Dos Equis (26 page)

Some time later, I noticed that my mother, who had left the table for the washroom, had been gone longer than she should

have been.

“Where has she gotten to?” I asked Errall. “She can’t still be in the bathroom, can she?”

Errall shrugged.

Something wasn’t right.

My eyes shot to Jared’s table.

Frances was gone.

Oh god.

Mom.

I jumped from my seat, my face flushed with fear. I rushed to the edge of the dining room. The restaurant overlooked the

hotel’s diminutive pool area, accessed by a short stairway near the bar. Another set of precarious steps from the pool area led down the side of the hill to the washrooms. My eyes fought the dark, trying to find something to hold onto. The sun had set long ago, and the provided lighting was meant more for atmosphere than practical use. At first I didn’t see them. Then my heart

jumped into my throat. Frances Huber and my mother were together. They were standing next to each other, near the far end of the infinity pool, where the water seemed to pour over the edge into vast nothingness. They seemed to be checking out exactly where the water was going, leaning slightly forward, peering into the abyss. With a burning dagger tearing into my chest, I

realized that all it would take was one shove, not even a very forceful shove, and Frances could make good her verbal contract with me. The one where I asked her to kill my mother.

“Mom!” I cried out, much too shrilly for the until-now, pleasant dining environment. I could feel the stares of the other guests dig into my back like claws. They were here to enjoy an intimate dinner in one of the most beautiful spots on the Mexican

Riviera, not listen to me scream out for my mama. I didn’t care. I rushed toward the stairs and took them two at a time down to the pool level.

When I got to the spot where my mother was standing companionably next to Frances Huber, I screeched to a halt, like Wile

E. Coyote.

“Mom!” I burst out again, sounding out of breath. “I was worried about where you’d gotten to.”

Mom released some Ukrainian verbiage. Unbeknownst to all around us, she was wondering whether or not Mexicans can

grow potatoes all year long, seeing as there is no Saskatchewan-style winter.

Frances gave me a steely-eyed smile. “We were just getting to know one another. Turns out your mother
does
know a word or two in English.”

“Oh?” I cringed. Did my mother ruin her cover?

“Goot and okay.” Those were the two words. Phew.

I gave Frances a sickly smile. It was the best I could manage.

Mom said something else and tottered off. Frances and I

watched wordlessly as she navigated her way up the steps, back to the table.

I turned back to Frances. She wore an expectant look on her shadowed face.

I began, haltingly, “Is this…is this a good place then?”

“You tell me.”

“B-b-but I mean, for what you…what you have to do.”

Frances made a show of tossing another assessing glance over the brink.

Nothing but a sharp, rocky decline, straight down to the ocean.

She turned back to me. “I think it could be. Maybe at lunch time, though. When there are fewer people around.”

I swallowed. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Tomorrow?”

She thought about it for a moment. Then nodded. “One o’clock.”

“She’ll be here.”

“Well then, you’ll have to excuse me for now. My date and I have a romantic rendezvous at home.” She smiled and left.

I stood there for many moments, thinking about what I’d just set in motion. Part of me wished I’d never said what I just had.

Was it too soon? No. I’d played this out in my head a million times already. It was time. It was most definitely time.

I almost startled myself when I realized I’d been so busy considering what was coming next, that I’d forgotten to call JP to tell him to get out of the house. I pulled out my phone and hit the speed dial number. It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

JP wasn’t answering.

In that instant, I knew with a crushing certainty, that something had gone very wrong.

*
Tapas on the Ramblas

**
Flight of Aquavit

Chapter 19

It took only one quick, frantic call to bring Toraidio and his sea captain to my assistance once again. Within moments,

Toraidio’s large town car pulled up outside Amuleto. There was no time to get Mom back to the condo, so she and Errall

slipped into the back seat with me. Toraidio was driving; Sereena sat next to him in the front. With tires churning up a cloud of dust, the car began its speedy descent down the mountain towards the marina. Toraidio was not a particularly good driver, but he was a fast one. Tonight, that was fine with me. Along the way I repeatedly re-dialled and texted JP’s cellphone. He never answered.

