by MB Austin
“Shh. Just breathe.” Celeste shone a penlight in each eye, then checked her pulse. While Maji drank the water from the glass she pressed into her hand, Celeste delivered the verdict. “With your weight and metabolism, one-half is a proper dose. And they are not for everyday use, either. There are better options.”
“I already ruled out a bullet. And liquor makes me puke.” Maji pulled herself to standing. “Let me walk you home. I’ll run back, sweat out what’s left.”
“The sun is up,” Celeste said. “I’ll be fine. And so will you, if you stop with these. Come see me at the office.”
Maji just nodded. As if.
“Promise me, my friend.”
“Fine.”
“I have your phone number. Don’t make me call you.”
“I said yes. Don’t worry.”
Celeste stroked her face so tenderly Maji couldn’t bring herself to move away. “Too late. Arrive before one in the afternoon.”
Or what? You’ll call me? Only Ava’s voice reminding her not to spit at kindness held the snark back. “Yeah. Got it.”
As soon as she was alone, Maji checked the time in New York: still night there. What would she tell Ava anyway? Made a friend, freaked her out? No, that would require explanation, and Ava only knew about the nightmares. She thought Maji had tossed the sedatives when she left Landstuhl. Along with the counseling referrals.
No needed to worry her. Maji opened her laptop, logged into Hannah’s private chat line, and started typing. This form of conversation offered a delete button.
MR: Tell Ava I made a new friend, as advised. On related note for you, C has a volatile ex in France and is keeping out of range for now but career break getting old. I offered support. And then scared her w my own fucked-upness.
Maji deleted the last sentence. She started typing again, looking for a way that wouldn’t worry Ava. Finding none, she hit send and went to shower. Hannah should be asleep, but with her, who knew?
A protein bar with cold leftover coffee stood in for breakfast. She should start cooking real food again, but that meant shopping. And giving a fuck. It was just fuel, after all. As she laced up her running shoes and located her sunglasses, the laptop pinged.
HC: Happy to help any friend of yours. Send specifics at your convenience. How are you?
MR: Tan. :) On wait list for appt.
HC: Very funny. Let me know when you need funds wired.
MR: No need. Earning locally.
HC: Explain.
MR: 21 ways. Call it occ therapy, next level. Blew a fuse with asshole tourist yesterday, but no blowback.
In the pause that followed, Maji sensed a reprimand coming. Maybe she should have been clearer. No harm to civilian, no police involvement—that kind of thing. Maybe she should finally learn to not rat herself out.
HC: Stay below radar at all costs. $ available here, no limit. Your face is priceless.
Oh, fuck. The Gran Balearico might be big enough to have a facial recognition program running to filter out cheats and grifters and egregious counters, like the Vegas casinos. Of course they wouldn’t tag her as Sgt. Rios, famous female Iran hostage. But getting a rep under her civilian identity wasn’t a great idea, either. She needed to finesse Santxo and find out if they’d already profiled her or had the means to. Damage control.
MR: Copy that. How is Ava?
HC: Good. Sleeping. Sends love.
MR: Back atcha both. Signing off.
HC: Be careful. Out.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The sunglasses popped apart when Maji threw them across the cabin. She didn’t check to see if they could be fixed. Why bother? The fairy godmothers would get her another pair. Bail her out of trouble, just like they always had. And how did she thank them? Mangling old men in casinos while on video. Fucking brilliant.
Maybe she should give up on Dr. Lyttleton, get her ass on a plane home and help. Ha. Be underfoot and an extra project, more like. They didn’t need her lying around brooding about her shoulder. The doctors at Landstuhl had done a decent job, taken the scar down from a recognizable brand that announced she had survived capture by Tarik al-Mashriki to just some ugly lumps. Maji wondered what the rest of the team’s survivors had done with their scars. Removal? Or maybe tattoos, like the flowering vines over Ava’s mastectomy scar, a triumphant reminder of life beating death. Well, not her. She had neither the pride nor the discretion to add a distinguishing mark to her body. Better that every trace be scraped away.
