Chapter Twenty-Two - Maddie
There’s no talking as Logan pulls me along by the arm. No threats. No dramatic declarations. Nothing. The bedlam that was going on before, with everyone running around all frantic, has calmed and the lapping of waves on the shore is the only sound. It’s possible that from somewhere I might hear the playing of Carol of the Bells, but it might also just be my imagination. I’ve always loved that song.
I’m tempted to speak, but what the hell am I going to say? There’s no explaining I can do. Nothing I can offer to get myself out of this. I can only assume he saw me and Tyler fucking. Or, at least I hope he did. I hope he saw it and it made him furious. I hope he saw my ass pressing into the sand and Tyler’s big cock sliding in and out. And I hope it made him hard and lonely.
Fuck him.
Once we’re inside, he drags me back to the room where I was before. The one that’s set up for dinner. The one with the champagne flute that has the pill in it. Had. Had the pill in it. The flute is still there, the champagne is still filling it, but the pill has disappeared. Has it dissolved finally? Did someone see the pill sitting in the bubbly liquid and pull it out? Where did it go? If it’s the former, then maybe there’s still a chance Carlos will drink it and knock himself out? If it’s the latter… I’m screwed. More screwed. Whatever. Who gives a shit?
Carlos is sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The hazy, grey-white smoke hovers in the space like a misty morning fog. The smell is rich and round and reminds me of Pete a little bit. I take a breath and close my eyes for a moment.
“Madison,” Carlos says. “How was your stroll?” He takes a long puff off his cigar, throws his head back, blows the smoke out.
I don’t say anything. Again, I see no point.
Logan shoves me further into the room, toward Carlos. “She was with him,” he says.
Carlos nods, pursing his lips. He tilts his head back again, like he’s contemplating something. He takes another puff off his cigar and asks, “Which him, exactly?”
“The Tyler him. He’s here. He’s the one.”
“I see,” says Carlos. “And what were they doing? The two of them?”
I look at Logan. He looks at me. To hell with it.
“We were fucking,” I say. “I fucked him. He fucked me. We fucked. He’s my boyfriend. I missed him. That’s what you do.”
Logan’s bad eye is still too swollen for me to gauge an expression, but his good eye goes as wide as it can. Carlos’s expression, on the other hand, doesn’t change.
“And where is this Tyler now?” Carlos asks.
“Ricky has him. I’m going to go talk with him myself,” says Logan.
Carlos takes another puff, then rests his cigar on an ashtray sitting right by that still barely bubbling glass of champagne. He stands. “Very good. But please, before you kill him, find out exactly from whom he got his hands on one of my drones.”
There are two things inside those eighteen words that snap my attention up to Carlos real, real hard and cause my breath to catch in my throat.
Logan nods, gives me a shit-eating grin, and goes, closing the door behind him and leaving me and Carlos alone. Carlos taps his fingers on the table twice and then clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth five times. I find myself acutely aware of the specifics of everything happening at the moment.
He picks up a champagne glass and takes a sip. Not the champagne glass. A champagne glass. What was intended to be my champagne glass. Shit. Then he wanders over to the tray of tamales I requested, which have appeared in my absence, and picks one up. He smells it.
“They are very good. You are right to enjoy them. That is assuming you actually do.”
He cocks his head, as if he’s asking me a question. I say nothing. He keeps the tamale in his hand as he wanders over to me.
“Oh, my sweet Madison. It is very hard to be me. I know, I know, what could be hard about it? Right? I have money. I have power. But that all comes at a great cost. Responsibility. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, as they say.”
He’s circling me now. Like a shark. At least as far as I understand the way sharks behave. Or it could be like a vulture circling an animal, waiting for it to die. Either way, it’s not a comforting feeling.
“People think I am crazy. I know this. Which is good. Because it means that all the work I have done to make people believe I am is working. Can I ask you… Do you think I am crazy?” He’s behind me, leaning over my shoulder, pulling my hair back to whisper the question into my ear. “Or perhaps you just think I am stupid. Love. Sick. Controlled by my…” He presses his crotch into my ass. My ass that is only covered by this thin dress, since I don’t have any panties on. I saw Tyler take them. Weirdo.
I close my eyes and try to keep breathing.
“You know,” Carlos goes on, “when I hired you to plan my daughter’s wedding, I liked you immediately. You did not seem intimidated by me. And I appreciated that. Very much. So many people work so hard to please me that when I meet someone who seems like they are strong and have the courage of their convictions, I like that. Especially in a woman. You, in particular, reminded me of another woman I felt that way about once.”
Oh, Jesus. Please don’t say—
“Carolina. You know about Carolina, yes? You know who she was? I assume you do, since you talked about her the other night.”
I don’t nod. I don’t say yes. I continue standing still as he circles around the front of me, holding that goddamned tamale. The combination of the tamale smell with the cigar smoke is making me want to throw up. Or maybe it’s just the fear that I can’t deny is creeping in now.
“When I discovered that you had begun working for Peter Flanagan, I was… surprised? Shocked? I do not know the word. But I could not believe that you, this woman who reminds me so much of a woman I once knew, would find herself associated with the same man. That is quite a coincidence. Don’t you think that’s quite a coincidence?”
He’s inches from my face. I can smell the cigar and champagne on his breath.
“Pete,” I summon the will to say.
“I’m sorry?”
“His name wasn’t Peter. It was just Pete. As far as I know.”
There is a pause as he looks at me curiously, then smiles.
“Ah. Yes. Very good. So, tell me… How is it that you came to work for Pete? After you and I met, and you spent all my money—”
I open my mouth to speak, but he puts his tobacco-stained finger against my lips.
“Shh, shhh, shhhhh. You did spend my money. Whether or not it is ‘your fault’ is beside the point. You did, in fact, spend it. So. How did you come to work at Pete’s? Exactly? Where did the idea come to you from?”
There is a shiver running down my spine now. Moments ago, he told Logan to find out where Tyler got hold of one of Carlos’s drones, and now he’s asking me questions about how I came to work at Pete’s. Which, as I told Tyler, was because of the flyer I saw at the drone store. Or warehouse. Or whatever the fuck.
“Why?” I summon the voice to ask.
“Because,” has says, pressing his face directly into mine, “I want to know precisely how long you’ve been working for the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States of America.”
The crashing of waves is all I hear.
Then, “Madison? You don’t look well. Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive me. You still haven’t eaten. And from what you say, you had quite the workout. So here, please, please. I want you to eat.”
He holds up the fucking tamale.
I try to lick my lips, but there’s no saliva. So, raspy and barely audible, I eke out, “I’m not—”
“Eat!” he screams. Right before he squeezes my cheeks, forcing my jaws open, and shoves the sweet, mushy corn husk violently into my mouth.