The new hotel in Freeport City is a necessary irritation, because the appearance of Hewitt made remaining in Andros impossible. There are so few people there that an odd pairing of a white woman and a Hispanic man, such as Amaryllis and Gabriel, is sure to be recognized. Nassau is too far away from the Bimini/Berry Islands, so they head north to the island of Grand Bahama and its main town, Freeport City.
They must find a new boat and Scuba rental shop, which is an added annoyance, because everything had been so easy in Andros. Here, the best boat crews are lazy, and the rental shop keeps bizarre hours, often closing at mid-day, making afternoon dives impossible.
Everyone in the Bahamas works at a slow pace, and Amaryllis is waiting for the pot to boil every time she makes a request or asks a question. It’s paradise, yes, but not for someone trying to get an important project done. The drip, drip, drip of movement can drive a caffeinated city person insane.
By hook or crook they find a boat, but time is working against them. The sands can shift and literally create a new seabed—a phenomenon that can happen at any time in the Bahamas—and they return with worried minds to the spot where they found the pyramid.
On the way out to the site, Amaryllis is in high spirits, believing that her Pulitzer Prize-worthy story is within grasp again. After their third dive, however, she realizes the seascape has become unrecognizable. Huge swells have heaped sand upon the pyramid structures, so they resemble nothing more than haunting hulks of rock with no more secrets to reveal. It would take heavy machinery to remove that much sand. The monumental structures are hopelessly camouflaged, the pillars are missing, the seabed and its block pavement are completely covered by silt and debris.
She’s disappointed and depressed, for there are so few opportunities to snap the right pictures, especially with Hewitt on her trail. She wonders if the story ever will run. Will she simply run out of time, crowded out by these strange academics who can’t seem to get the concept of alternative archeological theories?
She emerges from the sea, disengages her gear and plucks off her hood, and shakes her head at Gabriel. Her fellow diver, a teenager named Raymond, says nothing and merely dumps his air tanks on the deck and collapses into a squat, holding his head in his hands.
“We’re through here,” she says. “That storm yesterday stirred up the seabed.”
Gabriel gazes west, lost in deep thought.
“There’s Bimini,” he says, referring to the site where some adventurers reported seeing the so-called Atlantean road. Amaryllis remembers how Sean spoke of it at dinner in Chicago.
“As much as I’d love to see the Bimini Road, it would be nothing more than a trap,” she says, shaking out her globs of long, wet hair. “Hewitt would think of it as the first place to look for us.”
She thinks a bit more and then addresses the captain, a pot-bellied man wearing nothing more than frayed denim shorts, flip flops, and a dingy captain’s cap. He doesn’t look like much of an information source, but at least he lives in the area. She figures he must know something.
“Johnny, sir,” she says, embarrassed that she never bothered to find out the captain’s last name. “Where else are there strange ruins in the sea?”
He laughs, big teeth showing a gap in the side, a place where he often lodges cigarettes. The teeth on either side of the gap are yellowed.
“The tourists from the big resorts don’t really look for those things. Not even in Bimini. But there’s something up your way that is peculiar,” he gestures to Amaryllis. “Near Florida is a tower.”
She and Gabriel press closer to him, waiting for more. Silence. Gabriel figures out the game and hands the man a few bills.
“Yes, mmm-hmmmm,” the captain says, counting the U.S. bills, which are far preferable to the local currency. “It’s up out of Bahamian waters. Sometimes, you can find it, other times, the instruments go crazy. Bermuda Triangle effect, maybe.” He laughs a deep baritone as he pockets the money. Raymond, who is now standing in nothing but swim trunks, also laughs as if he’s heard a knee-slapper.
“Oh, that place is a danger for sure,” the diver says. “Planes go down there, mon. Lotsa bad shit,” He drags the last word out as he pops a joint in his mouth and lights it. Amaryllis brushes away the sweet, pungent fumes. She’s got to stay levelheaded.
