—
After the gym, Jule swam a mile in the Playa Grande pool and spent the rest of the morning as she often did, sitting in the business lounge, watching Spanish instruction videos. She was still in her bathing suit, but she wore her sea-green running shoes. She’d put on hot pink lipstick and some silver eyeliner. The suit was a gunmetal one-piece with a hoop at the chest and a deep plunge. It was a very Marvel Universe look.
The lounge was air-conditioned. No one else was ever in there. Jule put her feet up and wore headphones and drank Diet Coke.
After two hours of Spanish she ate a Snickers bar for lunch and watched music videos. She danced around on her caffeine jag, singing to the line of swivel chairs in the empty lounge. Life was bloody gorgeous today. She liked that sad woman running away from her sick father, the woman with the interesting scar and the surprising taste in books.
They would kill it at trivia.
Jule drank another Diet Coke. She checked her makeup and kickboxed her own image in the reflective glass of the lounge window. Then she laughed aloud, because she looked both foolish and awesome. All the while, the beat pulsed in her ears.
The poolside bartender, Donovan, was a local guy. He was big-boned but soft. Slick hair. Given to winking at the clientele. He spoke English with the accent particular to Baja and knew Jule’s drink: a Diet Coke with a shot of vanilla syrup.
Some afternoons, Donovan asked Jule about growing up in London. Jule practiced her Spanish. They’d watch movies on the screen above the bar as they talked.
Today, at three in the afternoon, Jule perched on the corner stool, still wearing her swimsuit. Donovan wore a Playa Grande white blazer and T-shirt. Stubble was growing on the back of his neck. “What’s the movie?” she asked him, looking up at the TV.
“Hulk.”
“Which Hulk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You put the DVD in. How can you not know?”
“I don’t even know there’s two Hulks.”
“There’s three Hulks. Wait, I take that back. Multiple Hulks. If you count TV, cartoons, all that.”
“I don’t know which Hulk it is, Ms. Williams.”
The movie went on for a bit. Donovan rinsed glasses and wiped the counter. He made a scotch and soda for a woman who took it off to the other end of the pool area.
“It’s the second-best Hulk,” said Jule, when she had his attention again. “What’s the word for Scotch in Spanish?”
“Escocés.”
“Escocés. What’s a good kind to get?”
“You never drink.”
“But if I did.”
“Macallan,” Donovan said, shrugging. “You want me to pour you a sample?”
He filled five shot glasses with different brands of high-end Scotch. He explained about Scotches and whiskeys and why you’d order one and not the other. Jule tasted each but didn’t drink much.
“This one smells like armpit,” she told him.
“You’re crazy.”
“And this one smells like lighter fluid.”
He bent over the glass to smell it. “Maybe.”
She pointed to the third. “Dog piss, like from a really angry dog.”
Donovan laughed. “What do the others smell like?” he asked.
“Dried blood,” Jule said. “And that powder you use to clean bathrooms. Cleaning powder.”
“Which one d’you like the best?”
“The dried blood,” she said, sticking her finger in the glass and tasting it again. “Tell me what it’s called.”
“That’s the Macallan.” Donovan cleared the glasses. “Oh, and I forgot to say: a woman was asking about you earlier. Or maybe not you. She might have been confused.”
“What woman?”
“A Mexican lady. Speaking Spanish. She asked about a white American girl with short blond hair, traveling alone,” said Donovan. “She said freckles.” He touched his face. “Across the nose.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said it’s a big resort. Lots of Americans. I don’t know who’s staying alone and who’s not.”
“I’m not American,” said Jule.
“I know. So I told her I hadn’t seen anyone like that.”
“That’s what you said?”
“Yeah.”
“But you still thought of me.”
He looked at Jule for a long minute. “I did think of you,” he said finally. “I’m not stupid, Ms. Williams.”
Noa knew she was American.
That meant Noa was a cop. Or something. Had to be.
She had set Jule up, with all that talk. The ailing father, Dickens, becoming an orphan. Noa had known exactly what to say. She had laid that bait out—“my father is crazy sick”—and Jule had snapped it up, hungry.
Jule’s face felt hot. She’d been lonely and weak and just bloody stupid, to fall for Noa’s lines. It was all a ruse, so Jule would see Noa as a confidante, not an adversary.
Jule walked back to her room, looking as relaxed as she could. Once inside, she grabbed her valuables from the safe. She put on jeans, boots, and a T-shirt and threw as many clothes as would fit into her smallest suitcase. The rest she left behind. On the bed, she laid a hundred-dollar tip for Gloria, the maid she sometimes talked to. Then she wheeled the suitcase down the hall and tucked it next to the ice machine.
Back at the poolside bar, Jule told Donovan where the case was. She pushed a US twenty-dollar bill across the counter.
Asked a favor.
She pushed another twenty across and gave instructions.
In the staff parking lot, Jule looked around and found the bartender’s little blue sedan, unlocked. She got in and lay down on the floor in the back. It was littered with empty plastic bags and coffee cups.
She had an hour to wait before Donovan finished his bar shift. With luck, Noa wouldn’t realize anything was amiss until Jule was seriously late for trivia night, maybe around eight-thirty. Then she’d investigate the airport shuttle and the cab company records before thinking of the staff lot.
It was airless and hot in the car. Jule listened for footsteps.
Her shoulder cramped. She was thirsty.
Donovan would help her, right?
He would. He had already covered for her. He’d told Noa he didn’t know anyone like that. He warned Jule and promised to collect the suitcase and give her a ride. She had paid him, too.
Besides, Donovan and Jule were friends.
Jule stretched her knees straight, one at a time, then folded herself back up in the space behind the seats.
She thought about what she was wearing, then took off her earrings and her jade ring, shoving them into her jeans pocket. She forced herself to calm her breathing.
Finally, there was the sound of a suitcase on rollers. The slam of the trunk. Donovan slipped behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out of the lot. Jule stayed on the floor as he drove. The road had few streetlights. There was Mexican pop on the radio.
“Where d’you want to go?” Donovan asked eventually.
“Anywhere in town.”
“I’m going home, then.” His voice sounded predatory all of a sudden.
Damn. Was she wrong to have gotten in his car? Was Donovan one of those guys who thinks a girl who wants a favor has to mess around with him?
“Drop me a ways from where you live,” she told him sharply. “I’ll take care of myself.”
“You don’t have to say it like that,” he said. “I’m putting myself out for you right now.”
Imagine this: a sweet house sits on the outskirts of a town in Alabama. One night, eight-year-old Jule wakes up in the dark. Did she hear a noise?
She isn’t sure. The house is quiet.
She goes downstairs in a thin pink nightgown.
On the ground floor, a spike of cold fear goes through her. The living room is trashed, books and papers everywhere. The office is even worse. File cabinets have been tipped over. The computers are gone.
“Mama? Papa?” Little Jule runs back upstairs to look in her parents’ room.
Their beds are empty.
Now she is truly frightened. She slams open the bathroom. They aren’t there. She sprints outside.