The Best of Enemies

by Jen Lancaster

  “Fair enough,” I agree.

  “There’s just one thing,” Jack says.

  “What’s that?”

  Jack looks pointedly at the steering wheel. “I’ll need to drive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Miami, Florida

  Friday

  “I want to believe it was that easy, but I can’t,” Kitty says.

  “What if it can have been that easy?” I reply.

  “To find Ingrid here before you even left this hotel to ask around at the Wintercourt? It’s unbelievable.”

  We arrived at the Delano around five thirty this morning and slept like the dead for the next six hours. The plan was to split up—Kitty would discreetly inquire here as to Ingrid’s whereabouts and I was taking the Wintercourt. Kitty claimed the first shower, so I was only just now ready to head out, which is no longer necessary.

  Kitty says, “Seems a little too convenient. There I am with Ingrid’s picture on my phone, and I ask the doorman, ‘Have you seen this woman?’ and he’s all, ‘Am I on Dateline?’ because she’s standing ten feet away getting out of a limo with a bunch of bags. The doorman was the first guy I even asked! Then I had to hide behind a palm tree because I didn’t want her to see me. We’ve met a few times and I’m sure she’d recognize me.”

  “Thank God she didn’t,” I say. “She’s headed out to the pool?”

  “Yes, according to whomever she was loud-talking to on the phone. I wanted to tell her, ‘Inside voice, honey!’ Even Kassie knows how to adjust her volume in public spaces. I want to have a word with every one of these Millennials’ parents. No flipping manners. BTW, I took a bunch of twenties out of your wallet so I was able to bribe the driver who picked her up. He said she was coming from Bal Harbour.”

  I ask, “Should I be familiar with Bal Harbour?”

  “Only if you care about the best shopping in Miami.”

  “So, no.”

  “Here’s what I don’t get, Jack. You said she must be out of the country because of the error messages, but she’s here.”

  “That is puzzling. I guess the explanation doesn’t matter—she’s here and now I can question her.” Kitty has a hand on her hips and she’s shaking her head. “Now what?”

  “Did you learn nothing from our caper at the Monaco?”

  Her meaning’s immediately clear. Only now do I notice that she’s carrying a bag from the hotel’s boutique. This? Right here? Is why I never did covert investigations. “Not again.”

  “Yes. It’s all you, babe. I can’t go—she knows me. I already bought the accessories you’ll need, too. Charged them to the room. I have sunscreen, celebrity magazines, a couple of cool bangles, awesome sunglasses—they’re Chanel, dibs when you’re done with them—and a bikini. And P.S. I bought you two razors, because, damn.”

  • • •

  Kitty suggested that I download the tracking app she uses to GPS her kids’ locations and then hide my phone in Ingrid’s bag. However, if Ingrid does leave the country, I’m not sure the software would work. We couldn’t determine a clear answer from our Google search, and John hung up on me when I called to ask him. So I’m going old school, with the goal to befriend Ingrid. I’ve traveled enough to understand the quick camaraderie inherent between two strangers who are both far from home. But simply embracing the geography game here won’t be enough.

  And because I’m running this op alone, I can’t rely on simply spewing text-message language while Kitty does the heavy lifting. Back when we were together, Sean used to crack up whenever I’d do my Kitty impersonation for him, even long after either of us had any contact with her. Funny is funny, regardless of the context. The minute I take the chair next to Ingrid, clad in her roommate’s gingham bikini, I begin to channel my inner-Kitty, circa 1995, so she’s with me in spirit.

  Flipping through my Us magazine, I say aloud, more to myself than anyone else, “Ohmigod, I love Kimye so much.” Thanks to Kitty’s crash course through the bathroom door while I groomed, I’m armed with the latest in pop culture.

  I’ve piqued Ingrid’s attention, but I pretend not to notice. I liken this to the time Sean and I fished for red salmon in the Alaskan Russian River the summer before he left for med school at UCLA. Because red salmon are fairly passive, we used the flossing method (since fallen out of favor in the fishing community), which entails casting out the hook and then yanking it back as the salmon swims by. They don’t bite so much as they are inadvertently snagged by quickly reeling in the hook.

