I went up to the front desk clerk with the nametag Enrico and enquired about a room for the night.
“We have one,” he said, flipping through the book. It had been a long time since I’d seen someone log their details in an actual notebook, not a computer. “Shared bathroom, if that’s okay.”
I nodded. “Sure that’s fine. I’m curious, how much is your most expensive room here?”
“That would be the garden haciendas in the back. They run about 300 US dollars a night but as you can see they are full.”
He tapped the notebook, enough for me to glance down and catch the name Eleanor Willis. One of Ellie’s fake names.
“Oh, well, maybe next time,” I said. “How much for the shared bath?”
He told me it was sixty dollars a night and I fished a wad of bills out of my wallet, using my Connor Malloy driver’s license. I’d forgotten I was him for a while there. I was forgetting a lot of things about myself lately.
“Do you have any bags?” he asked.
Ah, right. I shook my head and shrugged. “First I mess up my arm mountain biking in the Baja, then Air Mexico loses all my bags.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile and handed me the key. I went up to my room, a tiny sliver of Mexico, sat on the narrow, squeaky bed for a minute, trying to gather up my thoughts and coming up empty. Then I decided to head back down to the lobby. I wanted to go into the courtyard, to the pool area where all the tourists were, but there was too much a chance for Ellie to see me and I still didn’t know what I’d do if she did.
I ended up going into the tiny gift shop and found a shirt to wear. The plaid one was starting to smell. I bought a black one that said Veracruz on the back in a nice script. The perfect tourist shirt, even though it was a bit tight. I decided to wear it out and was coming out of the changing room when I saw Ellie through the gift shop window, walking across the lobby.
I had to do something. I had to say something to her. Gus wanted to wait until we knew what the situation was, but I couldn’t just let her walk by. Now that she was alone and we were in the same building that made everything different. I quickly paid for the shirt and rushed out of the store. But it was too late, she’d hopped in a cab and off they went.
I went back into the hotel and asked Enrico to call me a cab too. I was tempted to ask him a few questions about Ellie but something told me to keep my mouth shut for now.
Of course, my god damn cab took forever to arrive and when it did I got the slowest fucking driver in the world who kept going on in Spanish, ignoring every attempt I made to tell him I didn’t speak the language. By the time he dropped me off at the Veracruz market, it was packed with people and absolutely bustling. How the hell was I going to find Ellie here, let alone Gus?
I walked down the aisles, looking past the merchants, at every person who was squeezing through the crowd. I didn’t notice anything unusual except for all the armed guards everywhere I turned. I didn’t know if it was protected like this because it was the Veracruz way, or if it had something to do with Travis frequenting the market. Maybe it was one and the same.
I had finally stopped at a taco stand, needing something in my stomach, and was waiting in line with families carrying overflowing shopping bags when I felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle. It felt like lightning was kissing me.
I slowly turned around, and through the sea of people, I saw her face. Her beautiful, cruel face, looking right at me.
Only she didn’t look cruel just then. She looked soft, her eyes dark pools, filled with things I wanted to read into, to dive into. She looked like an animal in a very large cage, an illusion of freedom around her but she could only run so far before she’d run back into herself.
Oh Christ, this hurt more than anything in the world. How easily she had forgotten about me. How my memory must have been tossed to the wind, like she’d done to me before.
Then she smiled, recognizing me, like it really hit her, and I never thought she could look so much like an angel. She was glowing. And her radiance was breaking my heart.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this.
I turned around and walked away. I could hear her calling me, her voice thin above the chatter of the marketplace, but I kept walking. I’d come so far to find her and now I was running from the person I’d been looking for.
I pushed through the crowd, going as fast as I could without fucking up my arm, trying to keep my damaged heart still in my chest, trying to breathe through that inner pain when I suddenly spotted a familiar beer gut in a Hawaiian shirt, speaking in Spanish to a pretty Mexican lady in front of a stand of socks and underwear.
“She’s here,” I said to Gus as I stopped in front of them.
Gus gave me a disappointed look. “Camden, this is Esmerelda.”
I gave her a curt nod. Now wasn’t the time for pleasantries. I looked back to Gus. “What do we do?”
“Okay, well then let’s go talk to her, this place is as good as any.”
“Can you do it?” I asked him, feeling ashamed the moment I did so. I went on, “You’re not as emotionally involved.”
“Says you.”
“I should keep my eyes open to see if Javier or Travis pops up.”
Gus raised his eyebrow. “Javier wouldn’t dare show his face here. Now how about you man the fuck up, put your big girl panties on and go get your fucking ex-girlfriend back?”
I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. It went red immediately and I hoped Esmerelda didn’t understand a lick of English. But it worked. I shoved my pride aside for a moment and decided to do what we came here to do, what we fought so hard for.
