“Fine,” I huffed. This was wrong on so many levels. But I knew that Shay was right. “So, we’re just supposed to give these people five hundred thousand dollars? Where are we supposed to get five hundred thousand dollars from?”
“I don’t know,” Shay replied. “Call your dad.”
“You call your dad,” I said. Shay might not have been as rich as me, but they were still loaded. Her father probably wore five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry around his neck.
“Between us, we’re going to have to come up with the money,” Shay said.
“Let’s not and say we did,” I replied. “Let’s just call the cops and when it’s time to give them the money, the police can bust the crooks, we get Evian back, and we take our happy behinds home.”
“Yeah, if only it was that easy,” Shay replied.
“All I know is that I didn’t sign up for all of this,” I snapped.
“And you think I did?” Shay said. “You think Evian did?”
I exchanged glances with Sheridan before saying, “Okay, fine. Let me go back to my room and make some calls and see how much I can come up with. You do the same and maybe between all of us, we can get enough money.”
Shay nodded, seemingly relieved. “Cool. I’ll catch back up with you guys in a couple of hours.”
Sheridan quietly followed me out. Once we were on the elevator, she turned to me and said, “Maya, I want to help and I might be able to get my hands on a few thousand, but I can’t just come up off that kind of money. My mom would have a million and one questions, then it would just be added drama.”
“Girl, please. It would be the same with my dad,” I said, pushing the button to the penthouse floor. “And besides, I don’t know Evian like that just to be giving up that kind of money.”
“But I thought you told Shay you were going to work on coming up with the money,” Sheridan said.
“I just told her that so we could get out of there. Even if I had five hundred thousand in my purse right now, I wouldn’t be giving it to some kidnappers for a girl I don’t even cut for.”
We stepped off the elevator. “I’m sorry. I hope Shay works it all out,” I said. “But I’m done.”
Sheridan didn’t protest as she followed me into our suite.
Chapter 12
After the stressful day I’d had yesterday, I was going to chill today. Shay had called last night and when we’d ignored her calls, she’d come to our suite, banging on the door like a lunatic. Finally, she’d left, but she was back this morning, acting such a fool that I knew it was just a matter of time before hotel security came.
“What?” I said, finally swinging open the door to the suite.
She barged in, past me. “I don’t know what kind of games you’re playing, Maya Morgan, but I’m not the one!”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Shay, I’m not playing any games. I was exhausted yesterday and came back here and we all fell asleep.”
She folded her arms and glared at me. “And nobody heard me banging on the door last night.”
I shook my head and shrugged. “Nope, sorry.”
“Whatever, Maya. How much money were you able to get your hands on?” she asked. “These people aren’t playing. They called again this morning.”
I walked over to the refrigerator and got one of the orange juices out of the minibar.
“I’m sorry,” I said, opening my juice. “But I just can’t get my hands on that kind of money. The cash advance on my credit cards only go up to five thousand and I tried, but it won’t even let me withdraw that here,” I lied. I took a swig of my juice. “You know, they gotta protect their clients from fraud and stuff.”
Sheridan and Kennedi emerged from their rooms. Shay looked around and at all of us.
“I guess you all think this is some kind of game.” No one said anything. “Fine, I guess we just need to call her people and get the money from them,” Shay threatened.
“You know, I think that’s what we should do,” I said, walking over to get my cell phone off the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” Sheridan asked as I picked up the phone and started dialing.
“I’m about to tell Evian’s family.”
“What?” Sheridan said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No. This is their problem, not ours. They need to be flying here today with a suitcase full of money.”
Shay jumped up. “No!”
“Whatever,” I mumbled, ignoring her. I was tired of this whole thing. I tried to recall the name of her brother’s restaurant. “Yes, I need the number to Javid’s Middle Eastern Cuisine,” I said when the 411 operator came on.
Sheridan’s mouth was open. She finally said, “Um, you do know who her family is?”
“You do know I don’t care,” I said while I waited on the number. Of course I knew all about her family, but at this point, we needed to do something.
“Who is her family?” Kennedi asked.
“Rumor has it that they are in the mafia,” Sheridan said.
“It ain’t a rumor,” Shay said.
“Mafia?” Kennedi replied.
“Yes. I heard her brother Lyn tried to get this meat packer in downtown Miami to pay some money he owed and the guy tried to stiff him. Workers came in the next day and this guy was hanging from his hands and his feet, tied up along with all of the other meat in the freezer. They had skinned him alive and let him bleed to death right there in the freezer,” Sheridan said. She looked like she was telling a horror story.
“What?” Kennedi said. “Are you serious?”
“That’s just a rumor. We don’t even know if that’s true,” I said, just as the operator came on to give me the number. I pushed the button to be automatically connected. It was after nine so hopefully, someone would be at the office.
“That’s just one of many rumors,” Sheridan said.
“And do you really want to find out if it’s true?” Shay said.
“Whatever,” I said. “Evian’s people need to be down here looking for her. This has nothing to do with me.”
My heart actually started racing when I heard someone say, “Hello, Middle Eastern Cuisine Corporate Office.”
