Even Money

by Stephanie Caffrey

  Somehow, despite a rumbling stomach, overactive mind, and an absence of alcohol, I managed to doze off. Needless to say, my pampered body did not do well on the hard concrete floor, and so my sleep was interrupted by several interludes of painful shifting about. And then I woke feeling completely unrested. My cellmates seemed to be sleeping just fine, probably a result of having adjusted to their surroundings over the course of several days or weeks.

  All I could think about was breakfast. Surely they wouldn’t deny me two meals in a row, right? That would be against the Geneva Convention or something like that. Right? I waited out the morning, clinging to the crumpled up jail smock I was using as a pillow, keeping my eyes closed, and trying to keep my mind at rest. I opened my eyes every five minutes or so, but the cellblock remained just as dark.

  Finally, I heard a clank and then a loud buzz signaling that the block door had been opened. There was now a hint of fluorescent light about the block, the buzzing hum of the fixtures faintly audible. But this time there was only the sound of footsteps, not a cart. At that moment all I wanted was a piece of bread soaked in lard, and so my heart sank when the guard appeared at our gate without a cart.

  He uttered something into his radio, and then the lights in our cell came on. The women stirred, grumbling in Spanish. The guard ignored them and then pointed at me.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Do I get to eat something?” I asked, standing up.

  He shook his head at me and then motioned for me to don the orange shirt. I did so and then accompanied him out of the cell and followed him down the hall. My pants were about three sizes too big, so I had to hold them up with my left hand to prevent them from slipping all the way down to the floor. What a sight I must be.

  My hunger and grogginess had clouded my mind, making it hard to focus on what lay before me. I presumed I was about to go one-on-one with the detective again, or perhaps the state attorney that one of the officers had mentioned. I wanted to be on my A game, but in my condition all I could think about was food. And coffee.

  The guard led me down the same stairwell I’d ascended the previous afternoon. Down in the main lobby, a clock told me it was seven thirty-five in the morning. A weird time for an interview with a detective.

  “Here she is,” the guard announced, his accent thick. The guard did not seem pleased with the situation, to put it lightly.

  Confused, I looked around and saw nobody. And then the guard nudged me to turn around. In front of me was a six-foot-three, pale-skinned man in an impeccable gray suit.

  “Raven McShane?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, wondering who the hell he was.

  “Bill Sweeney,” he said, offering me his hand. “What happened to your face?”

  “My face?” I asked, bleary eyed.

  “It has a bunch of red marks on it,” he said.

  The light bulb finally went off. “I was using this thing as a pillow,” I said, holding out my orange shirt, which seemed to be made of canvas or some such rough fabric. “It doesn’t exactly have a high thread count.”

  Bill gave the guard a scowl, but the guard just shrugged. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  My new friend Bill seemed a helluva lot nicer than the guards, so I followed him out the door, my orange jumpsuit and all.

  “Who did you say you were, Bill?” I asked, climbing into his Ford Taurus which was parked outside.

  “I didn’t. I’m with the State Department,” he said, pulling out his hand and offering it to me. He looked about fifty, with kindly brown eyes and sandy hair combed across his emerging bald spot. His face had turned pink in the morning heat.

  “The State Department has an office here in Cabo?” I asked, surprised.

  “No. I flew in from Tijuana. Just got here. Sorry about the delay.”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed. “So how can you just walk into a Mexican jail and get me out of there like that?”

  He was silent for a minute, navigating the tight streets of early morning Cabo San Lucas. Then he turned to look at me for a second. “You have friends in high places.”

  I laughed. “I do?”

  “Your friend Alex, for example.”

  “Ahh,” I said softly. Carlos must have gotten hold of him. I didn’t expect to be sprung just on Alex’s say-so, though. I thought maybe he could hire me a high-end lawyer or something like that. Actually, I didn’t even know what I was thinking when I handed Carlos Alex’s business card. It was just an instinct.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes as I pondered my new circumstances. “So,” I asked, “did they drop the charges?”

  He chuckled. “There were no charges. They picked you up as a favor to someone. We can’t quite tell who it was, but the important thing is that you’re out. I would advise you to pack your bags and not visit the Baja peninsula for a few years. Someone down here doesn’t like you very much, and he’s obviously got some pull with the police.”

  “You don’t have to convince me of that,” I muttered. “Are you taking me back to my hotel?” I asked.

  “Normally I wouldn’t. Protocol is that we debrief a citizen in a circumstance like this, you know, try to figure out what happened. But here, well…” he trailed off.

  “Here…?” I prompted.

  He coughed. “Frankly, Raven, you need a shower,” he said bluntly.

  My face immediately turned red. I could imagine how I must have smelled after sitting in a hot jail cell for almost a whole day. Plus my stomach was empty, and I hadn’t been granted the privilege of a toothbrush.

  “Got it,” I muttered. “You can open the window if you want.”

  He grinned. “It’s not that bad. I’m just saying.”

  “For a diplomat you’re not very diplomatic,” I said.

  “I get that a lot,” he muttered.