“Is it in international waters?” she asks, hoping the boat can take them there.
“No, my lady,” Johnny says, looking to the north with beady eyes. “It’s your area—U.S. But not even open to average folks. It’s a military base. “
“Down here? I never heard of that,” she says, feeling suspicion prickling at the back of her mind. “How close can you get us?”
“Depends,” Johnny says, shrugs his shoulders and makes preparations for Freeport.
“Sounds expensive,” Gabriel growls.
The diver nods his head, but it’s hard to tell whether he is simply appreciating the reggae music from his boom box or answering Gabriel’s question. They return to port without another word.
#
Freeport City’s only bar—at least the only bar where tourists are welcome—is heaving with people this Friday night. Dancers have filled the hall and now spill into the street. Amaryllis, normally not a drinker, is in need of some sort of release, and she finds herself gliding in toward the heavy reggae/ska beat. Gabriel follows. He wedges himself between her and the bar and orders two beers. They salute each other with a clink of glass and take swigs of their cold bottles. Gabriel motions her into a corner.
The music is so loud they can hear nothing more than the ringing in their ears, and the corner is no refuge. The Mexican shrugs and downs his beer in three long gulps. Amaryllis sips more lady-like, squeezing the lime into the lager. She’s thinking of the tower and what it might contain. Was that the place where my parents died? Could clues last for twenty-five years under the sea? Then her thoughts turn to money. She’s not sure at all that Wright is going to funnel endless supplies of cash into this story. She ponders whether to shell out a couple hundred of her own meager dollars to the disreputable Captain Johnny—all for the privilege of getting herself ensnared with the U.S. military.
She sighs and downs the rest of her beer, feeling no liberation from her worries, and now, she’s hotter than she was before she breezed into the bar. She’s sweating so much that her shirt clings to her torso. I’ve traveled from one extreme to another. Donny’s probably freezing his ass off right now.
The thought of Donny brings her to a full stop. She holds the bottle in front of her face to cool her forehead. She looks through the wavy glass and sees Gabriel in profile. He’s gazing eagle-like over the crowd. She ponders what she really wants: this strange Maya’s quest for lost ancestors, a successful career for herself, finding the secret of her parents’ murder, or a comfortable and handsome man like Donny? For the first time in years, she finds herself pulled off the career track, wrenched away from the course she’s always chosen in journalism. She’s always wanted to be the best, and Wright supported that dream by backing her with raises and promotions. Now, she surrenders to the obligation to delve into the family tragedy and solve the questions that linger. What would Fiona tell me to do? She misses her friend with a longing that squeezes her near the breastbone. Fiona always reads me like a psychic. It’s time to give her a call.
While she’s still daydreaming into the glass bottle, Gabriel grabs her by the shoulder with a pincer-like grip.
“Put it down,” he says under his breath, almost in a purr. Amaryllis thinks he’s merely being seductive until she looks into his face, then past his gaze into the crowd. She plops the bottle on the bar.
“That Hewitt is here, and he has company,” he whispers in her ear, as he swings her into his arms and they begin to dance. She begins to follow the reggae steps, which seem to differ from couple to couple. Gabriel’s are fluid and intricate, but she has little difficulty following the way he shifts his feet with each syncopated beat. Trying to look like a regular at the bar, she mimics Gabriel’s every move. As they swirl, she spots the pursuers.
Hewitt, tall and bearded, stands on a platform at street level and hovers over most of the heads, like a chaperone at a school dance. He’s one of the only men not dancing and by his side is a small, dark-complected Hispanic man. Whereas Hewitt is tidy and benign in appearance, even wearing a button-down shirt in this torrid heat, the small man is in tatters, like a feral beast. He has a strange, tic-like smile, the kind that bullies wear when tormenting small animals. Her nerves splay, vibrating throughout her extremities. Danger scorches the air and it’s not radiating from Hewitt. The squat, squint-eyed man is emanating a spell of pure malevolence.
