Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (4 page)

Once in the hall I didn’t really know what to do with myself. My heels clicked on the tile floors as I looked around, hoping to find a bathroom or something interesting. I jumped and sucked in my breath when out of the corner of my eye I saw Juanita sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair pushed into a dark corner of the hall.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” she said. My hand over my heart, I nodded. She stood up and came towards me. “Did he tell you?”

“Yes,” I answered.

She smiled. “And what do you think? As an American woman, what do you think about that?”

“It happens all the time,” I answered.

“Would you stand for it?”

“It depends on the relationship.”

Juanita nodded. “My daughter does not understand. She thinks that it is hypocritical.” She laughed and it echoed in the empty hall, bouncing off the cool tile, coming back to us sounding almost not like a laugh at all.

“She is very young,” I said.

“Yes, she is.” Juanita’s eyes unfocused and a small smile spread across her face. It was amazing how it softened her hard features. “I’d like to show you something.”

Juanita led me down the hall back toward the main entrance and up the grand staircase that faced the front door. We went left and followed a carpeted hall past several rooms until we came to a door marked “STAY OUT!” We went in.

There was no doubt that the owner of the room was a teenage girl. Her childhood and the beginning of her adult life clashed everywhere. Taped over the delicate pink rose wallpaper were posters of men just out of puberty wearing tight pants and scarves over bare, hairless chests. Small ceramic horses shared space on the mantel with a mess of earrings, necklaces and the occasional cosmetic. The girl’s bed, obviously made by a maid as no one going through such emotional upheaval could produce hospital corners like that, was covered in teddy bears.

Juanita sat on the edge of the bed. “Maria is a modern woman. She believes that she is equal to men.”

“Isn’t she?” I asked.

Juanita pulled a pink bear over to her and looked into its empty plastic eyes. “Yes, of course, but most men don’t know it.” Pushing the bear aside she turned to look at me. “You know women are equal according to our laws, but in practice, they are not. When a woman is raped or murdered, it does not matter unless she has a wealthy, powerful family. Poor women in this country are treated as dogs.”

“I know,” I said. Along the Mexican/American border, girls are murdered as if they were cattle. They are raped, mutilated, shot and then their bodies dumped on the road without even the barest of graves. The girls work at the many factories that line the border. Their killers are impossible to punish because he is not one man but an attitude. An attitude that it is OK for police, who are also the drug runners, to celebrate successful smuggling trips by killing women without connections or family. I knew a girl who died that way. Her killers suffered a similar fate… though I didn’t rape them.

“Most women do know,” she said simply. “But my daughter does not understand. If I left Pedro it would not help anything. I would not be happier, he certainly would not, and my career…” she paused and her eyes shone brightly in that little girl’s room. “How can I be a mother to the state if I cannot even help my own daughter?” She looked away from me and her chin wrinkled.
 

She pulled herself together and continued, “This is one of the reasons she is mad, because she says I care more about my career than my family, but what she does not understand is that I am fighting for my family, not just for her, but for her daughters and their daughters. I am fighting for the daughters of Mexico.” It was a good line, one I guessed she used before.

“Ana Maria is right in some ways,” she continued. “I am very afraid of what other people will think.” She let out a snort of a laugh. “That is why you are here as Melanie Franks and not whatever your real name is.” I smiled at the idea that I had a real name. “I don’t want anyone to find out that I have lost my daughter.”

“Do you have any idea where she is?”

Juanita looked up at me. “I think it is possible she is with her cousin Alejandro. We called him and he says she is not there, but he would happily lie for her.”

“Where is Alejandro?”

“In Playa del Carmen. He manages Pedro’s hotels on the Yucatan.” She smiled and it didn’t look like it was for joy.

“Ana Maria and Alejandro are close?”

“They have always cared for each other deeply. He is Pedro’s sister’s son.” She looked back over at the pile of teddy bears. “He is adopted.” She reached out and took another stuffed animal from the pile. This one was brown and raggedy. “We got her this in New York at FAO Schwartz. She was only eight, a little more than ten years ago. It is amazing the way things change so fast.” She pulled the bear closer to her and toyed with one of its little paws. “She rode on Pedro’s shoulders and she would cover his eyes and laugh.” A tear dropped onto the stomach of the bear. Juanita ran a well-manicured hand across her eyes and sniffled back a sob.

She stood up and faced me, her eyes streaked with red. “I trust that you will find my daughter and that you will bring her home. Bobby said that you had insight that would be invaluable. I believe him.”

“We will do our best.” Juanita Vargas Llosa de Hernandez walked out of the room leaving me alone with her memories.

STRANGERS IN PARADISE

The next morning we left for Playa del Carmen. After landing in Cancun we travelled on a highway with barely a curve which ran parallel to the Caribbean Sea. The road, a single lane in each direction, brings tourists from Cancun south to Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Unair- conditioned buses passed each other wildly, swerving into oncoming traffic and then veering at the last possible second back into the correct lane. Natural growth of ratty trees and thirsty scrub hugged the roadway interrupted only by the hotel entrances that explained the reason for the road at all.

Our car turned and passed through the gates of The Paradise Hotel. On the hotel grounds the natural plantation that lived by the road was gone. A long stretch of blacktop carried us through manicured grounds forced into order by a team of invisible gardeners and one hell of an irrigation system.

The hotel rose before us, surrounded by palm trees swaying in the breeze. We pulled into its circular drive and could see the azure blue of the Caribbean Sea through the open lobby. A uniformed employee opened my door and welcomed me to Paradise. I squinted against the bright sun and smiled. A warm breeze played with my hair as my luggage was unloaded.

