Her smile was impeccable, her lipstick perfectly applied. “Lavender and rosehip,” she noted. “Good choice. You should really try their bath bombs while you’re here. They’re on special. Two for one.” She draped her mink stole over her arm, her heels clacking to the beat of my racing heart as she strode out.
Vero and I collapsed against our lockers.
“That felt like an omen,” Vero said. “How much you want to bet Charlie’s out there waiting for us?”
“I’m counting on it,” I said, holding up my cell phone as she grabbed her gym bag containing our wigs. Charlie’s photo game was strong, but I could tell a story with my pictures, too. “Let’s go.”
Vero and I snuck out the emergency exit at the back of the spa, emerging into the bright sunlit boardwalk behind the hotel. We kept our pace brisk, darting glances behind us.
“See him yet?” I asked, checking the side streets.
“About fifty feet behind us and closing in fast.”
I held up my phone, waiting until we were all captured in the frame. “Say cheese.” Vero and I grinned and I took the shot. I held the phone between us as we walked, showing her the photo. Charlie’s smug face was framed in the space between our heads, twenty feet behind us. I tucked my phone back into my pocket. “In ninety minutes, we’ll text that photo to Sam. We’ll tell her you were allergic to the massage oil, so we called Charlie to pick us up and we left the spa to get some air. That should buy us a few hours. Now all we have to do is figure out how to ditch him.”
“I say we make a run for it. He’s old and out of shape.”
“He has a gun,” I reminded her.
“He’s not going to shoot us on the boardwalk in broad daylight. If he wanted to shoot us, he would have done it last night.”
She had a point. With a sigh, I followed her as she slung the strap of her gym bag over her head, arranging it snugly across her body as she broke into a jog. I fell in step beside her, blending in with all the other recreational runners on the boardwalk, weaving through groups of tourists with cameras and dodging oncoming bicycles.
I risked a backward glance. Charlie was jogging, too.
“Have we lost him yet?” Vero asked.
“No, he’s right behind us.”
“Then we’ll just have to run faster.” The gym bag bounced against her back as she increased her speed, forcing me to keep up. I shot a quick look over my shoulder. Charlie had broken into a run, and he did not look happy about it.
A crowd had gathered to watch a group of street clowns in front of us. “’Scuse us! Coming through!” Vero shouted. Heads turned as we cut between the spectators and the collection bucket. Vero reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and dropped a hundred-dollar bill into the bucket as we passed. She hitched a thumb over her shoulder as she ran, pointing at Charlie. “A little help?” she called out to the nearest clown.
The performer rose up on the toes of his floppy red shoes for a better look. His eyes went wide as Charlie barreled through the audience, knocking spectators out of his way. I watched over my shoulder as the clown took a giant step forward and shoved a shoe in Charlie’s path. We turned at the sound of a collective gasp, then a round of applause, as Charlie went flying. The clown rushed to his side, offering to help him up as he tripped him again. The crowd burst with laughter as Charlie’s face hit the boardwalk. He shoved the clown away, straining to keep us in his sights as he pulled himself upright.
“This way!” Vero said, grabbing my hand. We dodged behind a crowd of tourists and ducked into the nearest shop, hiding behind a display case full of carved dragons and crystals, peering over it through the window as Charlie started running, making a beeline right for us.
“In here!” a voice said from the back of the store. Vero and I hurried through a satin curtain into a dimly lit room. The woman inside whipped the curtain closed behind us, studying us as we bent over our knees, breathing hard. Her bloodred lipstick left a garish ring around the plastic holder of her cigarillo. She blew out a long band of smoke, raising a shaggy brow at us as she gestured for us to sit.
Vero dropped her gym bag on the floor. We sagged into the twohigh-backed velvet chairs across the table from the woman, too winded to speak. A crystal ball rested in the center of it, beside a deck of brightly painted cards. Sweet clouds of incense smoke wafted through the room. On second thought, I was pretty sure it wasn’t patchouli.
The woman pointed a long black fingernail at a chalkboard sign.PSYCHIC READINGS $25. PALM. TAROT. CRYSTAL BALL.“You want a reading?” she asked, affecting an accent that sounded a lot like my agent doing an impression of Count Chocula.
“No thanks,” I said, dabbing sweat from my face.
The woman tapped her forehead. “Too bad. The Eye of Romelda is very powerful.”
Vero sniffed. “Something of Romelda’s is very powerful. I think I’m getting a contact high.”
She shrugged. “If you want to sample Romelda’s herbs, that will be an extra twenty-five.”
“No herbs,” I said as Vero seemed to consider that. “We just need to catch our breath. Then we’ll be out of your way.”
Romelda gestured to the curtain as she took another drag. “Because you are in a hurry.”
Vero looked unimpressed. “What gave it away, the running or the sweat?”
“Don’t be rude,” I whispered.