“Gabriel,” she whispers. “We’ve got to get out.”
“Impossible. They’ll spot us immediately.”
A stocky white man taps her on the shoulder and asks to cut in. Gabriel nods, and she dances off, keeping her face averted. After a dozen tourists have whisked her around the dance floor, she begs off and finds Gabriel at the end of the bar. She scans the crowd. Hewitt and his friend have moved onto the street.
“Is there a back door?”
Gabriel doesn’t answer but grabs her again and pulls her into a savage version of the tango. The music changes again, and it’s a merengue. Oh good. I know the merengue. I learned it in L.A. She moves seamlessly with Gabriel, who is careful not to spin her or pull her too far away. She’s always close to his chest and she moans at the contact of her breasts to his muscled mid-section. Her shirt is pure gauze and her bra is thin, so her nipples are erect as he presses her body to his. She tries not to swoon under the sensations, tries to will her breasts not to give her away. She doesn’t look into his face, but knows he can’t escape the heat of her body.
They spin together, and he grabs her around the waist. They shake their hips in time to the music, and she acknowledges the unmistakable sensation of urgency course through her belly, making her organs quiver. He pulls her to his breastbone and spins her by her shoulders. She makes a full revolution and stops, just as the music ends, eye to eye with him. For one second, she is sure Gabriel will pull her into a deep kiss. Instead, he looks over her shoulder into the crowd.
“They are gone. Let’s get out.” His voice sounds remote, but he leads her by the hand, out the back door of the bar, down the street to the hotel. Hewitt and his ugly accomplice have disappeared, and Amaryllis and Gabriel whisk through the lobby. It also is empty. They go up to the door to Gabriel’s room. For one second, they stand, sweating, staring at each other with one un-spoken question between them. Then Gabriel unlocks the door, reaches over and picks her up, and carries her, like a bride over the threshold, to his bed.
For once in her well-controlled life, Amaryllis allows herself to be led, to be overruled, to be taken. He removes her clothing, bit by gauzy bit and then strips himself of his sodden garments. Like a Maya prince of old, he stands proud before her, leaning over and trapping her with his body. He bends down and kisses every inch of her flesh, as if he had been starving and she is the feast he’s been dreaming of. When he penetrates her guard and then her body, she realizes a wall has been shattered inside of her. Together, they shudder for several long minutes until sleep washes over their lust.
#
The cell phone rings, incredibly, waking Amaryllis in the middle of the night. She stuffed the device into her purse, sure that it didn’t work in the Bahamas, but hoping against hope that it might come alive. In Freeport, she recharged it. Now, it’s working. They must be near a cell tower, she reasons in her sleepy, foggy brain. She paws through the odds and ends in the purse and picks up the call just before it goes to voice mail.
“What?” she says, biting the word, trying to keep her voice down.
“Amy?”
“Wright! I mean, Mr. Wright. How did you get me? This thing wasn’t working a couple days ago.”
“Dammit, Amy. What are you up to? The FBI is looking for you.”
She gulps and, now horrified at her nakedness, grabs the guest robe from Gabriel’s closet. It’s crazy, but she can’t talk to her boss in the nude. She tucks the phone under her chin as she slips an arm into one sleeve, then the other. It’s a laborious process, but Gabriel is lost in sleep and cannot help.
“Let me…can I call you back?”
“No, you cannot! I was lucky to get you now. What’s so damn important?”
“Well, for one thing it’s 4 a.m. here, and I was dead asleep.” She ties the terrycloth belt and scoops up her purse. Still holding the cell phone under her chin, she slips out the door, sneaks down the hall, puts her own key into her room lock, slips inside and settles on her own bed. She’s like a kid caught cheating on a test. Though Wright is thousands of miles away, she can’t shake the sensation that he’s walked in on the tryst between Gabriel and herself. Along the way, Wright has been sputtering about how she’s an important witness to a crime, and how dare she leave the country without telling anyone?
“Well, no one asked.”