Blue sat on the sidewalk, his neck stretched out toward the sky, his nose sniffing the scents that floated by on the passing air. I felt Blane’s hand curl around my waist and he led me into the lobby. It opened to the driveway on one side and the Caribbean Sea on the other. Couches faced the crystal blue water that rose and fell in small swells. Some people sat enjoying drinks as large fans provided an artificial breeze to the space.

Blane checked us in and our luggage was loaded onto a cart. A bell boy led us past the elevators, through an arched doorway and out to a shaded path where a golf cart waited for us. The man behind the wheel invited us to step aboard. I turned to look at Blane who smiled. “Pedro made special arrangements for his good old friends the Franks.”

The small electric cart carried us down a path that ran by the beach. Some people were laid out on chaise lounges baking themselves in the bright sun while others read books under umbrellas. The water was dotted with the heads of swimmers and the occasional happy cry of a child carried across the waves to us. The blue of the sea met the blue of the sky in a barely perceptible horizon.

As we continued, the crowd thinned, and when we stopped in front of a large cabana with its own private patio, the shore was sparsely populated. Blane tipped our driver who then pulled a u-turn and headed back the way we’d come.
 

The bungalow had a name. It was painted on a wooden sign next to the front door: “Luna de Miel.” Next to the sign, an iguana missing half his tail soaked up the warmth of the sun. Blue’s ears perked and his head cocked when he noticed the giant lizard. “I wouldn’t mess with him,” I said. Blue turned to look at me. I waved him into the cabana before he could start any trouble.

The bungalow was one large space. A king size bed shrouded in mosquito netting faced a flat screen TV. A small sitting area took up one corner and a small kitchen the other. A ceiling fan meant to resemble palm fronds circulated the air. Blane pushed open the doors and let the sea breezes toy with the long white curtains.

Our luggage arrived and so did a fruit basket with a note from Pedro’s nephew Alejandro. “Welcome to Paradise! I hope that everything is to your liking. Please join me for dinner this evening at eight. I very much want to help.” Blane held the card in his fingers, wiggling it up and down.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“She’s here,” I said, looking out at the sea. The blue of the water and its never-ending movement filled me with a sense of well-being and calm. “Wouldn’t you be?” I asked, turning to face Blane.

He smiled. “I guess you’re right. If I had a loyal cousin who would hide me from my parents, I would come to him for help.”

“What do you think of Ana Maria, just a spoiled rich kid?”

“I don’t know,” Blane answered, pulling his laptop out of his bag and placing it on the coffee table.

“You’ve know Pedro a long time. Have you met the girl?”

“Sure, a couple of times,” he said, looking at the laptop’s screen.

“So what’s she like?”

Blane looked up at me. “I don’t know her really. She seems silly enough for a girl.”

“Silly enough for a girl?”

He sighed and looked at me like maybe I was going to make something out of nothing. “I just meant that she seems like a normal teenage girl. Nothing special.”

“I wish we could have talked to some of her friends. I don’t know, gotten a sense of her before we came here.”

Blane shrugged and returned his gaze to the computer. “I think we’ll find her.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But how will we bring her back? If she doesn’t want to come?”

Blue whined at me and I looked over to see him sitting in the kitchen next to the sink. He looked up at it then back at me. I headed into the kitchen and found a white bowl in the cabinet. Filling it with chilled water from the fridge I placed it on the ground for Blue. He lapped at it, spilling droplets onto the tiles.

“Check the safe in the closet,” Blane said. “Should be two guns according to this.” He was reading something on the screen of his laptop.

I headed into the closet and found the safe. “What’s the code?”

“2568”

I punched in the number, the lock turned with an electric whirl and I opened it up. Inside were two guns and couple of boxes of bullets. “They’re here,” I called into the bedroom. I closed the door and reset the code.

“Good,” Blane said, as I came back into the room. “Don’t think we’ll need them but you never know.”

I eyed the bottle of champagne nestled in our fruit basket. It was dripping with condensation. I pulled it out on the pretense of putting it in the fridge but made sure that Blane noticed me carrying it. “Why don’t you pop that?” he said, looking up from the computer. “Do it on the balcony where people can see you. After all, we are a loving couple on vacation.” He smiled. I smiled back.

Out on the balcony I eyed the iguana with only half his tail. He appraised me from under sleepy lids and then returned his stare to the sea. Blue settled himself near the steps. Laying his head between his paws, he closed his eyes and set about the all-important job of boiling his brains in the hot sun.

I removed the champagne foil and then its protective metal cage. The cork popped with a satisfying bang. I yelped in mock surprise and then laughed as Blane stepped out onto the patio. Foam spilled over the lip of the bottle and onto my hand. Blane laughed and took the bottle from me. I glanced at the few people who dotted the beach and guessed that none of them cared.

Blane poured the champagne into two flutes he’d carried out with him. Handing me a glass he asked, “Anyone out there look like they are looking?”

I shook my head laughing. “No, this all seems rather ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind pretending I’m married to a beautiful woman like you.” Blane stepped closer to me and I cast my eyes back to the iguana. I could feel Blane looking at me and for a moment I thought he might touch me. My skin felt alive at the prospect, super-sensitive waiting for the contact.

Clearing my throat, I stepped back. The last thing I needed was clouding my head with this guy. He worked for Bobby Maxim so obviously he could not be trusted, not in bed, not in my head; no, I should not trust this man.

“I’m going to get ready for dinner,” I said, moving past him into our honeymoon suite.

He smiled as I slipped by. “Sounds like a plan, Sydney.” He let my name roll off his tongue and I turned to look at him. There was something in his eyes, something joking, or knowing. Something that wasn’t there a moment ago.

At ten to eight a golf cart arrived driven by a man dressed in the hotel’s uniform with a smile on his face. We climbed aboard and the machine’s engine hummed as it carried us through the winding paths of the property.