Twenty

“Then let’s not do it,” Hollis suggested.

“You stay here. I’m going to go to the men’s room. Watch to see if someone follows me. If no one follows me, then just wait for me in the gift shop.”

“And if someone does?”

“Take a taxi to the cemetery. I’ll lose the guy and meet you there.”

“I hate this idea.”

Finn ignored her. “Hopefully, I’ll meet you in the gift shop. If you’re not there, I’ll see you at the cemetery.”

“If there is someone, text me when you lose the guy.”

Finn walked slowly away from her, toward the entrance to the museum. She scanned the visitors to see if anyone made a move. It wasn’t crowded, but there were enough people wandering to make tracking everyone a challenge. She saw a familiar face walk into the room—the man from the restaurant, the one she now knew was Peter’s man. But he stayed put. His eyes were on her.

Hollis saw Finn pause and look up at a sign that pointed toward the men’s room, then he walked inside. At first it didn’t seem as if anyone was following, but then she saw a young couple separate. The man walked straight toward the men’s room.

Young man, blue shirt, she texted. Then another man walked in that direction. Older, black jacket.

Hollis waited to see if anyone else followed but no one did. How long should she wait? She looked over at the man from the restaurant. He was texting.

A minute passed with no one else going in or out of the men’s room. Finn’s plan was solid, she knew that. Easier for one of them to get to Eva Perón’s grave unnoticed than two.

Two minutes had passed. She glanced toward the gift shop. He’d be annoyed if she ignored his plan and just waited for him anyway. They had the phones. He’d be okay, she told herself. His boxing teacher had praised his technique.

She walked outside. She half hoped she wouldn’t be able to find a taxi, but there were several. She picked the middle one just in case the first one was a TCT driver. It was getting hard to live with so much suspicion.

“Recoleta Cemetery, por favor,” she said.

The man nodded and drove off. She took one last look through the back window but saw no sign of Finn. He’d be okay, she told herself again.

The drive was longer than she expected. Buenos Aires was a large city, spread out. And each neighborhood had its own personality. While Palermo had seemed trendy, Recoleta had an “old money” air to it. The avenues were wider, the buildings even more Parisian, the shops much more expensive.

She kept her burner phone on her lap, waiting for a reassuring text from Finn. But there was nothing. After ten minutes she sent him one. Okay? But there was no response.

“He’s okay,” she muttered to herself, but she no longer believed it.

“Here,” the driver said, pulling up in front of a stone wall.

Hollis pulled out a fifty-peso bill.

“Too much,” the taxi driver said. “I get you change.”

“It’s okay.”

She wasn’t paying attention. There was a man getting out of the taxi behind her, and he looked a lot like the shorter of the two gunmen on the plane to Argentina. She’d been so focused on Finn that she’d missed someone keeping track of her.

“Could you drive a block, turn the corner or something?” she asked the driver.

“But this is the entrance.” He pointed toward an elaborate art nouveau gate, through which tourists were moving in and out.

“I’m trying to avoid someone.”

The taxi driver smiled. “Okay with me then. I’ll bring you somewhere.”

As the car pulled away, she looked into the rearview mirror and saw that the man getting out of the taxi was gesturing angrily. He tried to get back in the taxi, but a well-dressed woman with a purse dog jumped in ahead of them. Hollis’s driver was around the corner and back in busy Buenos Aires traffic before he’d found a replacement.

She was about to ask the driver where he was taking her when the car screeched to a halt. “This is a shop all the tourists like,” he said. “You spend twenty minutes in there, your friend will forget you.”

“The cemetery is where?”

The driver gestured to the rear window. “We are at the back.” He pointed to a stone wall. “Follow the wall around and you’ll find the gate.”

“Is there another entrance?”

“No, you go in where we were. You have to pay there.”

Hollis went for her wallet, but the driver shook his head. “You have paid me already. Enjoy Argentina.”

The driver peeled away, leaving her on the sidewalk outside a small shop with leather jackets in the window. Still no word from Finn. She almost texted him her location, but what if someone else had his phone?

It was a bad idea, splitting up. Much worse than spending their wedding night at his parent’s house.

She walked inside the shop and was immediately greeted by a smiling saleswoman.

“Hola! ”

Hollis nodded.

“I’m Nina,” the woman said. “I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

Hollis glanced back at the street, then into the shop where there were rows of suede and leather jackets, belts, wallets, and handbags. “I’m just looking.”

