Evil in All Its Disguises

by Hilary Davidson

  I stared up at the ridiculous floral display Gavin had ordered for me. It was oversized and showy and signified nothing but a desire to impress. Would he let me go when all of this was over? Maybe, if he decided no one would believe the story I had to tell. In the meantime, he seemed amenable to leaving me alone. Grateful as I was not to be in the same room with Gavin, I knew I couldn’t bide my time inside a cage. I had to get out of the hotel and warn Martin he was walking into a trap. I owed him that much.

  My laptop and phone were gone, I reminded myself as I got to my feet and made my way down the hall. The room phone was dead when I lifted the receiver. I shouldn’t have been surprised Gavin had shut it off. What was the point to listening in on my conversations now? I stared out the window, wondering how hard it would be to make it down five stories, then gulping when I realized how bad my odds were. I did the only thing I could think of, opening the interconnecting door between my suite and Denny’s. Hers was locked, but I knocked over and over, and finally Denny opened it. She was flushed and breathing hard, and tracks from fresh tears and mascara marked her face. Normally so unflappable and crisp, she looked rumpled in her black dress and cardigan. She had a red flower pinned to the neckline of her dress, but it was wilted and shriveled, as if the Hotel Cerón had gotten to it, too.

  “I need to talk with you.” I said.

  She nodded, then turned and walked back along the corridor to the living room, leaving me to shut the door and trail after her. Heading into the living room, I almost tripped over her luggage, lying open like a pit.

  “Denny, why did you want me on this press trip?”

  She bent down to pick up an espadrille that was lying on the floor and hurled it into her suitcase. “You already know the truth, don’t you? It was Gavin. He wanted you down here. Everything was his idea.”

  Her words hung in the air between us. “Everything?”

  “This was his show. He suckered me into it.” She wiped her face.

  “You lured me down here! You lied to me, Denny.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lily.” The look on her face was pure misery. “I swear to you, I had no idea what Gavin really wanted.”

  “This whole press trip is a sham, isn’t it? Is Mexico Tourism even involved?”

  “Gavin’s underwriting the cost of everything. His only priority was getting you down here.”

  “So, each time you invited me to Mexico this summer, you were working for Gavin?”

  “I thought he was in love with you!” Denny said. “He was totally obsessed. He wanted to know everything about you, he read every word you ever wrote, he would talk about you for hours. He was desperate to get you to Mexico. He made it sound like he wanted to show off for you, that he was going to impress you with the way he was running his own show here.”

  “Gavin isn’t obsessed with me, he’s obsessed with Martin. He thinks he should be running Pantheon.”

  “I know. That’s all Gavin can talk about now, knocking Martin off his perch. It’s scary. He knows how tightly Martin controls the company. Even if Martin is off his game, I still don’t see how Gavin thinks he can do it.”

  That took a couple of seconds to sink in. “Martin’s off his game? What do you mean?”

  “Things have changed a lot at Pantheon in the past couple of years,” Denny said. “You know I used to work there, and I still talk to some people. They say Martin got distracted by issues in his personal life. At first, it was all about his son. Then there was everything that happened with you. Now, things have gone off the rails.”

  “How?” My heart seemed to thud to the floor and the room was suddenly unbearably hot. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t have details. But Martin has totally fallen off the radar. People can’t believe it. This is a man who used to inspect every Pantheon hotel site before, during, and after construction. He hasn’t done that in months.”

  “But he was just in Burma. Maybe he’s just focusing on new destinations?” My words were hopeful, but hollow. Martin was always exploring new destinations, but that never kept him from micromanaging other aspects of his business.

  “Sure, Burma. Just like his trip to Bhutan, and Nepal before that. Do you see a pattern, Lily? He claims he goes to these exotic, underdeveloped places, but no one ever sees him. No deals have come out of these trips.” She paced in front of me, clearly preoccupied with the question. “It’s like he’s hiding out, and no one can figure out why. Some people joke that Martin’s actually dead, and his son is pretending he’s alive so the money keeps flowing.”