“They screen everyone.”
“Obviously, I wasn’t on the list of people to hassle. I’m only in the Bahamas, not Lebanon.”
“The Bahamas? Are you mad?”
“No, Mr. Wright. I’ve got pictures. Photos that are going to make the story work.”
Silence. Amaryllis starts to panic, thinking someone found her hard disk and that Wright’s about to tell her that the story is gone.
“Oh, well,” his voice has changed and has that unctuous quality that drives her nuts. “You’re on the story again. That’s good. Excellent. The FBI has made headway and they think they have located Garret’s photos.”
“I’ll send mine to you. The druggist has a digital photo service. Of course, I’ve got to find someone with an Internet connection…”
“It can wait. The story will have to be amended.”
“I can do that in Florida.”
“Is that where you are going? I thought you were coming back to L.A.”
“Unfinished business. I’m not quite done down here. But I’ll get to the American border to please the feds.”
“Call me when you get there.” The connection breaks. She sits in the dark wondering if she wants to return to Florida, venture to the tower in No Man’s Land, or sail off with Gabriel to Mexico and become a Maya princess, never to return.
She falls asleep on her own bed without even pulling back the covers.
#
“You’ve got to come with me to Miami.”
Gabriel is slurping down coffee in the hotel diner and paying more attention to his beverage than to Amaryllis. He’s been edgy since he awoke and refuses to meet her eyes. In the end, he stops and looks up at her with sleepy lids.
“I don’t have a green card.”
“Can’t you get a travel visa?”
“It takes weeks.” He slams the cup down and motions the waiter over to pour more. There’s more than a green card keeping him from Florida.
“First, the FBI needs to talk to me,“ she says. “So, I’ve got to return there.”
“Then go.”
She stares at him as if regarding a strange new beast, certainly not the man who held her in his strong arms last night. She coughs, trying to pitch her voice lower for more authority.
“Next, I have to follow the leads on who killed my parents. Because I do believe it was murder, Gabriel, and whoever murdered them is after me—and you.”
He makes a dismissive motion with his free hand and returns his attention to mixing sugar into his coffee. She stares at him, willing some response, but he’s stubborn and silent.
“You don’t care.” She can’t believe she’s seeing this.
He looks up, his eyes bleary, and regards her as he might a brick in the wall. There’s nothing there. He has shut down like a disengaged robot. She gets up and tosses her napkin on the table, shoving her chair in so that it screeches against the floor. Heads turn at other tables, but she doesn’t look at them. Before she turns on her heel, Gabriel puts a fist down on the table.
“What makes you think I’d ever go to the United States with you?” he asks in a low snarl. “I hate the States. I hate everything the country stands for. You and your tourist friends, trampling the countryside, defacing the ruins. I hate all of you.”
She has seen hangovers before, but never anything like this.
“I’m an American,” she says, keeping her voice down. “Do you hate me?”
He doesn’t answer but turns to look out the window at the clouds that are forming over a sea ruffled by wind. He’s lost to her. She slips out, leaving him to pay for breakfast. She stomps to her room and begins throwing the few items she unpacked back into her suitcase. As she grabs her toiletries from the bathroom, her mind begins running at top speed and she starts remembering the many times Gabriel rebuffed her attentions. The only thing she can make of his behavior now is that he’s sorry he succumbed to her last night.
“Damn creep,” she says as she stuffs her hairbrush and toothpaste into her carryon bag. “Just like all the others. I’m sport and amusement. Someone to toy with.”
She’s steaming now and slams the last few items in her bag, fastening zippers, searching the closet for any leftover items. She doesn’t want a trace of her existence left behind, not even a hair in shower drain. As she opens drawers and punches pillows, she hears a knock on the door.
She figures it’s the maid and steps to open it, starting to say “It’s ready…” Instead, she comes face to face with Gabriel. Now what? They stand close together without speaking, discomfort wafting in the close air. Yet, the warmth of his body is starting to melt her resolve. She’s expecting him to apologize. And if he does, she will forgive him; she won’t be able to help it.