“We have some wonderful purses,” she said. “It’s from capybara hides. Do you know the capybara?”

Hollis looked at her phone. Nothing yet. “No.”

“It’s the world’s largest rodent. They are very popular in Argentina.” Nina brought her a light tan crossbody bag with a mottled texture. It was beautiful. From inside she pulled a postcard with a photo of a sweet-faced animal, one that looked more like a giant, sleepy Guinea pig than a rat.

“He’s too cute to wear as a purse,” Hollis said, handing it back. The price tag was a factor too. Even doing a general exchange from pesos to dollars, the cost was several hundred dollars.

“I know what you want,” Nina said.

“I want Finn,” Hollis muttered. But Nina was digging into the racks of leather coats. Hollis thought about texting Peter. When she’d walked out of the museum, Peter’s man hadn’t followed. That was good, right? He was with Finn.

“Try this on.” Nina slipped a soft brown jacket onto Hollis before she had a chance to protest.

“I’m not in the market for a jacket.”

“But it looks so wonderful on you.”

Nina turned Hollis to face a full-length mirror. It did look wonderful. The jacket was light, but it felt warm. The suede was soft to the touch, and the color was somewhere between a light caramel and toffee.

“The nice thing about goat suede is that it can get wet. You just hang it up to dry, give it a brush if you want, and it’s good to go,” Nina kept talking while Hollis used the full-length mirror to look out the window.

She glimpsed someone. Not Finn. The gunman who had followed her. He’d walked the perimeter of the cemetery, she realized, probably wondering, as she had, if there was another entrance. The good news was he hadn’t seen Hollis. Yet.

“It’s lovely,” Hollis said. “But I need to leave.”

“The sleeves are a little long on you. Perhaps we can go upstairs, and I’ll adjust them.”

The man moved toward the shop. It was hard to tell looking through the mirror’s reflection, but it didn’t seem that he knew Hollis was there. He was just, she hoped, doing a general search.

“Upstairs?” Hollis asked.

Nina pointed toward a staircase at the back of the shop. “We do our alterations.”

“Okay.”

The man reached the window of the shop, looking in. Hollis stayed in front of Nina, walking quickly until she reached the stairs. Just as she was out of sight, she heard the door to the shop open and another salesperson greet that customer with a cheery, “Hola!”

What she couldn’t hear was the person reply.

On the second floor, Hollis kept listening for voices while Nina introduced her to a tailor, who began marking the jacket with chalk.

“He’ll take it in for you a little. You have such a slim figure,” Nina said. “It will be ready tomorrow. We can deliver to your hotel room. Where are you staying?”

“Hollywood Hotel in Palermo.” Everything was a blur. Half her brain was focused on her purse and the gun inside, just in case the man came upstairs, and the other half silently begging to hear the reassuring ping of a text from Finn.

“How would you like to pay?”

Hollis put her hand in her purse, making sure not to expose the gun. She felt around until the hard corners of the credit card were in her grasp. If nothing else, buying the coat on credit would alert Peter to where she was.

Nina took her card and went downstairs. By that time the tailor had finished his work and took the jacket off her.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

She nodded. Hopefully I’ll be alive to receive it, she thought.

The tailor waved his hand toward the stairs and nodded. Obviously, it was time to go. There was no other exit from the small room. She’d have to go back down to the main shop. She put her hand in the open purse, gripping the gun, and took each step slowly.

At the bottom of the stairs, she peeked around the corner. A woman and a teenage girl were picking out handbags, but they were the only customers there. The gunman wasn’t in the store, at least as far as she could see. Hollis checked her phone one more time. Still nothing from Finn.

Nina handed Hollis back the credit card. “Are you okay?”

“I seem to have lost track of my husband. He was supposed to meet me.”

“Husbands! He probably didn’t want to come shopping and now he will regret that he doesn’t have a wonderful souvenir.” Nina smiled. “Wait!”

She was gone and back in a few seconds. In her hand she held a wallet made of the capybara hide. “This will let him know you were thinking of him.”

All it took was a slight nod from Hollis and Nina had taken back the credit card, rung up the wallet, and placed it in a small bag. In less than ten minutes, she’d spent over six hundred dollars. At least it wasn’t her money.

There was nothing left to do but go to the cemetery, find Eva Perón’s grave, and hope that Finn was there.