  I flip a few more pages. “Welcome to Stalkertown, Taylor Swift. Population, You.”

  Ingrid’s definitely paying attention now.

  “Oh, Khloé, honey, no. Could you be any more try-hard? P.S. your mom is tragic.”

  Ingrid closes her own magazine and angles herself to enable conversation with me. I ignore meeting her gaze. (Too try-hard.)

  A waiter comes by and I hold out my menu, bracelets clinking merrily as I point. “Okay, I want something delish, but not, like, too carb-y, you know? What do I want then? Am I more raspberry mojito or spicy mango margarita? Or should I just get both, because hello, vacay!”

  “You should totally get both!” Ingrid exclaims, unable to contain herself.

  “Would you drink whichever one I don’t like?” I ask her.

  “Totes.”

  To the waiter, I say, “We’ll have both, thanks!” I turn toward her. “I never know what to get when I’m at the pool bar. Bottle service is so much easier, amirite?”

  “The best!”

  Is she buying my act? I rather suspect she is. I only have so much inane conversation/slang terms in my arsenal, so I need to move along the process. Next step? The geographical bond.

  “I was just in Chicago visiting the bros and we went to the sickest club! It’s this place called the Monaco—”

  “I’m from Chicago and I love the Monaco! We’re there every Wednesday night for DJ Illuminati!”

  “Hashtag no way! I relocated to London a few years ago, but I’m thinking of moving back to Chi-town just for the Monaco. London is, like, enough with the shitty pubs and warm beer already, right? Da fuq?”

  (I’m sorry, London. I don’t mean it. Sean was right and you’re my favorite of all European cities.)

  “Word.” Her phone beeps with a text message. She looks at the screen, scowls, and taps out a hasty response.

  “You cool?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I just keep getting obnoxious texts from randoms, so I’ve been replying ‘504: AT&T Error Message, Subscriber Not Found.’”

  One mystery neatly solved and I must admit, her response is kind of brilliant. I say, “Why not turn off your phone if the ratchets can’t take a hint?”

  “I’m waiting to hear from my boyfriend. Meeting him in the Caymans tomorrow and I need the deets. He’s sailing in from Belize.”

  Yes! The pieces are coming together now! I hadn’t even considered where Trip’s boat The Lone Shark might have been. If he’s off to live incognito, doing so on a boat provides quick egress and no permanent address, especially if he disguised the boat and changed the name and the hull identification numbers. Really, anything can be camouflaged, given enough cash. Hell, thanks to a flashy swimsuit, sunglasses, and diligent shaving (shameful), I’ve been disguised for less than five hundred dollars.

  Ingrid continues, completely unaware that I’m turning cartwheels inside. “He was supposed to be there yesterday but there was this big storm and he was delayed.”

  Ding, ding, ding! More verification! But how best to express my great joy and this tremendous victory for Sars and all those investors poised to seek justice as soon as Simon’s story hits the news cycle? “Awesomesauce!”

  “Right?”

  “What kind of sailboat does he have? My friend has a thirty-three-foot Watkins Seawolf on Belmont Harbor,” I say, describing the bo
at Bobby lived on one summer in Maine, about twelve years ago.

  “Um . . . his is a l’il bigger than that.”

  Yes . . . by approximately one hundred and thirty-four feet. How was no one suspicious when Trip’s takeaway from watching The Wolf of Wall Street was not that he should conduct his business with integrity, but that he should add thirty feet to the back of his yacht to accommodate a helicopter landing pad?

  Our drinks arrive and I take the margarita while she opts for the mojito. “Proost,” I say, raising my glass in salute.

  Before she can reply, her text alarm beeps again. She reads the screen and lets out a small squeal. Has to be from Trip—girls don’t squeal over notes from other girls.

  I need to read that text.

  While she beams at her screen, I say, “Whoa. So much hotter in person! I would hit that so flipping hard.”

  Ingrid looks up. “Who?”

  “Leo. He just walked by.”

