” Jess asked her.
No Hair was already burning a circle in the middle of the door.
“I need a mirror and something to knock this out with.”
Fantasy took off and was right back with her Ming Dynasty antennas and a Bobbi Brown brightening brick in Coral.
“What the hell is this?” No Hair looked at the black square in his hand.
The doorbell rang.
She dropped what used to be a priceless piece of art to the floor and opened the compact for No Hair, the mirror catching the lone ray of sun streaming in from the salon, then bouncing off a crystal in the foyer chandelier and sending a starburst to the ceiling.
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