  We drove the remaining ten minutes or so in silence, with my stomach doing its usual thing of sucking up against my spine, protesting the fact that it had been all but ignored for the last eighteen hours.

  As we pulled in to the resort complex, he slowed the car down and then stopped it just short of the entrance. “I’ll stay with you for a little while, Raven. In an hour or so, we should have two men from the consulate in San Jose here to assist you. You know, to make sure there’s no more trouble.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Probably a good idea. How long do I have these guys?”

  “A few hours,” he said. “The next flight out of here back to Vegas is at one-fifty. You should get on that flight.”

  “Got it. Thanks for everything,” I said.

  He smiled and then handed me his business card which I scanned quickly. William H. Sweeney. Consul General.

  “You’re the consul?” I asked.

  “Yes. Your friend was insistent that this be handled at a high level.”

  “Wow. No wonder they let me out.” I smiled back at Bill, my new best friend, and then he pulled into the parking lot, avoiding the valet.

  “The Department won’t cover valet parking, I’m afraid,” he said apologetically.

  He parked the car in a lot that was hidden from the resort by a row of palm trees and shrubs. We followed a marked path back to the main entrance, but before we got there, he touched my arm.

  “Raven?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You might want to lose the orange jumpsuit before you go back in there. It tends to attract attention.”

  I smiled. “Good tip.”

  I eased myself up to one of the larger shrubs for privacy, and I wriggled out of my canvas clothes. Then I balled up my orange clothes and looked for the nearest garbage can.

  “You’re not going to keep those as a souvenir?” he asked, smiling.

  I chuckled. “Not a bad idea, actually.” But then I threw them out anyway.

  We walked through the lobby, and then he stopped me again. “I assumed you’d need to get a new room key and everything.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Bu
t I have a friend staying here.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  I led him up to Carlos’s room and knocked. The door opened almost immediately.

  Carlos was beaming at me, oblivious to Bill’s presence right next to me. “Wow, that was fast.”

  I smiled back at him. “You have my stuff?”

  He nodded. I followed him into his room and found my beach bag and towel waiting for me. I dug around in there and found my phone and room key.

  “Here we are,” I announced. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ll get back to you.”

  “Good idea,” Carlos said, holding his nose. “You stink!”

  I sighed. “You try spending a night in a Mexican jail, see if you come out smelling like a rose.”

  I left him and walked Bill back to my room. “You coming in, or do you station yourself outside?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never actually done anything like this before. I’m a poli-sci major, not a security guard.”

  “Let’s go in,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I decided to let Bill lead the way into my room. Just in case. Bill was no athlete, but at six three and two hundred plus pounds, he could hold his own in case some creep was waiting for me in there.

  Bill walked through the room and checked in the bathroom. “All clear,” he announced, seeming to warm up to his role as my interim bodyguard.

  “Great. Thanks for coming in. I’m going to…” I nodded in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Take your time,” he said. “I’ll wait outside.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  I spent a good half hour in the bathroom, and while I was in the shower, my sleep-deprived brain started kicking into overdrive. How the hell had Aaron connected with the local police, and why? He must have been throwing around his millions of dollars. That much was clear. But now that I was out, what was his next move?

  I was also tossing around another idea in my head, and when I left the bathroom I got on my phone and called up Detective Dwyer with the LVPD. I had a very simple question to ask him, and he was able to get back to me with the answer in a matter of minutes.

  A knock came at the door. “You okay in there?”

  “Fine, thanks. Sorry. I’m putzing around in here,” I said. I threw on my bikini and then found the bathrobe hanging neatly in the closet. I chuckled at my naivety from the previous day and then slipped it on.

  Properly covered up, I went to the door and opened it. Bill and Carlos were waiting outside.

  Carlos was holding a tray with a giant spread of food—a steaming plate of eggs and sausage, some huevos rancheros covered with red sauce, and a sliced avocado on the side.

  “Carlos, you are my new hero,” I said, beaming. “No offense, Bill.”

  He held up his hands. “I can’t compete with huevos rancheros,” he said. “By the way, how was the food in jail?”

  I sniffed. “They ‘forgot’ my dinner. So I’ll never know.”

  I set the tray down on the table and began attacking it, oblivious of the attention Bill and Carlos were paying me.

  “It’s best not to watch,” Carlos muttered, clapping Bill on the back. “I’ve seen her eat a few times. It’s like watching a starving pit bull go after a raw steak. I can’t imagine what she’ll be like after missing dinner last night.”

  The two of them went out on the balcony to let me gorge in peace. It truly was delicious, and I realized I needed to pace myself if I wanted to avoid getting sick. Take a breath, Raven, I kept telling myself.

  Halfway through, I pulled myself off the couch to make a cup of coffee and allow the food to settle. Carlos and Bill, an odd couple, seemed to be hitting it off on the balcony. From what I overheard, Carlos was regaling the more button-downed Bill with stories from late nights at the strip club.

  “You gentlemen behaving yourselves?” I asked, butting into their conversation.

  Carlos had a big smile on his face. “This guy is all right. He’s got some good stories from Tijuana.”