Ava wouldn’t want her to give up so easily. She had suggested plastic surgery during those early days in the hospital when Maji was so fucked up. Stoned on pain meds, but never enough to forget. Just enough to ramble on about getting a tattoo with an AK-47 and the names of everyone she’d hit with it. Why wouldn’t they tell her the names? Not that the list would fit on one arm. So she’d tried notches, until they took the knife away and put her under surveillance.
The thought of getting out of that damned hospital and finally erasing the mark for good had kept Maji going for months. The doctors and rehab crew thought she had grit, the will to recover and get back to the field. But really she just wanted to get the hell away from all those people looking at her every day, knowing what she’d done.
* * *
Erlea followed Nigel, Nico, and the roadies up from the parking garage and into the hotel, shepherded by Alejandro. She put her earbud in and dialed Imane. “When are you coming in?” she asked her closest friend and choreographer.
“A week or so. What’s it like?”
“Like the inside of every other hotel,” Erlea said. When Imane joked about touring the world and seeing only the inside of hotels, she made it sound charming. “Wait, here’s the lobby. It’s…Oh, hell.”
“I can hear them,” Imane replied. The crowd noise reverberated in the tall-ceilinged room. “Mr. Bait-and-Switch set you up again?”
That shit. “Yes.” So much for a quiet arrival and time to get settled in before any public appearances. No wonder Nigel had badgered her about her traveling clothes.
“You should have signed with Claudia Sandoval, habibi.”
Erlea glanced toward Nigel and caught the smug look on his horsey face. Didn’t all managers feed their clients the same bullshit about image and artistry, puffing them up while poking at their egos to deflate them enough to make them take direction? “Too late.”
“Your loss.” Imane didn’t sound sympathetic. “Then could you at least fire Nico?”
Until he’d hired Nico to manage the new show, Erlea had been able to let Nigel’s attitude roll off her back. “I’m starting to wish I could.” Nigel kept taking Nico’s side in planning meetings.
“Nico had better be as good as everyone says,” Imane grumbled.
“That’s why he gets away with being such a prick. Hey, I’m going deaf in here. Later.”
Between the lights, the din, and the hangover, Erlea felt her vision begin to narrow. But now was the absolute wrong time to collapse. Days like this made her miss being an unknown in the clubs, jamming with her friends. Real people, who liked her as well as her songs. They’d all dreamed of reaching this point, with paparazzi chasing them and fans clamoring for a smile or a selfie. If only she’d known then what it actually felt like.
A man called her name, broke through the line of hotel staff holding the throng back. He started yelling in Euskara, which her Basque grandparents had always wished she would learn.
Erlea stopped and turned to greet him. But then she recognized the shouted slogan—Bietan jarrai—and the wild look in his eye. She started to back away just as he reached into his jacket.
* * *
With Reimi pressed close to her, Maji enjoyed watching the scene below. Being led by the hand through the back halls of the hotel hadn’t sucked either. Points for Reimi. From the balcony that overlooked the casino entrance and its grand stairway, Maji took in the aggressive media angling to get photos and the equally enthusiastic fans pressing forward against the flimsy human barr
icade of hotel staff.
And there was the entourage, right on cue. Eight people flowed through the front doors into the marble-floored lobby, looking far too scruffily hip for the stately room with its frescoed ceilings.
“Who’s who?” Maji whispered in Reimi’s ear. A faint hint of smoke mingled with an outdoorsy scent from Reimi’s hair. The first was no surprise, the second intriguing.
“Erlea is the one in heels,” Reimi answered, not bothering with the star’s companions.
Erlea seemed smaller than she appeared onstage. Not just her height but her body language. She hates this. And yet she’d dressed the part in tight jeans, big sunglasses, and a leather jacket that Celeste’s ex would covet.
As Erlea’s group reached the base of the stairway, cameras whirred and clicked, the crowd encroaching further. A man all in black but for a blue beret broke free from the group and sprinted toward Erlea, yelling. Maji couldn’t make out his words, but Erlea’s reaction spoke volumes. First she perked up and turned toward him; then she started backing away.
