Sweetheart Deal (20 page)

“Isn't that going to seem even more obvious than what we've been doing tonight?” FJ asked.

“Not if you're playing golf while doing it.”

“And tennis?” Trent suggested.

“Or any other
resort-based
activity you guys are interested in taking on.”

“What about me?” Eloise asked.

“We've set you up for a hair appointment in the hotel salon tomorrow morning,” Philip said. “You can have a nice, casual chat with Carmen.”

“She's not touching my hair after what I saw come out of there the other day,” she said, looking nearly as traumatized as Hair had been at the mere thought. “I think you need to send Maddie.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

“I'm afraid it has to be you, Eloise,” Philip said. “Maddie's got a bigger job to do.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“It's time for you to locate and talk to the Sombrero Lady,” he said.

twenty-five

Despite feeling equal parts
manipulated, scared, and sure the only people I could trust had the last name Michaels (but not the first name Frank), it was time to figure out exactly who had really killed Alejandro, injured Geo, and sent Ivan a threatening note before Benito was arrested. As soon as I did that, I planned to cancel my TV contract on the grounds of false pretenses. No way was I continuing on as the star of a reality show where the true premise was
murder on the cheap
or whatever it was that had been negotiated with heaven knew whom.

I spent all of Tuesday night awake trying to figure out exactly how I was going to go about that. By Wednesday morning, I found myself in town with a
bare-bones
crew consisting of a cameraman, an assistant director, and a local police officer to translate and play bodyguard.

Unfortunately, I still had no idea what I planned to do.

We began with a
street-by
-street search starting outside the jewelry store where I'd first noticed the lady in red and her sombrero cart. Needless to say, there seemed to be as many vendors selling sombreros as there were sombreros for sale.

And everyone seemed to know the particular woman I was looking for:

Ah yes, Conchita …

Sí, Yolanda …

You mean Silvia?

And everyone seemed to know her schedule:

I was just talking to her last night …

She only works weekends …

Mañana …

But no one knew exactly where she was.

Lured by the smell of vanilla, cinnamon, and the promise of a badly needed café Mexicano, I suggested we continue our so far fruitless search at a nearby coffee shop. We grabbed our drinks and were about to continue on when the assistant director's cell phone rang.

Our police officer/bodyguard/translator's also rang at the same time.

I understood the only two words of his
rapid-fire
Spanish I needed to know:
Señor Geo.

Combined with the translation provided by the assistant director via his own phone call, I got a pretty good idea what was going on:

“When did they move him into a regular room?”

“Una gran noticia!”

As they each listened to what seemed to be the dual language details of Geo's upgraded condition, I looked up at the prominent red cross atop the
five-story
building looming in the distance.

“Qué hora están visitando horas?”

“So Anastasia and Philip are leaving their hotel for the hospital in fifteen?”

I knew immediately what I had to do. I needed answers, and I needed them now, before anyone else filled Geo in on everything that had happened since he was attacked at the water park and taken away in an ambulance.

“We can be there in thirty to set up and get some arrival footage. No problem.”

And I needed to be there a lot sooner than that if I was going to have a chance to talk to him alone.

“Geo's doing better?” I asked as the assistant director hung up.

“He's doing so well, he's been moved into a regular room.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “But it only gives us a half hour to try and find the Sombrero Lady and get to the hospital before we need to get some footage of the three of you greeting Geo.”

A woman from a nearby group of tourists asked a passing local, “
Donde está el baño?
” in an overloud, too slow voice.

As the man pointed to a freestanding public restroom very much like the one where I'd actually met Sombrero Lady, my wholly unoriginal, downright plagiarized, and already misused plan came together.

“We better get a move on,” the director said, taking a big sip of my coffee.

As everyone agreed, I slid my hand to my stomach and made the same face Frank had made to facilitate my initial
meet-and
-greet with Alejandro.

“Are you okay?” the cameraman asked.

