12
Alice
“Are you sure about this?”
The worry was evident in Beck’s voice. Her large eyes peered over my shoulder and reflected back at me in the mirror.
I adjusted my shirt and checked the time. It was close to eight o’clock. Mac would be waiting for me at the entrance. That was, if he wasn’t secretly screwing Margot Lorne in a maintenance closet. (The thought might have worried me, but I got the impression that Margot only had sex on five-thousand-plus thread count silk sheets.)
“I’m sure,” I said firmly. When her eyes dropped and she didn’t respond, I turned around. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. We probably won’t even be gone that long.”
“It’s just that they told us not to leave the resort. The city—”
“I’ve been to other cities in Mexico,” I said, cutting her off. “They just don’t want to worry about getting sued if people disappear. Not,” I added, “that I plan on disappearing.”
“Nobody plans on disappearing,” Beck said flatly.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Mac’s full of shit. He’s not going to take me anywhere sketchy. And he’ll be there! I mean, I hate the guy, but you have to admit he could be intimidating if he wanted to be.”
Beck still didn’t look convinced. “I’d just rather you stay here,” she said softly. “We made girls only plans tonight.”
I bit my lip. “I wish I could come with you. Trust me, this is not something I want to do. But Mac is an issue.”
“I still don’t see—”
“Just trust me,” I repeated. I really wanted to spill the secrets, tell her about Mariana and Margot, but there was no way she benefited from knowing. No, unfortunately she was just going to have to continue thinking I was paranoid. At least until we were back in New York and I could tell her everything.
Beck looked away, nodding slightly, a frown settled on her face. “Okay, but try to get back quickly, huh? We might still be out.”
“I will! Definitely,” I said, turning back toward the mirror and examining my makeup.
Beck lingered in the doorway but finally disappeared back to join the rest of our friends.
For all my confident words, Mac’s announcement to the table that he was going to go traipsing around the city of Tuzas to ‘see what he could see’ had shocked me just as much as the others. But the dare was in his eyes again and I wasn’t going to back out. Not after what I’d seen in the banquet hall.
I went down to the front of the resort where an attendant was unsuccessfully trying to reason with Mac.
“Sir, Tuzas is a fine city, but you don’t know the area. There are spots—”
Mac, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, looked bored by the man’s protests. “I told you. I’m fine.” His eyes traveled over the man’s shoulder and landed on me as I walked down the steps. He grinned with half his mouth and shot me a wink. “We’re fine.”
The man followed Mac’s gaze to me. His eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Sir, I have to insist—”
“Look,” Mac said firmly. “I don’t remembering paying you for your advice. Why don’t you go and get some more hot towels for the guests? We have to get going.”
“Tuzas Suns Resort can not allow its limos to drop you off in the middle of the city. I’m sorry, sir, but it’s just not happening.”
The smile that spread across Mac’s face was nothing short of devilish. “That’s not a problem. My ride should— Oh look. There it is.”
The attendant and I followed his gaze up the long drive where a green taxi was rolling toward us. It pulled up in front of us looking like it just drove its way out of a sewer, with faded and dirty green paint, a cracked windshield, and one window wiper moving despite the cloudless sky. Against the backdrop of the resort, it looked like it came from another world entirely.
Mac held the door for me and I ducked inside immediately, trying not to laugh at the employee’s face.
“Good evening, madam,” the cabbie said, turning in his seat. He was an older Mexican man, completely bald on the top of his head with gray hair on the sides and on his bristling mustache. He grinned, showing very straight, white teeth and offered me his hand.
“Good evening,” I said, grinning myself at the formal tone and shaking his hand. I wondered if he was ever called to pick people up at the resort and where the hell Mac had gotten his number.
Mac was busying himself with tearing away from the panicked employee, who, no doubt, was seeing in his mind’s eye tomorrow’s headline: Billionaire Liquor Baron Murdered While Staying at Tuzas Suns Resort. Not the best publicity in the world.
I felt the first real bump of worry as Mac slid into the cab and told him to take us to the city. I looked through the back window as the attendant watched us leave, a nervous look in his eyes. I really hoped Mac knew what he was dragging the both of us into.
“Where in the city you want to go, sir?” the driver asked as we got on the highway.
Mac shrugged. “Where’s the action?” he asked.
“The what, sir?”
“The action. You know. Bars, clubs, gambling.”
“Ah, that would be on Corgas Street.”
Mac clapped his hands together loud enough to make both me and the cabbie jump. “Fantastic!” he said. “That’s the one. Drop us there.”
As Tuzas flew by outside the windows, Mac whistled loudly and played with an app on his phone. He glanced at me, feeling my eyes on his face.
“You ready to have some fun?” he asked, grinning like an idiot.
“Knock it off,” I said.
“What do ya mean? Tonight is going to be a night you’ll never forget.”
Yeah because I’m not going to be alive long enough for it to fade from memory.
“I can’t wait,” I said. “But stop pretending like this is what you wanted to do with your evening.”
He stared at me for a beat and then said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You wanted to screw Edgar Lorne’s wife. And if you think you can scare me into leaving you alone fast enough to get back to the resort in time to ‘meet her at eleven’, you’re shit out of luck.”
Finally that irritating smile was gone. He threw his phone down on the seat between us and wiped his face with one hand, pinching his eyes shut and appearing to send a mental prayer for strength in dealing with me. He was going to need a hell of a lot more help than that.
“You were spying on me?” he finally asked.
“No, of course not.” He snorted. “I wasn’t,” I insisted. “I overheard you on the way back from the bathroom. You were hardly being inconspicuous. Seriously, what is it with you and public places? Is it some kind of fetish?”
“Well, what’s with you and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
“I would have figured it out anyway,” I said, my voice rising. “All I needed to do was picture what the worse case scenario could be and then act like that’s your intention. I mean, come on! The resort owner’s wife? I know she’s hot, but there are a million women here. Why don’t you pick one that’s single and doesn’t have the power to destroy Beck and Sam’s entire wedding?”