Maji registered the object in his hand. “Gun!” She mentally mapped the quickest route down to the shooter, shouting the warning again, this time in Spanish.
Maji flipped herself over the rail, aiming for the banister. Using it as a pivot point, she turned and launched herself at the man. She collided with him before he could take aim. He cushioned her fall, crumpling beneath her as the crowd’s collective gasp gave way to screams and shouts.
Above the jumble of voices, a familiar deep voice rang out in Spanish. “Make way. Security. Make way.”
The shooter struggled to regain his feet and she put a choke hold on him, knocking out the back of his knee to bring him lower in front of her, a human shield between her and the cameras. Maji checked the crowd for an accomplice, saw none, but spotted the fallen gun and flicked it away with her foot. As security pushed forward, shoving tourists aside, Maji fisted the gunman’s collar and belt and rolled him in their direction. He landed in a heap at their feet, facedown. They should have him cuffed in seconds.
Get out. Go go go. Maji turned toward the base of the stairs, spotted the Employees Only door, and slipped back into the maze of service corridors.
Chapter Four
As soon as the local police left his suite, Nigel poured a glass of whiskey and handed it to Erlea. “What a troublesome business. How are you holding up?”
Nigel’s avuncular act always put Erlea on alert. She sipped the drink casually, trying to project a calm she didn’t feel. “I’m fine. I just want to go unpack.”
“Soon. Let me just see if your new room is ready.” He opened the door and spoke to the hotel security guard standing sentry in the hall.
“Very soon, sir,” the guard reported. “She is on a different floor now, and only a select few have the number. May the house doctor come here in the meantime?”
“Certainly.” Nigel closed the door and turned back to Erlea.
“Nigel. I’m fine. I’m not letting some strange man examine me.”
Nigel set his own whiskey tumbler aside. “Just answer a few questions for him so he can check off the right boxes for the insurer.”
Of course. The insurance. Nigel needed her in top shape to get the rest of the show’s backers on board. No wonder he was being so solicitous. “Fine. Just give me some privacy.”
“Naturally. I’ll be in the bedroom, making some calls,” Nigel assured her. “Help yourself,” he added, gesturing to the tall bottle on top of the minibar.
A moment later, Erlea opened the door at the first knock, ready to dispatch the house doctor as quickly as possible. The terse words she had prepared for him vanished from her mind at the sight of a lovely blond woman in a white coat. “Hello?” she said instead, feeling stupid for being tongue-tied.
“Hello,” the woman said, her hand extended. “I am Dr. Guillot. Were you not expecting me? If this is a bad time…”
“No, sorry,” Erlea managed. “I mean, come in.” She stepped aside, as much to break the hold of those oceanic eyes as to make room. “Can I get you something?”
The doctor eyed the bar skeptically. “I don’t drink on duty. But thank you.”
“Right, of course. Water? Or there might be soda, or—” Erlea’s phone rang and she moved to silence it. But it was Imane calling, and Erlea didn’t want her hearing about this from someone else. “I’m sorry, I have to take this. Please have anything you like.”
Erlea turned her back on the distractingly attractive stranger and took the call. Before she could even say hello, Imane asked, “Are you all right?”
Too late. “I’m fine. Not even a scratch. It’s on the news already?”
“Some guy shot at you—how can you be fine? He shot at you.”
Erlea sighed. “Calm down. He only tried to. And it was a stunt, with a paint gun.”
“Really? Twitter said you were attacked by Basque separatists.” Imane sounded calmer but still anxious.
“Yelling a slogan and wearing the blue beret do not make you a real politico. It was just stupid, that’s all.”
Imane was silent briefly, then asked, “Did Nigel stage it?”
“Well, he wanted an entrance,” Erlea conceded. “But this is not the kind of publicity he likes. Anyway, now I have to answer some dumb insurance questions. I should go. I wish you were here already.”
“I’ll try to shave a few days off the wrap-up here,” Imane said. “You know I love you.”