“I tell you what,” he says, only a bit less contemptuous than he was in the restaurant. “I’ll help bring your things to the airport, but I’m not coming with you.”
“You bastard,” she turns away before she gives in to the temptation to slap him across his arrogant face. “It’s not that you’re not coming. It’s that you don’t care.”
“I care, but what I care about is not what you seem to value,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. His body language is saying, stay away. “If you cared, you wouldn’t be leaving this search for my ancestors at such a crucial time.”
“And what was last night all about”
He shrugs. Her lips part as her chin drops. She knows she’s cartoonish. She must look the part.
“You prick. You disgusting worm. I thought I was sleeping with a Maya king and all you are is a selfish bastard. Just like all the rest. All the rest.”
She realizes she’s crying and rubs the tears into the edges of her eyes. She knows he can see her tears, but he doesn’t change his expression, looking even more the part of the Mexican aristocrat. She can see she’s nothing to him. Just another American with whom to play games.
“And I don’t want any of your help. I’ll get to the airport myself.”
She slams the door and waits to hear his footsteps sound down the hallway.
#
At Miami International Airport, Amaryllis has never felt so glad to be an American citizen. Immigration is packed to the baffled ceiling tiles with Spanish-speaking visitors and green-card holders. Under the sign that says “U.S. Citizens Only” there are only two gates, both empty. She picks one, plops her American passport in front of a man sporting a crew cut and heavy, dark-rimmed glasses. He scans her booklet with the little machine that reads magnetic markings, then stamps a page without the tiniest of glances.
“Welcome home,” he says, comparing her face to her picture. Amaryllis winces, because she remembers how horrid that photo is. She’s reminded of the Erma Bombeck line: “You know it’s time to come home when you look like your passport picture.” Or something like that.
“Yeah, thanks,” she says to the security agent, scooping up her hand luggage and entering the throng at baggage retrieval and customs. Once through customs, she has several places to contact, but the first is the FBI. She pulls out the business card she obtained at the Chicago hospital and uses her cell phone to find the agent who was in Garret’s room. He puts her in touch with the Miami office. They tell her to get right over there, although from the sound of the agent’s voice, no one is desperate to see her.
By the time she arrives at the deliberately discreet FBI office, a simple brick structure that could house anything from postal station to a small manufacturing plant, she is sweating and barely able to produce enough money for the taxi ride, plus tip.
“Is there an ATM around here?” she asks the driver. She realizes he doesn’t speak English, but “A-T-M” rings a bell.
“Interno,” he says gesturing at the FBI building. It would figure the feds had their own money machine. She smirks to herself. She gives the cabbie all her currency and goes through the process of being admitted to the federal office. She has no gun. They search her handbag. They stow her luggage in a squat storage locker. She gets the green light and meets her interviewers, who offer a simple Q-and-A routine. It’s obvious she doesn’t know much about Garret’s abduction and death. But the agents seem to be right on top of the case, right down the information on Hewitt being spotted in the Bahamas. She asks about Garret’s photos and they tell they’ve found the suspect who will produce them. It sounds to her as if they are giving someone the bright-lights and bare-table interrogation in Chicago. She’s free to go, but no one will share any more details about the case, even after she explains about her parents’ death and the coroner’s report.
“That’s a different case,” shrugs the female officer. “We are strictly working on the Garret Lucas homicide.”
So, she hauls herself over to the ATM in the hallway, a bit dizzied by the sound of voices bouncing off the vast walls and high ceilings, and realizes that the air-pressure in her ears has not yet returned to normal. She shakes her head violently, agrees to the ATM’s service charge and withdraws a couple hundred dollar’s worth of bills.
After reclaiming her baggage, she slumps into a bus stop bench, even though she has no intention of taking mass transit, and pulls out her cell phone. Kids playing across the street distract her, and her fingers seem to work of their own accord. The number she dials is Donny’s, not Wright’s, so she’s caught off-guard when Donny answers the phone in his business voice.