  “DiCaprio?”

  “Affirmative. I mean, totes. He was headed toward the spa. Major Speedo action.”

  Ingrid bolts up from her chair, the idea of a famous millionaire in the hand greater than the billionaire she already has in the bush. I snatch her phone and quickly transcribe the information. She’s flying into Grand Cayman first thing tomorrow morning and meeting him at the International Bank of the Caymans at nine a.m. Then they’ll take a private plane to Little Cayman at nine forty-five and the boat will pick them up on Sunday after a resupply run. I have to read the text a few times, due to Trip’s inability to incorporate punctuation.

  I replace Ingrid’s phone but a moment before she returns. “I didn’t see him.”

  “Ugh, TCBY, right?”

  “What about yogurt now?”

  Shit. “I mean, STBY.” Before she has a chance to become suspicious, I say, “Listen. Gotta motor. Bikini wax appointment. Catch you on the flippity-flop.”

  What I mean is, catch you and your scoundrel boyfriend on the flippity-flop.

  • • •

  “This is my unhappy face,” Kitty says, lips pressed tight, brows knit.

  She’s been upset ever since we tore out of the Delano in order to catch a three-thirty flight to the Grand Caymans without her yet having found Ken. I’d spotted someone who looked like him at the pool, but that guy was rubbing oil all over some woman, so I was clearly mistaken.

  “I’m sorry, Kitty. Truly. But this was the only way we were going to get here ahead of Ingrid. And since you refuse to fly with me, we had no other choice,” I reply.

  Little Cayman is just that—little, populated by only a few hundred permanent residents. Nonstop flights from Miami to Little Cayman don’t exist. The island isn’t a direct entry point to the country; both visitors and residents must ingress from one of the larger Cayman Islands. So, we’re staying on Grand Cayman tonight and puddle-jumping to the little island in the morning to stake out where Ingrid and Trip plan to stay.

  I’d suggested we rent a plane and I could take us to Little Cayman myself. I’ve kept my license current by logging hours each time I’m back in the States. However, Kitty wasn’t on board with this plan. At all.

  “Your aggressive driving scares me enough. There’s no way I’m leaving the ground with you. No flipping way.”

  “Your loss,” I reply, because if anyone should feel the need for speed, it’s her.

  “I’ll live.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my pointing it out, but you seem out of sorts. What’s going on?” I ask. Our collective experience has been so positive that I don’t understand the sudden mood change.

  “I just can’t believe the first time I’m using my passport is with you. No offense. I’ve been dying for a trip to the Caymans since Kord was in kindergarten. With my husband. I don’t want to eat fruit naked on a private beach with you.”

  “Not on my personal Top Ten list, either,” I reply. “On the bright side—now you’ll have been here and when you and Ken come back, you’ll be a pro.”

  “Little. Flipping. Comfort.”

  “You’re not enjoying a moment of this? Because we can go back to our rooms.” We’re sitting outdoors at the Ritz-Carlton (the only last-minute reservation I could snag), sipping frozen piña coladas on the terrace of Bar Jack, a spot chosen not only for the name, but also because it boasts the best view on all of Grand Cayman. The sun’s a small melon ball on the horizon, while the rest of the sky has exploded in shades of fuchsia streaked with tangerine and gold. The daytime aquamarine-colored sea is now lilac in the reflected twilight.

  “I might want to stay a few more minutes,” she admits.

  Our dinners arrive and we dive in, having had little time to consume anything that wasn’t Diet Coke over the past few days. So fresh. There’s a cessation of conversation as we polish off two orders of crispy crab fritters, piquant with lime aioli, and coconut shrimp, topped with tangy mango salsa. Then I tuck into the Mahi tacos and Kitty practically inhales her lobster roll and double order of sweet potato fries.

  When the waiter clears Kitty’s empty plate, she tells him, “That was terrible. I want to send it back.”

  “Hey,” I say. “You made a joke. You must be rallying.”

  Kitty’s smile fades. “Gallows humor. You realize we have to call Betsy. How’s that going to go? ‘We have good news and bad news. The good news is your husband isn’t dead. The bad news is, neither is his girlfriend.’”