I only hoped it was all for a reason.
Gus shook Esmerelda’s hand goodbye and I led him back the way I came, hoping Ellie was still about somewhere.
“Oh shit,” Gus said under his breath. He’d stopped on the spot, causing a woman with a bag of fruit to collide into his back and let loose a string of Spanish obscenities. I followed his eyes. Beyond the crowd of people, where this aisle intersected with another, was a wall of men in black. Bodyguards protecting someone.
I knew who it was, even before Gus muttered, “Travis. We have to get out of here.”
“Why, we’re just tourists?” I whispered back, ignoring the frustrated shoppers trying to go around us.
“What was that quote I said about casting doubt …?”
“Something about shadows,” I filled in. “It wasn’t very good.”
He turned around, pulling on my good arm. “Come on, let’s go down the next aisle and look over that way, see what’s happening.”
We went around and all the pain and heartache I was feeling was being replaced by a more familiar feeling: dread. With Travis in the picture, an actual living breathing real life threat, someone more dangerous than Javier could ever be, the reality began to settle in. I started to feel like a real fucking chump, turning away from Ellie in the market like that. We stopped beside a shopkeeper selling poorly made pottery. No one was stopping there and we were able to get a clear view into the next aisle over.
There was Travis. Not at all like I expected. He was tall, reed-thin with a shock of slicked back grey hair. He was much older than I thought, well, at least in his sixties like I assumed Gus was. However, Gus put out this air of being crotchety but harmless and people probably underestimated him. There was no underestimating Travis. He oozed power, like it sustained him more than oxygen. Everyone, from the stoic bodyguards to the scared people walking past, giving him quick but furtive glances, were aware of this power, this energy this … evil. That was dramatic but true.
Then there was Ellie Watt, or Eleanor Willis as she now was. Standing in front of him, trying to look like any other girl. Of course I could see that she was more than any other girl. She was a heartbreaker. She was a temptress. She was lost. And now she was found, at least by me. I hoped Travis didn’t pick up on any of those things. I hoped he saw her as a beautiful, average American tourist. I hoped she knew exactly what she was doing and that the confidence she was portraying was more than an act.
We watched them like a pair of creepers until Travis stuck his arm out for her and she accepted it, having him lead her away, the wall of bodyguards flanking her.
“The fuck. Where are they going?’ I said. “What is she doing?”
The shopkeeper with the shitty pottery picked this time to get annoyed with us and shooed us away once he realized we weren’t going to buy anything. I began to go after Ellie but Gus reached out and grabbed me by the shirt.
“No,” he said. “We don’t follow him. We can’t get away with that, not here.”
I swallowed painfully. “How can we just let her go off with him?”
“We can. We have to. We don’t know what her plan is. At any rate, we don’t have the option. To follow her is to put her in danger and that’s the last thing either of us wants, you got that? Look, we’ll go back to your hotel room. I’ve got all the stuff now. Unpack and wait.”
“Wait where? What if Javier or Travis follow her back?”
His mustache twitched. “We’ll get you in her bedroom. You’ll already be on the inside when she comes back.”
If she comes back, I thought. Gus looked at me like he was thinking the same thing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELLIE
I remembered being about eleven years old when my parents first started talking about leaving Mississippi. It was a hot spring day, hot like hell, and I was sitting on the front step of our trailer, watching the kids run down the street, laughing, having a good time. They were all wearing their bathing suits as kids tended to do when it got in the 80s with one hundred percent humidity.
Not me. I sat there in the hot sun, in my own sweat, wearing jeans. They were baggy, really lightweight and I had a hole in one knee, but it didn’t make up for the fact that I could never be like one of those kids. I used to be then that all changed in one night. After that, I fell asleep in tears because it hurt so bad, my teeth being ground into nothing because my mother refused to give me anything stronger than Children’s Tylenol. During the day, when the pain was a bit better, I’d cry anyway because I could never be normal again. All I wanted to do was strip down to my bathing suit and join the kids in their search to find the nearest hose or sprinkler. But I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. Fear of being different, of being made inferior, had consumed me at a young age.
So I sat there on the steps and watched the world go on without me. Behind me there was a screen door to let in the filthy breeze and behind that my parents sat at the table and started discussing my future. I don’t know if they realized I was listening and could hear them or if they didn’t care, but they talked about me as if I wasn’t there.
My father was scared because Child Services had visited him at work, wanting to check in. I suppose they had come by when I was at school too. I hadn’t really seen any of them, least not that I knew of. No one was asking me questions yet, but that’s what they were afraid of. I wanted to tell my parents that I knew my lie so well I wouldn’t do anything to get them in trouble. Funny thing is, I don’t think they ever believed me. I bet they sat around in fear like I sat around in fear, thinking that one day I would turn on them.