The Espionage Effect(5)
“He’s staring at you.” She released her coconut hostage, then nestled her tropical drink into the folds of the blue towel between us.
Yeah, right.
With a swivel of my head that induced a slight buzzy spin, I dropped her a hard look. “No, he’s not. You’ve got the eye-popping bod. Any man looking at me is wondering why Plain Jane is hanging out with the supermodel.” Which was fine. With mousy-brown hair and minuscule curves, I preferred invisibility from the comfort of my obscuring shadows.
“Pffft.” She shook her head. Then she gave me an exhausted look and gestured her hand in a sweeping wave from the top of my head to my toes. “You need prescription glasses. Or a better mirror. I may be classic ‘fashion magazine’ pretty, but you’re beautiful in a different way. Exotic.”
Riiight. Exotic meant almond-shaped eyes and glossy black hair—like her. Not girl-next-door average like me.
She flipped over onto her stomach, baring her perfect ass for his scrutiny. “Look closer,” she continued. “He strikes me as different too. He wasn’t looking at me this morning. And he sure as hell isn’t looking at me now.”
Casually grabbing a beer from the ice bucket beside me, I glanced back toward the man in question for confirmation, but the moment had passed. He dunked the bottoms of the tanks once into the surf, then turned and headed down the beach toward the long thatched-roof palapa that coordinated the sporting activities for our strand of Maroma Beach.
“That’s the guy you need to do this week,” she murmured sleepily.
My gulp of Dos Equis shot down the wrong way, the act of swallowing competing with my shocked gasp. I nearly coughed up a lung as I struggled to inhale clear air again. “What?”
“You know you want him. He’s your perfect guy. You wanted to be wild? Well, there you go.” She waved a hand back in the general direction of where said guy had last stood. “One Latin lover to have a wild fling with.”
“He’s not there anymore. He left.” I grabbed my Kindle and cued up the bookmarked scene which still had a dominant male commanding the page, a man who wanted to stay and show me a good time. Well, me and his heroine.
Anna propped herself up on her elbows. Then she put a hand on the top edge of my Kindle, forcing it down. “Trust me. He’ll be back.”
“Uh-huh.” As I stared south down the beach, he disappeared into the crowd of beachgoers.
A velvety ink-colored butterfly swooped into my line of sight from behind us, then sailed above the sparkling sand to our left, vivid black against bright white, before it swerved off at a right angle and flew straight over the crashing waves, out toward the vast indigo ocean. Against a punishing headwind, it flapped its wings with amazing ferocity for its delicate structure. I stared after it, entranced by another creature in this world set on a predestined course, undeterred or unaware by the immense monotony that lay ahead for days, perhaps weeks—decades to a human.
Would the dark butterfly veer off course? Take a detour from what its preprogrammed DNA had in store for it? Would a rogue storm tumble it toward a different fate than forecast by the clear skies ahead?
Deep inside, a burning desire to go storm hunting flared to life.
On a stuttered gasp, I jerked upright from a deep sleep into a pitch-black room. My heart pounded, its pulse echoing with matching vibrations against my eardrums. Disoriented by unfamiliar shapes, I let the darkest part of the room envelope me before familiarizing myself with images that didn’t immediately make sense.
A strange sound broke through the confusion as the soft booming of ocean waves crashed in the near distance, triggering a reminder of my location. I’d gone on vacation—supposedly. We had.
I skimmed a hand over to the other side of the bed. Empty. Anna had gotten up.
After a quick visual sweep of the room again, scanning across shadowy shapes that grew easier to distinguish as my eyes adjusted, I confirmed she wasn’t in this part of the room. My gut told me she wasn’t in the bathroom behind me either, lack of sound and light affirming my instincts.
Unwarranted panic fueled my quickening pulse, and I lunged out of bed toward the door. When my hands flattened against its cool surface, I slid them down toward the handle on the right. My fingers grazed over a two-inch length of metal, and I paused; the interior bolt had been thrown open.
After a hard swallow, I took a deep breath and quietly turned the metal door handle down. A loud click sounded into the silent room. Then I eased back and opened the door.
Dim lights flooded the upper landing between our suite and the adjacent one, the only two rooms on the second floor of our four-unit building. Padding barefoot on the warm ceramic tiles, I rushed across the narrow hallway to the top of the stairs. Curving downward with recessed lights hidden in low white-stucco walls every few steps, they led down to the limestone pathways: heading toward the beach on the left; to the spa straight ahead; or meandering through the resort’s jungle, passing other hotel rooms and suites, and eventually veering alongside the gift boutique until it ended at the property’s main entrance.
As I paused at the landing, a flash of movement blurred off toward the right, where the pathway led toward the heart of the resort. But I couldn’t be certain if I’d glimpsed a human foot or the tail of a ground-dwelling animal. And enough time had elapsed since I’d startled awake that I had no idea whether or not she had recently left, or if she’d ditched me long ago and I’d only now discovered it.