by Tom Savage
“It’s four o’clock,” Nora said. “I guess we’re dining in there again, at nine.” She nodded toward the Gril de Port.
“I’ll make a reservation,” Ellie said, “and I’ll hang out here in the lobby for a while. Why don’t you go up to the spa. You can get a manicure, or a massage.”
“Actually, I’d love to work out in the gym and maybe swim some laps,” Nora said. “If you’re sure you’re okay here—”
“I’m fine. Go.”
Nora didn’t have to be asked twice. She hurried to the elevator, fishing her phone out of her bag. She checked the two screens in the tracker app, knowing that Ellie was doing the same in the lobby. The vanity case was in Carmen’s room; the rental car was in the parking lot. She stopped off at her room to change into her bathing suit, running shorts, and a T-shirt, and rode up to the top floor.
For the next two hours, she turned off her brain and immersed herself in activity. She began in the counterweight room, then rode a stationary bicycle before stripping down to her bathing suit and doing ten laps in the pool as the rain pattered on the glass ceiling and walls. Sauna, steam, shower. She toyed with the idea of a massage, but ended up just getting a shampoo and blowout and a mani-pedi.
All the women in the salon, stylists and clients, were smiling and laughing and gossiping about men, clothes, movie stars—the usual, most of it in French. Nora relaxed in the atmosphere, basking in the normality of everyday life. She didn’t select Femme Fatale when she was asked; she chose a pale, translucent polish called Presque Rose for her hands and feet.
When she returned to her room downstairs, the first thing she thought was: nine o’clock. Dinner at nine o’clock—the exact same time the action would be going down in Barbados. While she and Ellie surreptitiously watched Carmen Lamont and three other people, Jeff would be closing in on Claude Lamont and the legendary Diablo. Where would the meeting occur? Would the arrest go well? Would it all be over then? Most of all, would her husband be safe?
She lay down on the bed, trying to maintain the relaxed mood from the spa. She wanted to take a nap, but she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep—which was why she was surprised when the phone on the night table buzzed, and woke her. She shot up to a sitting position in the dark hotel room, blinking, orienting herself as she grabbed the phone.
“Hi,” Ellie said. “I made a reservation for eight-thirty; I figured we should be in place when they arrive. I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes, okay?”
Nora squinted at her watch in the dark: 8:15. She’d been asleep for two hours. “Yes, I’ll see you there.”
She switched on the lights, deciding not to dress up for dinner. Ellie was in jacket and slacks, so the blue gown would be overkill; the beige sundress would be fine. She went into the bathroom. A quick brush through her hair, a little makeup, and she was ready. She grabbed her shoulder bag and hurried down to the lobby.
“You look great,” Ellie said. “I like your nails.”
Nora smiled, grateful that she could at least appear normal when she was so worried about her husband. Once an actress, always an actress, she decided. They were seated at a table for two in the dimly lit main dining room, next to the glass wall that separated the building from the dining terrace outside. The drapes were closed, but Nora could hear the patter of rain on the glass behind them. Every now and then, the room was illuminated by flashes of lightning beyond the drapes, followed by a rumble of thunder.
“That’s her table, over there,” Ellie said, indicating a table for four in the middle of the room with a standing card in the center: RESERVÉ—C. LAMONT. Perfect, Nora thought—not too close, but close enough. She and Ellie would be able to see Carmen’s party clearly without being noticed themselves.
“I’m buying tonight,” Nora said. “We can’t stick your agency with two fancy dinners in a row. What do you recommend that we haven’t already tried? I’ll have what you have again—or should we get two different things? You decide.”
Ellie ordered a bottle of white wine, endive salads, roast chicken with a wild cherry glaze over wild rice, and mousse au citron vert. Nora smiled as the wine was poured, thinking that this brief stay in the resort hotel in Martinique was setting her back quite a bit: Their lunch, her spa trip, and this meal cost more than she usually spent in a month at home. At least the Company was paying for her room and Ellie’s manicure, and the missing Ken Nelson had bought last night’s sumptuous repast…
Ken Nelson, Nora thought. Please, let him be alive.