The boat was ready when we arrived. The five of us climbed aboard, and began the journey out of Bahia Zihuatanejo. We

sailed past Punta Godomia, Punta Esteban, the more remote and less touristy Playa Majahua, and Islas Blancas, an area

popular with divers. But there would be no divers now. Not this late at night.

As it had been for days, I knew JP’s boat was anchored near Playa Cuata. We were still a fair distance away when the

captain raised an alert. Even though he was speaking Spanish, I knew what he was saying could not be good. All of us rushed

toward the front of the boat, wind tearing at our hair and clothing. The captain was staring at something through binoculars, all the while keeping up an excited dialogue with Toraidio.

“What is it?” I demanded to know. “What’s going on?”

Toraidio gave me a look I wished I hadn’t seen. It looked suspiciously like pity.

“Toraidio!” I barked to get him to snap out of it.

He said nothing, but raised his hand and pointed an unsteady finger to somewhere in the distance. My eyes followed.

At first I saw nothing. Just black. Black water. Black sky.

Then I saw a speck. It looked like nothing more than a lone firefly, flickering in the distance. As the boat rushed ever closer, the firefly grew larger and larger.

It was…a fire?

On water?

How could that be?

I heard troubled murmurs from the others as they too caught sight of the unlikely thing, all of us trying to make sense of it. I rushed to the captain’s side and pulled the binoculars from him. I quickly found the bizarre light in their magnified gaze.

My stomach contracted, then plummeted to the ground. My heart pounded so loud, I was certain I could hear it over the roar

of the boat’s speeding engine. My head felt as if it would explode if I didn’t scream, or yell, or find some way to release the horror of what my eyes had delivered into my brain.

It was JP’s boat.

Aflame.

“
Más rápido! Más rápido, por favor
!” I screamed at the captain.

I could hear people call my name, saying things to me, but none of it made any sense. Everything was garbled. My brain was

spinning like dough in a mixer. I put all my remaining focus into willing the boat, my body, everything and everyone around me, to speed up and get us to JP as soon as possible. I didn’t care if laws of physics needed to be broken to make it happen. We had to get there now!

Then I heard a cry. The sound was unimaginable. I’d never heard such beseeching grief. It took me a few seconds to realize

that the hollowed out, dark-to-the-depths-of-hell screams belonged to me. I’d reacted to what I suppose I worried might

happen, but refused to believe it would.

JP’s boat exploded.

With a resounding thunk, the binoculars fell to the floor of the boat. Someone grabbed them up. We were still too far away to see exactly what was happening. I heard people making dreadful noises. Shock. Fear. Sorrow. And, again, damnable pity.

It was hours before we all returned to Toraidio’s house in the hills. Anthony and Jared were waiting for us. Someone had

called ahead and told them what had happened. Earlier in the evening, Anthony had been tasked with saving Jared from

Frances’s amorous clutches. He waited for just the right moment, then burst into her casita. Disregarding Jared’s presence, he demanded Frances relinquish the
Korova
painting to him, in exchange for the inflated price he was now willing to pay. In the melee, Jared excused himself, claiming a headache. He hid down the street until Anthony was able to pick him up.

“Oh, Puppy,” Anthony cooed as he reached out and pulled me into his arms. Jared encircled us both with his own.

After a moment, we pulled apart. I looked Anthony in the eye, and said, “It will be all right. JP will be all right.”

“What?” Anthony uttered, sounding understandably surprised. “Have you heard something new? I thought the police had

searched the water and...?”

Errall pressed a glass into my hands. It was tequila. Straight. I downed it.

“They did,” Errall told Anthony. “They found only bits and pieces.”

“Bits and pieces of the
boat
,” I added, more sharply that I probably should have. “Only the boat.”

Anthony led me to a couch and sat next to me. The others gathered near. They were looking at me as if I was some poor soul,

rendered unstable and unreasonable by a sudden shock. I did not like it, but I understood.