  I collapsed on Denny’s sofa. Everything around me was moving in slow motion. Was something wrong with Martin? Had he had some kind of breakdown? Fraud at Pantheon flashed through my mind. Martin’s company was in trouble. Skye had known it, she’d struggled to prove it, and she had died. That fact made me terribly sad, but as the picture became more complete, the truth about Skye made me resentful at the same time. If anything, you’re the person who could help me with the story, she’d told me on Friday night. All those questions she had about Martin, and I’d stupidly assumed her interest was sexual. But Skye had been hunting for evidence, and testing me out to see if I’d be willing to help. You two really are through? Skye was trying to gauge how much distance there was between Martin and me, and how much hatred. She’d been trying to figure out whether I’d betray him.

  I couldn’t tell Denny any of that. “Do you think there’s something wrong with the company?” I asked her.

  “There is some kind of fraud going on. Skye knew it, but she never told me what it was about. Maybe Martin’s stolen money from the company, and because of the economic downturn in so many countries, he can’t hide that anymore.”

  “So, Gavin wants to take over the company, and he thinks he can take advantage of the fact that Martin is distracted to become CEO?” Clash of the titans, I thought. I was sure that when Martin’s father founded the company, he never would have imagined his son battling for his position. Or his life. “What I don’t understand is what’s in it for you, Denny? Were you really willing to go along with all of Gavin’s craziness just to get a job at Pantheon?”

  “You have no idea how cut-throat PR is, Lily. Even when there was plenty of money being tossed around, it was hard. But now, everyone has cut back so much… if someone flashes a dollar, it’s like a feeding frenzy for sharks. The only places that pay big money for travel PR anymore are places with such bad reputations that no one wants to go there. I thought I was going to hit the big-time with my own boutique publicity company. It hasn’t worked out that way. Some hotels I worked with went belly-up and never paid me. One destination sued me because of a problem with their campaign, something that was out of my control. It’s been hell.” She looked teary again. “My mother keeps telling me what a failure I am. ‘You forty-one, you have no husband, no job, no children. You boyfriend jut using you till ex-girlfriend come back. You live in Brooklyn!’” Denny mimicked a pidgin English accent. “That’s my Tiger Mother.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sometimes I wasn’t sure what was worse: having a mother dedicated to making you miserable, or not having one at all. Sometimes, when I was feeling really sorry for myself, I thought I’d been orphaned at thirteen. That was when my father had died then, and my mother had disappeared down a gin bottle. Having her around for the next five years had been harder than her death actually was. Maybe for you, called that voice from the back of my brain. Claudia was two years younger, already on drugs and in trouble. Maybe I was just as selfish as my mother said. Maybe what Claudia always said was true. Deep down, you’re pretty superficial.

  I took a deep breath. “According to Gavin, Martin is on his way down to Mexico now. Do you have any idea what Gavin has planned for him?”

  “Gavin doesn’t tell me much of anything. What little I know comes from his moments of grandiosity, when he wants to show off. He said he’s going to force Martin to give him control of Pantheon.”

  “How? Do you t
hink he’s going to make Martin sign succession papers? You think that would stand up in court, anywhere in the world? One minute after Martin leaves Mexico, the paper wouldn’t be worth anything, except as proof that Gavin was guilty of extortion.”

  “He… I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  “Denny, the only way Gavin’s plan works is if Martin never leaves Mexico alive. You know that as well as I do.”

  She nodded. “I never believed he’d be capable of that, but after what happened with Skye—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Gavin murdered her,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 41

  Every nerve end in my body fired up. “I suspected it, but… are you sure?”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Denny said. “But Gavin’s trying to get me to believe that Pete Dukermann killed Skye, and I don’t believe it. It’s almost like… like he thinks he found a perfect scapegoat.”

  “Did Skye tell you about her relationship with Gavin?”