  “‘P.S. he’s stolen a boatload of money,’” I add. I’m really starting to sound like Kitty, aren’t I? “I’ll call her when we go back to our rooms.”

  Kitty says, “You don’t have to do that. She and I are closer—I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yes, but we’re much older friends, so it’s on me.”

  “I feel like it should be me,” Kitty says, a little louder this time.

  “And I feel like it should not be you,” I say, raising my own volume as well. “Wait. Stop. We’re breaking this pattern once and for all. We’ll do it together. At least our being on speaking terms will soften the blow.”

  “Shall we shake on it?” Instead of offering her hand, she shimmies in her seat and I laugh out loud.

  “I completely forgot about that,” I say. Literally shaking on it was our first of many running jokes once upon a time. “I wish we hadn’t wasted all those years.”

  Kitty nods. “Me, too. But you wouldn’t talk to me and everything spiraled from there.”

  “No, you wouldn’t talk to me,” I said.

  “Wrong. I only stopped talking to you after you stopped talking to me that day in the food court,” she replies.

  “Is it possible we were both in the wrong?” I say.

  “Never,” she replies with a wink.

  “Did you just wink at me, Kitty Carricoe?”

  “I admit to nothing.”

  “Then Kelly trained you well.” We both sit quietly for a minute. “Now what? Shall we settle up and go call her?”

  “Definitely. I want to check in with the kids before it’s too late, too.”

  I sign for the bill before we adjourn to my room. Side by side, I punch the number into Skype. When Sars answers on her end, Kitty grabs my hand in a show of support.

  I say, “Hey, Sars. We need to talk.”

  • • •

  We have to decompress after we brief Sars, and catch up with our respective families, so we meet on the beach an hour later. She tells me Kassie and the boys say hello and we have a quick laugh about how this was not the moonlight Cayman stroll Kitty had been dreaming about for so long. But the night’s too warm and clear to not make do.

  As for Betsy? “That was not the reaction I expected,” Kitty says. “I thought Breakup Betsy would come out, full of fury and ready to crack some skulls together.”

  The waves gently ebb and flow as we walk. “My expe
ctation was for a mix of sorrow and relief. She was almost . . . detached? Is that how you’d describe it?”

  “She has to be in shock. That’s the only explanation for why she was so robotic. Are you surprised she wants to be here when we confront him?”

  “A little. Likely, she’s gathering her resources now, either placing calls to the SEC or bringing in private security to accompany her.”

  “Makes sense. What time are we meeting her plane at the Little Cayman airfield again?”

  “Nine thirty. Ingrid and Trip are landing at ten fifteen, so that gives us enough time to stage ourselves where they’re staying.”

  “Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?”

  “Not a wink,” I admit. “But imagine how poor Sars feels.”

  “Betrayal sucks.”

  We walk north, the ocean to our left. We can see the lights on the incoming boats—I wonder if one of them is Trip’s.

  Kitty kicks up little puffs of sand as she walks. Then she says, “So . . . in the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you something. Do you remember the summer of 1995?”

  “I’m not senile—of course I remember. After freshman year. I had an internship at the Trib. What a terrible summer—all those people died in the heat because they lived in bad neighborhoods and were afraid to open their windows. I tagged along with a couple of the reporters covering the aftermath. Awful.”

  Kitty stops. “Can you find the buzzkill aspect on any topic?”

  “My entire career points to ‘yes,’” I reply.

  “Noted. Do you remember Bobby at all that summer?”

  “Again, not senile. Why do you ask, Kitty?”

  “Remember all those times he said he was ‘cat sitting’?”

  “Yeah, and he was gone all the time that summer. I rarely saw him.”

  “Think about it.”

  Then I understand. “No!”

  I can see her trying to hide her grin. “Yes. We ran into each other over Memorial Day and had a fab time together. And it went from there.”

  “Are we Jordans all catnip for you? Have you hooked up with my father? Try not to fall in love with me, okay?” I say none of this unkindly.