It was true. I was rocked by what had happened that night. But I could not bring myself to believe what I knew each of them

did. That JP Taine was dead. Killed in the explosion that destroyed his boat. Every fibre in my being told me it wasn’t true. I don’t know why or how. I knew it went against everything we’d seen with our very own eyes. But somehow JP had survived.

He would walk into this room any minute now, with his big, lopsided, beautiful smile, his blond locks charmingly dishevelled.

Maybe he’d have a bruise or two. His clothes would be torn, scuffed up a bit. But he would be fine. Absolutely fine.

“Something must have gone wrong tonight,” I told the room. “Maybe the guards who watch the house caught sight of him

through a window. Or maybe they heard a suspicious noise from inside and decided to check it out. They must have seen JP.

He would have managed to escape. And now he’s laying low. Waiting for things to cool down.”

“Yes,” Anthony murmured assuredly. “That could be.”

“But why would they blow up the boat?” Errall, always the logical thinker—damn her—asked no one in particular. “How

would they even know it was out there? Or that it belonged to JP, if he escaped like you say he did?”

I could see the others peppering Errall with scathing glares. They didn’t like her bursting my delusional bubble. But I knew they were all thinking the same thing: She was right.

Uneasy glances were being exchanged. Well, to hell with them. It wasn’t my job to convince them of what I knew to be true.

JP had said it best. I could love them, but I wasn’t responsible for them, what they did, or what they thought.

“Somehow...I guess...they must have known the boat was his,” I said, my voice sounding a bit croaky. “Maybe Frances

figured out he was sneaking documents out of the house and storing them on the boat. She knew how damning they’d be. So she

ordered her goons to destroy it.”

“But Russell,” Errall noted, ignoring all the “would you shut up, already!” stares, “there’s no way Frances could have been

back at her house by the time the boat blew up. She only left the restaurant minutes before we did. Considering how fast

Toraidio got us to the pier, and the speed of the boat, she couldn’t have gotten to Ixtapa, figured all this out, and arranged an explosion. There wasn’t enough time. Besides, Anthony was there. His grand rescue of Jared wouldn’t have gone down the

way it did if Frances had been busy dealing with a thief. Everything must have happened before she and Jared got back to the house. She didn’t have a clue what was happening. At least not then. Anthony, isn’t that right?”

He nodded his agreement, but said nothing, not wanting to fuel Errall’s unappreciated fire.

“Then it was the guards,” I shot back. There had to be a good explanation to fit my scenario. The scenario where JP got

away safely.

“Can’t we talk about this another time?” Anthony requested of the room, eyeing me worriedly.

Errall hit her forehead with her hand. “Oh shit! With everything else, we didn’t even think about what was on the boat. Fuck, Russell! All the papers! The laptop, the scanner, all the information JP’s been collecting. Every shred of proof we had against that bitch. It’s all gone. It all went down with the boat.”

There was shocked silence in the room. No one wanted to think about that. Not when it also presumed JP was dead. But, of

course, they couldn’t help but be stunned by the horrible truth. All that we’d worked for, the months and months of planning.

Gone. All gone. Somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Maybe one day, some diver off Islas Blancas would find an

electronic data device. He’d wonder what was on it; what poor sucker lost it over the side of his boat.

I stood up and announced that I was going back to Errall’s condo. “JP might be waiting there for us right now.”

No one argued. Errall and Mom came with me.

It was a horrible night.

There was still no sign of JP by the next morning.

I had gotten no sleep. I’d dialled his number every fifteen minutes, all night long. No answer. Still, I was undeterred in my belief that the man I’d fallen in love with was alive. Powered only by the strength of that belief, I knew the rest of our shattered plan, or what was left of it, had to go ahead. At a minimum, I was, more than ever, determined to exact at least one small pound of flesh from our detestable killer. I made short work of getting ready and returned to Garza’s house Frances arrived exactly on time. Sereena and Toraidio greeted her with their usual round of enthusiastic bon mots and compliments. “Do you have any