Erlea smiled. “I love you, too. See you soon.” She turned back to the doctor, who had found herself an Orangina from the minibar. “Sorry about that. Let’s get this done and not waste any more of your time.”
“Don’t worry. Dumb insurance questions are very quick.” The doctor’s voice and expression didn’t give away her feelings, but Erlea swore her eyes looked stormy now. “Let’s start with your physical well-being. You were not injured?”
“Well, I got pushed out of the way when the asshole with the gun pointed it at me.” She wasn’t hurt, but Erlea couldn’t just let this woman walk out, insulted. “My arm is kind of sore, from trying to catch myself.”
“Okay, let’s take a look. Would you mind sitting?”
Erlea grabbed the chair from the nearby desk, then zipped off her leather jacket. She felt a bit exposed in just a tank top. Didn’t matter that this woman was a physician. Just knowing she was watching made Erlea feel buzzed. “Sure.”
“The other direction, please,” the doctor said, her French accent coming through her precise Spanish. “Your chest to the chair’s back.”
So Erlea straddled the chair, her hands draped over the top of the leather upholstery. “The left arm,” she said, deciding on the spot.
“Just let it hang, please. I am going to check your spine first.”
Warm fingers pressed firmly on either side of her neck, walking down the tight cords along the bone. Erlea stifled a hum.
“Let me know the instant anything hurts. Yes?”
“Mm-hmm.” Erlea breathed as slowly as she could, allowing her head to be tilted down, up, and side to side. The fingers gliding down her back, gentle and smooth, felt like a caress. When they reached her belt line and withdrew, she asked, “Nothing out of place?”
“No structural issues. May I manipulate your arm? Do not assist with your muscles.”
“Whatever helps, Doctor,” Erlea replied. Imane would tease her mercilessly if she could see her now, faking an injury to get a woman to touch her.
After an equally pleasant examination of her arm, interspersed with questions in a caring, professional tone, the doctor stepped away. “I can sign off that you have sustained no lasting injury.” She took a seat on the couch facing Erlea and sipped on her soda. “And you do not appear to be in shock. So the usual antidote is working.”
Erlea followed her gaze to the whiskey glass. “It doesn’t hurt. I will admit the guy scared me and the cops pissed me off. But your bedside manner is better than liquor. I’m sorry if I was
rude.”
“No matter.” Above the white coat, pink bloomed on the doctor’s throat and cheeks. “I am happy to assist. And relieved that you are well.”
She’s blushing. Erlea felt her own face begin to heat and stood, seeking out her jacket. Feeling more composed with it on, she said, “You seem so familiar. Have we met?”
“That is a terrible line. Surely you can do better.” The teasing look turned sardonic. “You did the night we met. And you offered me a drink then, too.”
“Was I a total jackass?” A vision of herself plastered and hitting on this woman made her cringe. “I had to have been really drunk to not remember you.”
“You see? That is a much better line.” The Mona Lisa smile suggested forgiveness, the sparkle in her eyes the possibility of more.
Erlea stared back at her, all the clever comebacks fleeing when she needed them most. Why were the women she liked best the hardest to talk to?
A knock from Nigel’s bedroom broke their connection. “Everyone decent out there?”
“Enter,” the doctor replied, sounding again like the woman in charge. It suited her.
Nigel stepped out and gave them a quick scan. “Thank you for your prompt service, Doctor.” He shifted his attention to Erlea. “And speaking of which, security called. Your room is ready. You needn’t stay for the paperwork—we’ll handle it from here.”
“Right. Good.” Erlea zipped her jacket, scrambling for words that didn’t sound sleazy. “If I need anything…medical, can I call you?” Dork.
“Of course. Dial my office from any hotel phone. Good day.”
That was it, then. Erlea headed for the door, done embarrassing herself. She stopped, struck by an idea that had fled the moment she looked into those aquamarine eyes. “Nigel, I want to talk to that woman. The one who leaped off the balcony to protect me. Maybe she knows what this was really about.”
“I can’t imagine how,” Nigel replied. “But fine, yes. Give her a thank-you and an autograph. Have Alejandro video you being gracious.”