As if hearing her silent wish, Ellie said, “I ordered a lighter meal tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure how hungry I am at the moment.”
Nora nodded. “I keep thinking about my husband. This man Diablo didn’t get that nickname by being warm and fuzzy. I hope they can capture him without anyone getting hurt.” She glanced at her watch again: 8:47.
“I haven’t met your husband yet, Nora,” Ellie said, “but he sounds like quite a man. He’s done stuff like this a hundred times. He’ll be fine.”
A flash of lightning from beyond the drapes was followed by a thunderclap. The women jumped, startled, then looked at each other and began to laugh.
“I guess we’re both on edge,” Nora said, “and yet I seem to have sleeping sickness—I slept eight hours last night and two hours this afternoon. For all my anxiety, I can’t seem to stay awake. You’re right: Jeff is quite a man. I know how good he is at this, but I worry anyway. I’ve always worried about him, just as I worry about my daughter. It’s a full-time job with no benefits, but I can’t change it.”
Ellie Singer was watching her closely, a dreamy smile on her face. “Believe it or not, Nora, that sounds wonderful to me. I see what you have, what my brother has, and I think it’s what I want. I’ve been the single student, the single rookie officer and detective, and now I’m the single junior agent with the Company. I’m ready for more; I’m ready to settle down, maybe start a family. I’m willing to worry about them twenty-four-seven, and not always be worrying about myself. I’m sure you know how fortunate you are, and your job does have benefits: You have them. You’re not alone in the world.”
“Yes,” Nora said as the salads arrived. “I have them.”
She was reaching for her salad fork when the phone in her bag buzzed. It was Jeff.
“Excuse me,” Nora said to Ellie as she raised the phone to her ear. “Hello, darling. Is it all over?”
The first thing she heard from him was a sigh. Jeffrey Baron had a variety of sighs, and Nora could identify them all. This was the Bad News Sigh. She braced herself.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“In the hotel restaurant with Ellie,” she replied. She glanced over at the empty table in the center of the room. “We’re waiting for Carmen Lamont and her friends to arrive.”
“She’s not there?” her husband said. “You don’t have eyes on her?”
Nora sat up straight in her chair. “No. No, we don’t. Jeff, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Another Bad News Sigh, this one more pronounced. “The cruise line is trying to contact her. They just found Claude Lamont in his cabin. He’s dead.”
Chapter 26
Nora flagged down the waiter and canceled the rest of their dinner, then she and Ellie went out into the lobby. She kept the phone pressed to her ear all the while. She sank onto a rattan couch, listening. Ellie sat beside her.
“I wasn’t allowed into the suite,” Jeff said, “but I saw from the doorway. He had a heart attack. He was lying on the floor by the dining table in his underwear and a bathrobe, his coffee cup on the carpet beside him. He’s been dead since this morning. I hadn’t seen him all day, but the purser said he’d been booked on a bus tour of the island, so I figured I’d missed him. When he wasn’t back by seven, I got worried. I finally went to the captain, told him I was supposed to have dinner with Cla
ude but he hadn’t showed. He hadn’t been seen all day, and that’s when they entered his suite.”
“A heart attack,” Nora said. “That seems—”
“There’s more, Pal. The Dunstans have vanished. They didn’t come back from the beach picnic with the rest of their group when the rain started. The local police are searching the island, but nothing so far. They were last seen at the beach at about two o’clock. With a seven-hour head start, they could be anywhere, and this storm isn’t helping the search. The captain and the police are treating it as a missing-persons case, but you and I know they have a connection to the Lamonts.”
Nora thought about that. The wife had been seeing Claude, and the husband apparently didn’t know about it. Apparently. But what if he had known, or if he’d suddenly found out about it? With an effort, she stopped herself from speculating. There was a much more urgent issue here.
“So, what happens to our op?” she asked.