“Fine,” I said, adding a heaping dose of
impending-GI
-distress to my voice. “I think.”

“Are you sure?”

“Actually”—I forced, then stifled a belch—“I'm not sure at all.”

“You don't look so well,” the cameraman said.

“I don't feel so well all of the sudden,” I said.

“Ah,” the police officer/translator/bodyguard said. “They come out of nowhere.”

“I need to use the restroom,” I said with urgency. “Now!”

Without waiting for a response, I took off in the direction of the bathrooms, rushed around the building toward the door to the ladies' room, and ran inside. I looked around for anyone resembling Sombrero Lady, just in case, then took off down an alley concealed from view by the building.

“Maddie,” Geo rasped, his voice rough from the breathing apparatus that had been removed from his throat. He reached for my hand and squeezed it weakly. “I'm glad you're still here.”

“We've all been here, waiting for you to get better,” I said, trying to ignore the assorted tubes and wires attached to him and hanging beside him.

“Thanks,” he said groggily. “I'm starting to feel better.”

“How much do you remember about what happened?”

“Not much,” he said sounding choky and as though he was reliving the panic. “I remember being trapped, out of air …”

“You do know that whoever grabbed you was really after Ivan?”

He looked as if he was trying to shake off whatever sedating drugs he'd been given by the hospital. “Ivan?”

“No one told you?”

Geo looked thoroughly confused. “No.”

“The police believe it was the same person, or people, behind Alejandro's murder.”

“Murder?”

“He drowned because someone slipped a roofie into his drink and lured him into the pool.”

Geo looked more confused than ever.

“You don't remember that we were investigating his death?”

“I do, but that wasn't …”

“Wasn't what?”

“You're saying he was really murdered?”

“Definitely.”

Geo now looked as pale as his sheets. “I don't understand.”

“Neither do I, which is why I need you to tell me everything you know, starting with how we ended up in Mexico at Hacienda de la Fortuna.”

“Anastasia,” he finally said.

“She did the research, found the name of Hacienda de la Fortuna, and called them?” I asked. “Or someone contacted her and proposed the idea?”

“She contacted the hotel, then they got right back to us with a fantastic proposal,” he said.

“Who got back to us? Alejandro?”

“I know he was involved, but Anastasia handled most of the arrangements and logistics.”

“Which were?”

“The wedding with all the bells, whistles, and extras in exchange for showcasing the resort.”

“And the timeshare department?”

“Especially the timeshare department,” he said. “The whole
vacation-property
angle fit with the overall
bargain-hunting
theme of the show.”

“What about a reality show for Alejandro?”

“We were in talks. Until he …”

“Died?”

Geo nodded.

“As in, another murder for Mrs. Frugalicious to solve?”

“That didn't happen,” he said.

“But it did.”

We were both silent for a moment.

“I'll admit we had Frank at the ready for when you objected to signing a contract without doing all the proper research,” Geo said. “The hair, makeup, and romance stuff with Anastasia's sisters was all planned in advance. And a few other details.”

“Like?”

“Like after Alejandro died, we were told to rework the story line to make what we all believed was an accidental death worthy of investigation.”

“Did reworking the story line include you wrapping things up by having me come up with a bad guy by the end of the episode?”

“Just someone we could hand over to the local authorities for them to quietly let go after we were gone.”

“Which is exactly what's happening, except someone's going to be arrested for a bona fide murder.”

“Holy—”

“Exactly.”

“Who?”

“Benito, the head chef,” I said.

“But he was on that initial list of suspects that were …”

“Family members?” I offered.

He nodded. “And not legitimately suspicious.”

“But now, suddenly, he's the prime suspect because he openly hated his
brother-in
-law, Alejandro.”

“Is it possible he did it?” Geo asked.

“I suppose, except he had no reason whatsoever to come after Ivan,” I said. “Or you.”

“What are you getting at?”

Geo listened carefully as I laid out everything that had happened since he'd been hospitalized.