“Yes. I need to speak with Clinton Javid, the owner. This is a friend of his sister, Evian. It’s pretty important,” I said.
“Yes, this is Mr. Javid’s assistant, Delana,” the woman who answered said. “How may I help you?”
“Well I’m trying to get in touch with Mr. Javid,” I replied. “It’s in regards to Evian.”
The woman paused. “Evian’s not available.”
“I know that. I’m not looking for Evian,” I told the woman. “I’m actually here with her.”
“Mr. Javid is in a meeting.”
“Well, this is important. Evian is kind of ummm . . . she’s kind of. . . .”
“What?” the woman said, panicked. Her voice suddenly lost all professionalism. “Oh my God. Please tell me nothing happened to Evian. That is Mr. Javid’s heart. He loves that girl to death.”
“No, no, Evian’s fine.”
She actually released a sigh of relief.
“I know they’re close,” I found myself saying. Something was telling me to feel this situation out before I started running my mouth.
“That’s an understatement,” Delana said. “Just ask her exboyfriend.” The woman lowered her voice. “He pushed her and let’s just say he doesn’t have a hand anymore.”
“A hand?” I said, stunned.
“People are going to learn that this family is not one you want to mess with,” Delana said. Then, as if catching herself, she said, “I’m sorry. Let me see if I can get Mr. Javid.”
I actually started trembling, and I didn’t even scare easily. “Um, no. No need. Evian just wanted to let him know that she was having a great time and that she would be home this weekend,” I hurriedly said.
The woman was momentarily quiet. “Oh, okay.”
“Something’s wrong
with her cell phone, so she just wanted to call the restaurant and check in . . . What, Evian?” I said. I don’t know what made me try to pretend I was talking to Evian, but I felt that I needed to clean up this mess. “Do you want me to get him? Oh, okay. I’ll let him know.” Sheridan, Kennedi, and Shay were looking at me like I was crazy. I ignored them and kept talking. “Evian said that’s fine, she’ll just catch up with Clinton later.”
“Okay, well, tell her I said hello,” Delana said. “And enjoy herself.”
“Will do.” I quickly hung the phone up.
“What? What just happened?” Sheridan said.
I let out a big sigh. “Okay, so you guys were right,” I admitted. “I’m not about to tell Evian’s family that she’s missing.” I turned to everyone. “I guess we just have to come up with the money or find her.”
Kennedi leaned back and kicked her legs up on the coffee table. “We don’t have to do anything. Good luck.”
“So you’re really going to leave us to do this by ourselves?” I asked.
“Yep,” Kennedi said.
I didn’t have time to argue. Getting the money wasn’t an option, so the only other option was back to searching, which officially made this the worst trip ever.
Chapter 13
This was getting us nowhere. And right about now, not only was I sick and tired of Evian, I was sick and tired of racing around this place looking for her. Like what were we really going to do if we found her? Beat up the kidnappers and take her back? I’d called Travis and he was trying to get me some money, but the most I would be willing to come up off of was twenty thousand and I didn’t even want to do that. Plus, I didn’t know what good twenty thousand would do anyway.
“Back so soon?” Kennedi said, laughing as she popped a strawberry in her mouth. “Thank you, hun,” she said to the bare-chested hunk who was apparently just wrapping up her massage. “Hector, you have some magical hands. Bill it to the room.”
I looked at all the muscles in Hector’s body. “Can I get a massage, too?”
He laughed, but I didn’t see anything funny. “Sorry, I have another appointment to get to,” he said.
“Thank you,” Kennedi said, holding the door open.
“Wow,” I said. “So we’re out traipsing all over this island and you’re up here getting a massage. Like really?”
“Yes, really. I keep trying to tell y’all. That’s your girl and not mine. But the good news is, Hector had some gossip I think you’ll be interested in.”
“What?” I asked, grateful for at least that. That way I could get Tamara off my back.
“Before Hector came to me, he had an appointment with Darian Mathis.” Kennedi got comfortable on the sofa. This must’ve been juicy because she was grinning like she had a big secret.
“Darian, the pop star?”
“Yep. And guess who she was in her room with?”
“Who?” I asked.
“She was in the room with Jay Blackmon.”
“The rapper?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kennedi turned up her lips.
“Wait a minute, but isn’t he married to . . . ?”
“Yes, he is,” she said, cutting me off. “Olivia Martinez’s husband of two months is chilling in the suite down the hall with another woman.”
Oh, wow. Everyone had talked about Olivia and Jay getting married. They were both superstars in their own right, but they were only nineteen.
“Wow,” I said. “Let me call Quincy and tell him to stake out their room.” I paused. “Dang, how am I going to find out what room it is?”
“You need to hire me,” Kennedi said, whipping out a piece of paper and holding it toward me. “They’re in suite 403.”
I high-fived her, then grabbed the phone and called Quincy. This would definitely make Tamara and Dexter happy. I needed something because so far I hadn’t come up with anything for Rumor Central: On the Road.