“Jeez, Pal, I don’t know. I think we might have to walk away from this one. If Diablo was nearby, he probably heard about all the ruckus on the Tropic Star—it’s all over the news here—and he’ll be long gone by now. I spoke to Sam Friedman, and I have a call in to Mr. Green, but he hasn’t replied, and Ralph isn’t picking up. At this point, the main thing for you to do is find Carmen Lamont and tell her what’s happened.”
“Carmen is in her room, as far as we can tell. What if she’s—” Nora paused a moment, thinking it through. “Diablo borrowed a hundred million bucks from these people. Now Claude is dead, and I bet it wasn’t a simple heart attack. And that attempt on her in Guadeloupe—what if that man was working for Diablo? He’s already killed Mary Ross, and Carmen’s the only other person in the world who’d know about the debt—it came from Claude’s secret offshore account, right? If Diablo were to get rid of both of them, he’d walk away with all that money. What if that’s why he got them here on the cruise? And the Dunstans—he might have decided they were—”
Jeff cut her off. “Whoa, Pal! You need to find Carmen. You’re outside the dining room now, right? If she’s dead, she’s dead, but if she’s alive, she needs to know what’s going on. Has she shown up at her table?”
Nora looked over at the restaurant. She could see the reserved table from here; it was still empty. She glanced at her watch: 9:06. The party of four was six minutes late for their carefully reserved dinner: RÉSERVÉ—C. LAMONT.
Nora Baron froze, staring at the placard on the table.
RÉSERVÉ—C. LAMONT.
In that moment, the whole story changed. She dismissed her scenario in favor of another, and this time she knew it was the right story. The real story.
“She knows,” Nora said.
Jeff didn’t get it. “What?”
“She knows,” Nora said again.
“What do you mean, Pal? What makes you think—”
“She knows,” Nora said a third time. “About her husband, about us, about everything! Hang on a sec, Jeff.” She turned to Ellie. “Check the trackers. See if Carmen is on the move.”
Ellie manipulated her phone. “No, they’re both in place. She must be here.”
Nora thought quickly. “Go to the front desk, Ellie. Tell them we have emergency information for Carmen Lamont. Find the manager, find a security guard, find someone, only get us into her room now!”
Ellie was up from the couch and running toward the desk before Nora had finished her instructions. Nora spoke into the phone again. “Jeff, I’m going to—Jeff?”
She stopped, straining to hear. There was a commotion on the other end of the line, voices raised in argument. Her husband was saying something, and another male voice was replying: deep, mellifluous, British West Indian. A third man’s voice entered the conversation, and Nora recognized it: Captain Lindstrom of the Tropic Star. Now all three men were talking at once, and she could only make out the loudest parts. She heard the word custody and the word jurisdiction.
Across the room, Ellie was confronting the desk clerk, a nervous-looking young man who was talking into a phone. As Nora watched, an older, gray-haired West Indian man in a business suit came out through a door behind the counter and approached Ellie, smiling. Ellie went into an animated performance, and the older man’s polite smile vanished. He grabbed the phone from the nervous young man, punched in a number, and began barking into it.
Nora took in a long, deep breath. The argument in her ear, the melodrama at the desk across the lobby, and her shocking new suspicion merged, colliding in her brain, and for a moment she thought she might pass out from the overload.
C. Lamont.
How had she not noticed that before? How could she have been so—so—so inattentive? If her new hunch was right, she might never forgive herself.
She thought about her list:
Carmen Lamont is the true CFO of Compagnie Mistral, as Yvette had been before her. Where did Carmen learn about big business?
Yvette Marchand never once mentioned Claude’s illegal activities in her interview. An angry, drunk ex-wife would surely take advantage of that knowledge, but she didn’t. Conclusion: She doesn’t know about it. Why? When did Claude first start his lucrative sideline with the cartels and terror groups?
She thought about the market in Guadeloupe two days ago, the thorough search of all the goods on sale and the ultimate selection: a packet of ground local coffee. Claude Lamont always drank coffee; Carmen always drank tea. Always…
She thought of the enlargement the analysts at Langley had made from her photo at El Morro—the clasped hands of the two women concealing a small, bulky envelope…
She thought of the scene Jeff had glimpsed from the doorway of Claude Lamont’s cabin. Claude lay dead on the floor, his coffee cup lying beside him…
Most of all, Nora thought about the intercepted message: “D meeting with CL tomorrow night 9PM IN. Watch and report.”
