She told me, “I was saving my Christmas bonus for our anniversary, but you know what I thought at four this morning?”
“Tell me.”
“No better time than now. No better place than this.”
Chapter 95
The hotel lobby glowed. I'm not one of those guys who studies the “House Beautiful” channel, but I knew luxury and comfort, and Amanda, prancing in place beside me, filled in the details. She pointed out the Mediterranean style, the archways and beamed ceilings, the plump sofas and logs burning in a tiled fireplace. The vast, rolling ocean below.
Then Mandy warned me – and she was serious.
“If you mention what' s-his-name, even once, the bill goes on your credit card, not mine. Okay?”
“Deal,” I said, pulling her in for a hug.
Our room had a fireplace, and when Mandy started tossing her clothes onto the chair, I pictured us rolling around in the king-size bed for the rest of the afternoon.
She read the look in my eyes, laughed, and said, “Oh, I see. Wait, okay? I've got another idea.”
I was becoming a big fan of Mandy's ideas. She stepped into her leopard-print bikini, and I put on my trunks, and we went out to a pool in the center of the main garden. I followed Mandy's lead, diving in, and heard – I couldn't quite believe it – music playing underwater.
Back in our room, I untied the strings of Mandy's swimsuit, pushed down the bikini bottoms, and she climbed up on me, her legs around my waist. I walked her into the shower and not too many minutes later we tumbled onto the bed, where goofiness became heart-pounding lovemaking.
Later we napped, Mandy falling asleep while lying on my chest with her knees tucked up along my sides. For the first time in weeks, I slept deeply without my eyes flying open at some bloody nightmare.
At sundown, Mandy slipped into a small black dress and twisted up her hair, making me think of Audrey Hepburn. We took the winding stairs down to the Bella Vista and were shown to a table near the fire. There was marble underfoot, mahogany-paneled walls, a billion-dollar view of whitecaps below, and a glass-paned ceiling showing cobalt twilight over our heads.
I glanced at the menu, put it down when the waiter came over. Mandy ordered for us both.
I was grinning again. Amanda Diaz knew how to take a day out of the dumper and light up memories that could take the two of us into old age.
We started our five-star dinner with sautéed jumbo scallops and continued with scrumptious honey-cilantro-glazed sea bass with mushrooms and snow peas. Then the waiter brought dessert menus and chilled champagne.
I turned the bottle so I could read the labeclass="underline" Dom Pérignon.
“You didn't order this, did you, Mandy? This is about three hundred dollars.”
“Wasn't me. We must've got somebody else's bubbly.”
I reached for the card the waiter had left on a small silver tray. It read, “The Dom is on me. It's the good stuff. Best regards, H.B.”
Henri Benoit.
Fear shot right up my spine. How had that fucker known where we were when I hadn't known where we were going myself?
I got to my feet, knocking over my chair. I pivoted around, a full 360 and then back again in the other direction to be sure. I scanned every face in the room: the old man with soup on his whiskers, the bald tourist with his fork poised over his plate, the honeymooners standing in the entrance-way, and every one of the waitstaff.
Where was he? Where?
I stood so that I blocked Mandy with my body, and I felt the scream tearing out of my throat.
“Henri, you bastard. Show yourself.”
Chapter 96
After the scene in the dining room, I locked and chained the door to our suite, checked the latches on the windows, closed the drapes. I hadn't brought my gun, a gross mistake I wouldn't make again.
Mandy was pale and shaking as I sat her down next to me on the bed.
“Who knew we were coming here?” I asked her.
“I made the reservation when I went home to pack this morning. That's all.”
“You're sure?”
“Except for calling Henri on his private line, you mean?”
“Seriously. You talk to anyone on your way out this morning? Think about it, Mandy. He knew we'd be here.”
“I just told you, Ben, really. I didn't tell anyone. I just called in my credit card to the reservation clerk. That's all I did. That's all.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
I had been thorough. I was sure of it. I revisited that night when I'd just returned from New York, and Henri called me at Amanda's apartment minutes after I'd walked in the door. I'd checked Mandy's phones and mine, checked both of our apartments for bugs.
I hadn't noticed anything unusual around us on the highway this afternoon. There was no way anyone could have followed us when we took the off-ramp to Santa Barbara. We had been alone for so many miles that we'd practically owned the road.
Ten minutes ago, after the maitre d' escorted us out of the dining room, he'd told me that the champagne had been phoned in, charged to a credit card by Henri Benoit. That explained nothing. Henri could have called from any point on the globe.
But how had he known where we were?
If Henri hadn't tapped Mandy's phone, and if he hadn't tailed us -
A stunning thought cracked through my mind like a lightning strike. I stood up, and said, “He put a tracking device on your bike.”
“Don't even think about leaving me in this room alone,” Amanda said. I sat back down beside her, took her hand between both of mine and kissed it. I couldn't leave her in the room, and I couldn't protect her in the parking lot either.
“As soon as it's light tomorrow, I'm dismantling your bike until I find the bug.”
“I can't believe what he's doing to us,” Mandy said, and then she started to cry.
Chapter 97
We held on to each other under the bedcovers, our eyes wide open, listening to every footstep overhead, every creak in the hallway outside the room, every groan and pitch of the air conditioner. I didn't know if I was being rational or extremely paranoid, but I felt Henri watching us now.
Mandy had me tightly wrapped in her arms when she started crying out, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.”
I tried to comfort her, saying, “Honey, stop. This isn't such bad news. We'll find out how he's tracking us.”
“Oh, my God – this,” she said, poking me hard high on my right buttock. “This thing on your hip. I've told you about it. You always say it's nothing.”
“That thing? It is nothing.”
“Look at it.”
I threw off the blankets, switched on the lights, walked to the bathroom mirror with Mandy close behind me. I couldn't see it without contorting myself, but I knew what she was talking about: a welt that had been tender for a few days after Henri had clubbed me in my apartment.
I'd thought it was a bruise from the fall, or a bug bite, and after a few days the soreness went away.
Mandy had asked me about the bump a couple of times, and, yes, I'd said it was nothing. I reached around and touched the raised spot, the size of two grains of rice lying end-to-end.
It didn't seem so nothing, not anymore.
I rifled through my toiletry kit, dumped it out on the vanity, and found my razor. I beat it against the marble sink until the shaving head broke into parts.
“You're not going to? Ben! You don't want me to do it?”
“Don't worry. It'll hurt me more than it hurts you.”
“Wow, you're funny.”
“I'm fucking terrified,” I said.
Mandy took the blade from my hand, poured Listerine over it, and dabbed at the spot on my rump. Then she pinched a fold of skin and made a quick cut.