  Denny nodded. “She swore me to secrecy about it. She was always pissed off that he wouldn’t be seen with her in public, that he kept so many secrets from her. She told me she wondered if the only reason Gavin was interested in her was because Martin had taken her out. She thought he was proving something in his own head.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “Skye got so bitter about it. She kept talking about how she was going to get revenge on him. She was going to destroy him.”

  As Denny said the words, Skye’s voice in the bar came back to me. The thing is, I know how to get even with him. I’m going to destroy him professionally, and he’ll never even see it coming. This isn’t about revenge. This is about righting wrongs. Illegal wrongs, Lily. I can deal with my hurt feelings, but he can’t be allowed to keep on doing the things he does. Afterwards, I’d believed she was talking about Martin, but I was wrong. It was Gavin she’d wanted to get even with.

  “How was she going to do that?”

  Denny shook her head. “She kept saying all she needed was an inside source at Pantheon. Then she could nail it. But she was also half-hoping to get back together with Gavin. Last night, when I saw her, she was going to see Gavin. She stopped at my room to show me what she was wearing. She said they were going to get married, or else she’d see him in hell.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Just before seven, I think.”

  That fit what I knew. I’d seen Skye in the lobby on Friday night around eight. She’d been red-faced from crying, which told me exactly how that ultimatum had turned out. “Has Gavin ever mentioned Skye to you?”

  “When I asked about her on Friday night, he told me she’d left the hotel. He called her all kinds of awful names. At the time, I thought it was because of her ultimatum, but now…” She gulped. “When he told me tonight that Skye was dead, he was so… controlled. It was like he was talking about a pet he didn’t really care for. All I could think was, he’s truly a sociopath. He has no feelings at all, except for himself.”

  “That fuels his rage. Gavin feels very sorry for himself.” I thought of how he’d wanted to enlist me as an ally against Martin, as if Martin had screwed us both over and Gavin was going to get even. But I’d only glimpsed the fury underneath Gavin’s cool, polished surface. Martin received a kidnapping threat last year, when we opened our first Mexican hotel, the one in Cabo. Of course, Martin was perfectly fine with sending me here in his stead. I could picture Gavin’s face as he said it, the way his eyes burned and his mouth twisted.

  We were both silent for a moment, lost in the undertow of our dark thoughts.

  “Where’s your phone?” I asked.

  “Gavin took away my cell when I got here. Lily, he’s watching everything and everyone.” The expression on her face was bleak. “Martin Sklar is a control freak, but Gavin is so much worse.” She eyed me, as if unsure how much she could say to me. “Gavin’s similar to Martin, but more tightly wound and extreme. They’re like peas in a pod. Oh, on the surface, they couldn’t be more different. Martin’s all charm, and Gavin’s all serious. But underneath, they’re both… watchful. They don’t trust other people.”

  “Denny, you have to get out of here and call the police.”

  “Gavin knows all the people who are important to know around here—the police and everyone else. He’s got excellent connections in Mexico. No wonder he wanted to lure Martin here. For all intents and purposes, this is Gavin’s home playing field.”

  “Then call Pantheon board of directors. Someone has to be able to stop him.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “I have to get that. Gavin will let himself in here if I don’t answer quickly,” Denny said. “Hide!”

  “Where the hell can I hide?”

  She looked frantic. “I don’t care. Anywhere! Look, there. Closet. Go!”

  My body reacted before my mind did, racing into the bedroom and pulling the door shut. I hated tight spaces and it had been a long time since someone had gotten me to enter one willingly. For a moment, time froze around me and I was a child again, locked in a closet with my sister while my mother battled her own demons. Some of them were real—like the child services people, who knew something wasn’t quite right at our house—and some of them were imaginary. The latter lived at the bottom of bottles of gin, and I never knew when they might come out. Sometimes, my mother drank and drank and drank and fell into a kind of forgetful stupor, in which she didn’t seem to know that she was anyone’s mother. Not mine, and not Claudia’s. She thought we were strangers, or friends, or even incarnations of her own dead relatives. My whole body trembled.