“Whoa,” he simply said when I'd finished.

“Everyone around here is terrified …” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “They believe the actual killer acted on behalf of a cartel who wanted Alejandro dead and Ivan silenced in order to halt a
land-development
deal that may have been tied into Alejandro's TV show.”

“Who did you say the American was?” Geo asked.

“I didn't,” I said, dread fluttering across my belly.

Geo glanced down at the IV taped to the top of his hand.

“What is it?” I asked.

“When we were in the planning stages of all this, I walked in on the tail end of a conversation Stasia was having with one of the execs.” He took a raspy breath. “He was complaining that the wedding alone wasn't going to be interesting enough or
cost-effective
enough to justify the expense for all of us to come down there. Even with the perks.”

“And how did she respond?”

He looked up at me. “She guaranteed him the show would be a hit.”

“As in, everything is playing out exactly as it was supposed to?”

“I can't rule out that Anastasia got us involved in something heavier than she ever imagined.”

The phone beside Geo's bed rang.

“That's got to be her,” I said. “She and Philip are on their way up to see you. In fact, I'm supposed to be meeting them up here with the film crew.”

“You need to find out who the American was in that meeting,” Geo said.

“Yes, but I should check in with the crew before I do. I kind of ditched them in the midst of looking for Sombrero Lady.”

“They'll be fine without you,” he said and picked up the phone.

I looked at him quizzically as he greeted Anastasia and confirmed they were in front of the hospital and would be up in five minutes. Geo hung up the phone.

“Why will they be fine without me?”

“There is no Sombrero Lady.”

“What?”

“The woman you met was a local actress,” he said. “We thought it was a pretty clever way to get you to buy into the investigation.”

“We?”

“Actually, the Sombrero Lady was Frank's idea.”

“Frank's idea?” I could barely get out the words.

“When we let him know about the reworked story line, he said you'd balk about investigating, just like you'd balked about signing up for a free timeshare. He said Sombrero Lady would give the investigation the legitimacy you'd need to stay and look into things.” At my horrified expression he added, “Because you're way too smart for the usual reality TV rigmarole.”

Clearly I needed to be a lot smarter. “Frank said all that?” I managed.

“Yeah. And I say you better get a move on fast before Stasia and the crew get up here.”

I rushed out of Geo's room, raced down the hallway opposite the elevators, and exited the building via the stairwell.

Once outside, I ducked into a nearby
T-shirt
shop.

“
Teléfono
?” I asked, offering the clerk everything in my pocket, which came out to be the peso equivalent of approximately three dollars and fifty cents.

In exchange, he led me to the phone and helped me to dial the main number for the Hacienda de la Fortuna.

“May I speak to Ivan,
por favor?
” I asked after being forwarded to the Activities office. I wanted to question him further about the identity of the American he saw meeting with Alejandro on the boat.

“He's at the dock,” the young lady who answered the phone said. “I think.”

“Can you transfer me there?” I said. “It's important.”

“You probably won't be able to reach him,” she said. “But I'll try.”

“Not sure where he is,” said whoever answered down at the dock.

“This is Maddie Michaels and I really need to speak to him. Can you please have him contact me if you see him?”

With his lackluster
no problemo
, I was certain the dock attendant hadn't bothered to put pencil to whatever scrap of soggy paper might have been laying around the equipment shack.

Clearly I wasn't going to be able to connect with Ivan quickly, so the only logical Plan B was to get back to the resort and see what, if anything, I could find out, starting with Beti in the timeshare office.

Seeing as my money and credit cards were in my purse, which was locked in the crew van, how I was going to get there was another problem.

I quickly decided my best chance was to plead my case to a nearby cluster of taxis, the drivers leaning against their cars, waiting for fares.

I was halfway there when I heard a familiar pitch.

“
Hola, Señora!
How would you like to treat yourself to a spa day or treat your entire family to free water park tickets?”