I had just fired off the information for Quincy to come meet me when someone came banging at my door. I wasn’t in the mood for a party right now. I needed to take a nap and regroup, so I hoped this wasn’t any of my friends trying to get the party started.
“Who is it?” I yelled.
“It’s me, Shay.”
I rolled my eyes as I opened the door. “What’s up?”
She burst through the door. “I think I know where Evian is. Let’s go!”
“How do you know where Evian is?” I asked.
“Because I called one of my dad’s friends and had them do a trace on Evian’s phone. She has a GPS on it, so they were able to locate her.”
I was stunned Shay hadn’t even said anything about having Evian’s phone traced.
“Why didn’t they do that in the first place while you had me running around like crazy trying to find her?”
“Look, we’ve been working on it. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Just come on.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, walking back into the suite to get my shoes. Sheridan had just come out of her bedroom, where she’d been taking a nap. “Come on, Sheridan.”
“Unh-unh,” Sheridan said. She plopped down on the sofa next to Kennedi. “You got this. I’m exhausted.”
I looked over at Kennedi, who rolled her eyes. “You know better than to ask me. Be careful out there.”
“This sucks. Big time,” I groaned as I followed Shay out.
We had just reached the end of the hallway when we bumped into Quincy.
He caught me, keeping me from losing my balance.
“Hey, where’s the fire? Are you leaving?” he asked. “I was coming to meet you.”
Suddenly, I had an idea. If we were going to find Evian, Tamara was right, we needed it all caught on tape. “Quincy, you know what, where’s your gear?”
“It’s in my car. I’m parked out front. Why?”
I turned to Shay. “Okay, let’s go, Quincy can drive us.”
“Drive you where?” he asked, confused.
“I’ll tell you all about it in the car,” I said. “Right now, we need to go save someone.” I lowered my voice and added, “And hopefully, get us a banging story in the process.”
Chapter 14
I felt like I was seriously in the middle of some double-oh-seven mess.
“How do you know she’s in there?” I whispered to Shay.
“I don’t,” she replied. “All I know is this is where the call was traced to.”
We were in some rundown neighborhood, at what looked like a crumbling duplex. There were burglar bars on the windows, and the place looked like it should’ve been condemned several years ago. This was definitely the part of Cancun they kept out of the brochures.
“Hola! ¿En qué puedo ayudarle?”
I hadn’t even noticed the little boy playing on the side of the house. He looked like he couldn’t be more than eight or nine. He was dirty, and wore raggedy clothes.
Shay and I exchanged glances. I’d taken a few years of Spanish but since I hadn’t really been paying attention, I only knew a few words.
“¿Hablas inglés?” I asked.
The little boy stood there for a minute, then said in choppy English, “What you want? Herb?” He stared at us like he was really ready to conduct a drug transaction.
“Umm, yeah,” Shay said.
“A’ight, Pedro is inside,” the little boy said, motioning toward the front door.
Shay motioned for me to follow her up the walkway. I couldn’t believe she was acting like she was going to conduct a drug transaction. What if he was a miniature undercover cop? I couldn’t do a Mexican prison!
“Why don’t we just ask that little boy if Evian is in there?” I whispered as I followed her.
“For him to go warn the kidnapper? No,” Shay said.
“Are you sure the GPS traced to the exact address?” I asked. “I thought a GPS system could only do a vicinity.”
I was nervous as all get-out. Shay may have been hood, but neither of us was cut out for this.
“Yeah,” she said, still whispering.
I shook my head. Something about this didn’t feel right. “Well, why don’t we just call the police then?” I said again.
“They said no cops. Besides, we don’t have time to wait on the police. We barely had time to wait on your stupid cameraman,” she said, pointing to Quincy, who was across the street, rolling the entire time.
“You said you were okay with filming.”
“Well, I didn’t mean leave my friend in danger while you set everything up.”
She was talking about how Quincy had made us stop around the corner while he got his camera gear set up. I knew if we rescued Evian—if she was even here—and I didn’t catch it on film, that could be my job. So, it wasn’t going to kill her to wait an extra three minutes.
Personally, I thought this was all going to be a bust anyway, but I made the motion to Quincy to make sure he was rolling. He had his long-distance lens on, so he gave me the thumbs-up to let me know he was good to go.
Shay knocked on the door to the duplex. My heart was racing. This was the dumbest idea ever. How were we—two teenaged girls—going to just knock on some drug-dealing kidnapper’s door and say, “Hey, give us our friend back”? Realizing that we hadn’t thought this plan all the way through, I was just about to make a U-turn and beeline out of there, when the door swung open.
“Ay, mamacita,” the man who answered the door said. “What can I do for you?” Like the little boy, his English was choppy and hard to understand.
“Nothing,” Shay replied. She’d told me to just play along and that’s exactly what I was doing. “We just came to see if we could get a little of the good stuff.”
The guy broke out into a big smile. “Ah, American girls looking for that herb,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I said, trying to play along. “We need some good herb.”
He looked me up and down, then did the same with Shay before saying, “All right, wait right here.”
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