  Get a grip, Honey Bear, hissed a familiar voice. Nothing has happened to you. At least, not yet. I heard Denny opening the door of the suite. Okay, now you can start panicking.

  Thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought.

  “I was wondering if you were still here. You need to go, Denny. Before he kills you, too.” It was Apolinar who was speaking. I thought about stepping forward, but I was curious about what he’d say if he thought I wasn’t around.

  “He’s crazy,” Denny answered. “But I don’t think he would—”

  “You didn’t see Skye’s body, did you? He smashed her head in, like she was an insect. This silly girl, who was in love with him and followed him around like a dog, no matter how badly he treated her. He did that to her. Gavin could do anything to anyone. He is a man without conscience.”

  “I’ve got stuff everywhere. I just have to pull it together.”

  “Leave it and get out while you can,” Apolinar said.

  “I have to get Ruby and Roberta.”

  “Already done. I had one of my men take them over.”

  “Gavin’s left them alone at another hotel? No one’s watching?”

  “Are you joking?” Apolinar said. “They have a TV, but no phone, no Internet. That pinche culero Gavin is nothing if not thorough.”

  “You should be careful what you say. I wouldn’t put it past him to bug my room.”

  “I’d know about it if he did. One of my men would have to do the work.” Apolinar lowered his voice. “He’s got one of my men working that pathetic slob Pete Dukermann over right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think, Denny? Let me tell you what Gavin did. He says to me, come, let’s look at Pete’s room. So we go and look around, and what do I find there? Skye’s computer. Just sitting there, all nice, like it’s praying to be discovered. Then I show Gavin, and he starts talking about how he’s going to cut Pete into pieces.”

  A sob burst out of Denny’s chest, halfway between a wail and a scream.

  “Shh. Calm down. Gavin has a man watching Lily’s room. You want him to hear you?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… when I got involved, I never imagined things would end like this.”

  “Gavin is fucking crazy,” Apolinar said. “What did you think would happen?”

  “I thought he’d get Lily
down here and he’d come onto her and she’d slap him. Then she’d leave and all of this crap would be over. Why did Pete even come to this hotel? He could’ve stayed anywhere! He should never have been here.”

  “None of us knew this would be the week Gavin would go back to his old habits,” Apolinar said. “Gavin has what we call cara de muerto. Death Face.”

  “Old habits?” Denny’s voice was terrified. “You’re saying Gavin’s killed people before?”

  I thought of what Apolinar had told me about Gavin and his half-brother, Tómas. Who else had Gavin murdered?

  “Forget it. But Denny, you must get out while you can.”

  “What about Lily?” Denny asked.

  “I’ve got an idea how to get her out of the hotel.”

  “And then?”

  “Look, I can’t stay. I wanted to make sure you leave now. Gavin is going to torture Pete. If Martin Sklar shows up here, he’s a dead man. That’s a lot of blood already on Gavin’s hands. Do you think he’d hesitate to kill you to keep you quiet?” Apolinar’s voice got softer. “I knew what Gavin was planning was awful. All along, he’s plotted to kill Martin Sklar, but no one else was supposed to die. Everything is spiraling out of control and I don’t know where it will end.”

  “How will you get out?”

  “I can’t,” Apolinar said. “Gavin needs to keep me around to do his dirty work.”

  Their voices receded, and I opened the closet door. A moment later, the front door to Denny’s suite opened and closed, and she came into the bedroom. “I don’t know what that sounded like to you, Lily, but I promise—”

  “What do you plan to do?” I asked.

  “I’m getting out of here now, before Gavin decides to kill me because I know too much.” She grabbed her purse and rifled through it, pulling out a black key card. “Take this. It’s an all-access pass to every room with an electronic lock. You can find a place to hide. There’s also a staircase for the staff. It’s behind a regular door, one that doesn’t have a number on it. It’s on the far side of this floor.”