  I smiled. “I’ve never heard a Tijuana story that wasn’t good. That’s where Americans go to make fools of themselves.”

  “And then we have to bail them out,” Bill chimed in.

  My phone buzzed at me from back in the room.

  “Alex!” I said, answering it.

  “You okay, Raven?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ve just had breakfast, and a guy from the embassy is here in my hotel room making sure everything’s okay. I’m on the next flight out.”

  “Never mind that. If you can get to the airport around noon, I’ll send someone for you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

  “They’ll be holding a sign. It’ll just say Raven on it, okay?” he said.

  I laughed. “Whatever you say. I owe you big time for this.”

  I sat back down and finished off my tray of food, savoring a sip of coffee in between bites. Ninety-eight percent of me wanted to get the hell out of Cabo and return to my cushy life, secluded up in my Strip condo behind its private entry and security guards. But two percent couldn’t give up, couldn’t help thinking that I was hot on the trail of Aaron, and that maybe, just maybe, he was still here.

  “Carlos,” I yelled, standing up.

  He looked up at me, and then his face soured. He could sense something was up.

  “I assume you haven’t seen Aaron at all since I’ve been gone, right?” I asked.

  “Right. Not a trace.”

  “Well, this might just smoke him out,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Me. I mean me being sprung from jail. If he finds out, and I’m sure he will, he’s going to get the hell out of Dodge, right?” I explained.

  He shrugged. “I guess so. You’re saying you still want to find him? Even after all this?”

  Bill stood up. “Raven, I think we have to cut our losses here. I’m not sure what you’re doing or who exactly you’ve pissed off, but let’s just cut bait and declare victory.”

  “It’s only eight thirty,” I protested. “I don’t have to be at the airport for hours.”

  Bill and Carlos exchanged a look. “What do you propose doing?” Bill asked gingerly.

  “Nothing apart from waiting and watching. That’s all I ever do, come to think of it,” I said, grinning.

  “And who are you watching for?” Bill asked.

  “A thief and a crook, a liar, a fraudster, a con artist,” I said. “Take your pick.”

  Just then, his cell phone buzzed. Reluctantly, Bill snapped out of his trance and reached into his coat pocket to answer it.

  “They’re here,” he announced.

  “Who?” Carlos asked.

  “Security is coming here from the consulate in San Jose,” I explained.

  “Wow,” Carlos remarked. He was staring out at the sea. “You’re quite the VIP, aren’t you?”

  “Today I am. When you get thrown in a Mexican jail, I’m sure the feds will come running to your aid just like they did for me,” I said, smiling.

  Carlos grimaced at my sarcasm.

  “So?” I asked. “Who wants to do a little sleuthing?”

  Carlos sighed, knowing I was digging in my heels.

  “I’ve got to get back to Tijuana, Raven,” Bill said, standing up. “I’d love to get dragged into whatever mess you’ve got going on down here, but I have an office to run.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

  “I’ll walk you downstairs to meet your detail,” he said.

  “Just a sec,” I said. I shed my bathrobe and let it fall to the floor, wearing only my tiniest bikini. “Sure you don’t want to stick around?” I asked Bill playfully.

  He gulped. “I really need to…” he trailed off.

  Carlos nudged him. “Don’t get any ideas,” he whispered. “She’s just a tease.”

  I dug around in my suitcase and slipped on an over
sized long-sleeve shirt to cover up a little, and then I joined them by my door. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bill led Carlos and me down to the lobby where I discretely scanned the room, seeing nobody interesting. Outside, two beefy, dark-skinned men were leaning against a black Tahoe SUV which was running.

  “You’ll be in good hands with these guys,” Bill said.

  Both of the men were muscular but not quite in the Carlos category of beefiness. But they were much taller, and with their sport coats and earpieces on and the telltale bulges under their suit jackets, they were more intimidating. I could immediately sense discomfort from Carlos who perceived a threat to his manhood.

  “Where are your bags?” one of the men asked me.

  “Up in my room. Why?” I asked.

  “I was under the impression we were headed to the airport,” he explained.

  “In a few hours,” I said.

  The guard looked at Bill, who nodded. “Give her a couple of hours,” he said, not meeting their gaze. “She just wants to soak in a little more of this weather, right?”

  I smiled. “Exactly.”

  The other guard looked at his watch, evidently not pleased with this change of plan.

  “Well, Raven, safe travels,” Bill said, extending his hand.

  I smiled at him. “I’ve showered now, so I can give you better than a handshake.” With that, I leaned in and gave him a solid hug and then got up on my tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek.

  He smiled, his face bright red. Both guards laughed at him.

  And that’s when I saw him. My senses were primed, and I caught the faintest glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. Even though we were at fifty yards, there was no mistaking Aaron.

  He was in a hurry. Behind him trailed a train of bellhops who were wheeling his suitcases into a white van with heavily tinted windows.

  “That’s him!” I said, pointing. He must have heard I’d been sprung already. I looked at Bill. “We’ve got to stop him,” I announced.