Twenty-Four

The hotel bar was filling up when Hollis and Finn arrived. Some of the patrons were quite dressed up and others were in jeans and t-shirts, but they all looked incredibly stylish. It made Hollis aware of the spider webs on Finn’s pants and the crypt dust that clung to them both.

“Our lives are weird,” she said.

“Huh?”

She shook her head. “Save the couple, room service, shower,” she said instead.

“Kill Declan. Don’t forget the most important part.”

“Which, oddly, is what Tim and Janet are supposed to be doing.”

Finn stopped just short of the elevator bank. “But they’re dead. I was thinking of the note. Tim and Janet McCabe are dead because Declan killed them and substituted us. What better way to make sure he isn’t the victim of a hit than to have his friends play the hitman?”

Hollis smiled.

“Not friends,” Finn corrected himself, “but you know what I mean.”

Behind her she heard footsteps. Matias was running toward them with a large silver envelope in his hand.

“Señor McCabe,” he said. “This has arrived for you both.” He handed the envelope to Finn and glanced at their dusty clothes. “You are enjoying your visit?”

“Very much,” Hollis lied. “Has the honeymoon couple checked in yet? We thought we’d drop off a bottle of wine for them.”

“How kind of you! Yes, they arrived a few minutes ago.” He frowned. “It’s still okay that I gave them the room you had paid for?”

“Yes, fine. Perfect.” She tried to smile but she had images of gunmen waiting for the happy couple. She only hoped that they were still at gunpoint, and not already dead.

In the elevator, Finn handed Hollis the envelope. It had Señor and Señora McCabe in beautiful script written across the front. Inside was an invitation to a party.

“Tonight at the Café Tortoni,” Hollis relayed. “A car will be sent for us. It says black tie. I saw a dress in the suitcase, but nothing fancy enough. I wonder if there’s time to buy something.”

“Our lives are weird.”

“That’s what I said.”

“When?”

“As we were walking into the hotel.”

She could see that Finn was psyching himself up for whatever awaited them, so she didn’t press the point. His memory was a thing of wonder, she decided. He managed to remember every line he read in a book, and every mistake she made fifteen years ago, but not something she said just seconds after she said it.

The doors to the elevator opened. Finn took her hand. “Ready?”

“As I can be.”

They walked the short hall to a double door suite. Hollis could hear noises inside. Grunts and some muffled shuffling.

“Should we break in?” she asked.

Finn tried not to laugh. “Listen.”

It took a moment. The grunts, the shuffling … and just in case she wasn’t sure, she heard a moan. “Matias said they only arrived a few minutes ago,” Hollis said.

“They are on their honeymoon.”

“We weren’t like that.”

“You were terrified my mother would hear us.”

Hollis laughed. “You put a pillow over my face to keep me from making too much noise. You almost smothered me on our wedding night.”

He kissed her cheek. “I hope they have as many wonderful memories as we do.”

They listened a moment more. Still the same noises. “They seem pretty happy.”

Finn pulled her from the door. “Doesn’t mean they’re not in danger though.”

“So, what do we do?”

Finn looked around. “We could pull a fire alarm. Or call from our room and say there’s an emergency or something.”

Hollis looked around. No fire alarms close by. “Isn’t that cruel? Shouldn’t we let them, you know, finish?”

Finn leaned against the wall. “How long do you think that will be? I really want my steak.”

The elevator door opened. The taller gunmen from the plane stepped into the hallway. Finn stood straight, and Hollis stood next to him trying to look tougher than she felt. Could they tackle him, she wondered?

As he got closer, she realized he looked as nervous seeing them as they did seeing him. He was wearing a navy-blue European cut suit, slim against his muscular body. It was hard to see where he’d have hidden a gun, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one somewhere. Even though he was the taller of the two gunmen, he was still an inch or two shorter than Finn. He looked young, no older than his late twenties. And, though it seemed impossible, he almost looked shy.

“Your room, please,” he said, pointing toward the door.

“This isn’t our room,” Finn said.

“Yes, it’s your room.”

“We moved,” Hollis explained. “A honeymoon couple was checking in and we decided to let them have the luxury. They have nothing to do with any of this, do you understand?”

The man looked at her, puzzled. “Yeah, okay. Where is your room?”

So much for being safe in a different room, Hollis thought.

“Let’s go to the bar downstairs,” Finn said.

“No, please. Your room.”

It was crazy, but Hollis said it anyway: “I’m going to need your gun.”

He looked at her.

“Your gun. Otherwise we take the elevator to the bar, and you follow us on the next one.”

“But … Señora … Why would I hurt you? I want to be you.”

Finn took Hollis’s hand and walked to the elevator.

The man put his hands in the air. “Frisk me,” he said. “No gun.”

It was especially crazy, but Hollis did it. She ran her hands across his torso, his arms, and down each leg, checking his socks for hidden knives. He was really muscular. She wondered for a moment what he looked like under the suit, but she put that thought out of her mind.

She turned back to Finn. “He’s clean.”

The elevator door opened, and Finn motioned to the man. “We’re on the fifth floor. Take the elevator first, and we’ll meet you there.”

The man stepped in the elevator, looking thoroughly confused. He looked at Hollis as the doors closed.

“What was that?” Finn asked. “All the touching?” He ran his hand down her torso. She swatted it away. “You were very thorough.”

“I was appropriate. We’re hired killers. Hired killers frisk people to make sure they’re not carrying, don’t they?”

“I’m sure it’s in the handbook.”

“My point is he obviously knows who we are,” Hollis said. “Who the McCabes are. He may have hired us.”

“His boss, maybe. That guy is strictly muscle.”

“He really is,” she said.

Finn just rolled his eyes. “At least we got him away from the couple, and he knows that’s not our room, so I think they’re safe.” He pressed the down button.

“The way he was acting, I don’t think that he was going to harm them.”

“Yeah but the trauma he would have inflicted banging on their door while they were in the middle …” Finn smiled. “End of the marriage right there.”

Hollis took a few steps back and listened at the door. “They’ve stopped,” she whispered. Then she heard a moan. “No, started up again.”

“Envy them?”

“We do okay,” she said. “They should pace themselves. A lifetime is a lot longer than it seems on the wedding day.”

The elevator doors opened. She noticed that Finn had pressed the fifth-floor button. “Were going to meet him? We’re not going to run?”

“Where? Like you said, we’re hired killers and our job is to get rid of Declan. As long as we go along with that, we’re safe,” he said. “I think.”