“Gregorios,” he says.
“Donny?” she croaks as a bus pulls away spewing fumes. “Amy?” He doesn’t sound angry. Relieved, perhaps. Definitely not expecting her.
“Yeah, it’s dumb old me. I’m in Florida again. Surprise, surprise. The FBI wanted me for questioning.”
“Should I come there and get you?”
“No, no. It was nothing big. Standard questions. I guess I wasn’t supposed to sneak off to the Bahamas.”
“The Bahamas? Is that what you did? Jeez, Amy. It’s February now, and I sure could use another touch of warmth.”
The double entendre sits between them like a sly cat, and guilt enflames her face. She decides to change topics at once.
“Did you use the crystal?” Now, it’s his turn for a beat or two of quiet.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I understand. Not that I know how that stupid piece of glass can do…”
“Quartz,” she interrupts.
“Whatever. But I do understand why you left.”
“Good. Good.” She looks at the landscape of gravel and dusty palm trees. It has been a dry winter here, whereas the Bahamas had its share of storms. Odd. The Bahamas are only about one hundred miles away. Its smells are different, too. The aromas of sea grass and surf have disappeared only to be replaced by scents of city air.
“Amy, what are you going to do now? I can come with you, and we’ll look for caves where…”
“No. Don’t. You are far more useful finding out who those bastards are who killed Garret.”
More silence.
“Amy?” he says, his voice becoming serious, almost his trial voice. “What are you really looking for? What do you want? ”
She kicks the ground in front of the peeling wooden bench. She pinpoints the smell: exhaust and dry palm fronds. Her nose itches. She realizes she hasn’t had a shower in two days.
He’s persistent. “I mean, what do you really want?”
She throws her head back and lets out a silent scream.
“Donny, I want family. Family. Do you get that? Take it any way you want. I’m an orphan, and I want closure on my parent’s demise. I feel like they’ve been taken from me a second time now that I know about the murder. I’m an adult with a newspaper family, and I feel an obligation to them to get this story. I’m thirty-three years old and my damn biological clock is starting to sound off a loud alarm. I swore it would never happen to me, but I can’t deny it. I want my own family. And I’m alone down here, and some crazy Mexican guy wants me to find a lost civilization—the first family of the world. Now, what am I going to do with all that?”
Donny listens without interruption, then speaks with tenderness. The trial voice disappears.
“You’re stressed out, Amy. Check into a hotel and hang around the pool for a few days. Buy some warm-weather clothes. Go to a spa. I’ve been checking on the academic mafia, as I call them. You were right about the religious connection. We’ve been following the money. When you get settled, I’ll fax you what I have.” He pauses a beat. “Make sure you get a hotel with a business center. I’ll pay for it.”
She stares at the ozone-hazy sky, which causes solid structures to wave and lose solidity as if they are underwater. She’s never been so without direction in her life. Certainly not since the social workers dropped her off on the Quigley/Lang doorstep in Chicago.
“Donny?”
“Yes?”
“How easy is it to change your name?”
He laughs in that easy way she loved from childhood. It has a sweetness to it that she can never resist.
“It’s really easy, why?”
“I’m Amaryllis Lang from now on, okay? It’s really essential that I reclaim that part of my identity. Can you do the paperwork for me?”
“Sure, Amy.”
“Amaryllis.”
“Yes, Amaryllis. Take care. Let me know where you are staying. And please use the hot tub.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. You just want me to stew like a prune.”
Donny laughs. “Never that.”
She hangs up with a chuckle. Across the street a man sits on the opposite bus stop seat. Although he’s not standing up, he appears to be short. He’s Hispanic-looking—although who isn’t in this town? He pulls a newspaper quickly in front of his face, as if he had been reading. Her throat tightens. She knows who he is, and she realizes she’s been cornered again.