D for Diablo.
CL for—
“Pal? Pal?” Jeff’s voice crashed into her thoughts. “Nora?”
“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “What’s happening there? Why is everyone shouting?”
“Promise me you won’t panic, Pal, but Detective Chief Inspector Hobbs is taking me to police headquarters. They want me to assist them with their enquiries, as they say here. I haven’t disclosed what I’m doing here and where I work, but I might have to if they keep me for long. Find Mr. Green—he might have to help me out here. And find Mrs. Lamont—if you’re right and someone killed her husband, she could be in danger.”
“Oh, Jeff, I don’t think she’s—”
“I have to go with them now. Find Mr. Green and have him call Detective Chief Inspector Hobbs in Barbados. Don’t worry; I’ll be fine. I love you, Pal.”
The line went dead. Nora slowly lowered the phone.
“I love you more,” she whispered.
Ellie came charging back across the lobby with the older man from the desk behind her. Nora was on her feet by the time they arrived.
“This is Monsieur Pellier,” Ellie said. “He’s the night manager. Come on.”
They took an elevator to the second floor and moved quickly down the corridor to the door of room 221, where a uniformed security guard waited for them. A sign hung from the doorknob: NE PAS DÉRANGER. M. Pellier knocked and waited, then knocked again. He called, “Madame Lamont, c’est le gérant d’hôtel.” Silence.
The manager used a keycard to unlock the door. The guard entered first, looked around, and nodded to M. Pellier, who also went in. Nora and Ellie waited in the open doorway until the manager waved them inside.
The room was empty. M. Pellier checked the bathroom and closet, but everything was gone. Well, not quite everything: Nora spotted a sealed hotel stationery envelope on the dresser beside a keycard and a small black object—the tracking device Jeff had planted inside the vanit
y case’s leather name tag window. She went over to the dresser, staring down at the name written on the envelope in neat block capitals:
NORA BARON
Chapter 27
Nora looked over at the manager and the security guard, who were still checking the closets; they hadn’t seen the objects on the dresser. Ellie saw the envelope, made eye contact with Nora, and moved, planting her body between Nora and the two men. Nora snatched up the envelope and tracking device and slipped them into her shoulder bag. By the time the men came over to inspect the rest of the room, Nora had moved away from the dresser to stand beside Ellie.
“Voici sa carte d’accès,” M. Pellier murmured, picking it up from the dresser. He turned to Nora and said, “Your friend, she is not here. She has left the hotel without telling us. This is most irregular. I am sorry, madame.”
Nora nodded, giving the manager a rueful smile. “We’ll find her, monsieur. Thank you for acting so quickly. We will begin calling all her friends now, and I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.” She moved over to the door and out into the corridor, with Ellie right behind her. They didn’t go down the hall to the elevator; instead they found the nearest stairwell and ran up one flight to Nora’s floor.
In Nora’s room, the two women sat at the little table in one corner, staring at the envelope. Nora told Ellie her new theory, then looked at her watch: 9:28. She called the Gril de Port and asked that the dinner she’d canceled be reactivated for ten o’clock. While they waited to go downstairs, Nora opened the envelope and pulled out two sheets of hotel stationery.
Carmen Lamont’s cursive handwriting was beautiful, elegant, and perfectly controlled—not unlike the woman herself. Nora read the letter once quickly, then went back to the beginning and read it aloud to Ellie.
Dear Nora Baron,
I will be gone by the time you read this, but I wish to thank you for your concern on my behalf, and for all you’ve done for me. I noticed you watching me aboard the Tropic Star on our first night out of Miami, and later I saw you everywhere I went: San Juan, Guadeloupe, Martinique. I know you saw my husband with his paramour, Mrs. Dunstan, and I think you noticed my bruises at the ship’s pool.
