Scavenger Hunt Page 8

  Her sweater was drenched and her shoes covered with mud.

  “I need a job,” she whispered. “I need to get out of this life.”

  She was sitting in a park, about twenty feet from the nearest sidewalk. On the far side of the street she could see a linen store, an Office Depot, two restaurants, a store that sold sheet music, and other places.

  If she had a job, she could afford to buy her own clothes. Find her own place to live.

  Start her real life.

  She stood and walked home.

  Her mother was sitting in the living room when Brit walked up to her room. Neither of them said anything about her being home on a school day.

  Brittany peeled her soggy clothes off and went for a quiet, relaxing bath. She cleaned herself and washed her shoulder-length blonde hair. She took her time while she planned the rest of her life. The path was becoming clearer to her. She made herself three promises. First, no more tears. She wasn’t going to let anybody else hurt her ever again. Second, she would find her own life, her own way to support herself, and fuck it if other people didn’t like it. Third, she’d leave her parents’ house the very minute she was able, and she’d never look back.

  Brittany only had one pair of clothes that was remotely decent: a burgundy blouse that she wore over black dress pants. After using her sister’s blow dryer, she dressed and went back to the small strip of retail stores she’d seen from the park.

  She soon found that nobody was much interested in hiring a sixteen-year-old girl with no experience. She tried the whole block and then spotted a McDonald’s restaurant around the corner. She walked in and the place was full of customers. The staff was all rushing around to fill orders.

  “Are you hiring?” she asked when she reached the counter.

  A middle-aged woman stared back at her. Brittany imagined her thinking, Why aren’t you in school? But the woman didn’t say anything. She just handed her an application form.

  She did the best she could. She had no experience but she wrote that she was “Very enthusiastic, hard working, and reliable.”

  Brittany smiled as she handed the form back to the same woman, who filed it under the counter and said somebody would call.

  Three days later, a McDonald’s manager phoned and asked her to come for an interview. She snuck into her sister’s room and found a nice gray skirt and a white fitted blouse to wear.

  She started work the next day.

  Brittany - Copper Canyon, Mexico

  “Brit, it’s time to go.”

  She opened her eyes and blinked. Really? Already? Her back was sore from lying on the uncomfortable sleeping bag. Her mouth was dry. She sat and took a drink of water from the bottle beside her.

  “Time?”

  Fernando stood beside her. “Seven. We’re hoping to get back to Chihuahua City in one day.”

  We’re hoping? As usual, Brittany was excluded from the planning. It looked like Fernando and Carlos had been up for a while, planning the day for the team. Figures.

  She stood and stretched. Fernando had woken her sometime in the night to say they’d captured the snake. It had taken her a while to get back to sleep. She looked over to be sure the damned thing was still locked up. They’d better not expect her to carry it.

  The sun was already rising above the horizon, but weird shadows rose throughout the canyons, and it was still twilight where they were, even though the sky above was blue.

  Brittany yawned and went to get her shoes.

  “Okay, who’s the practical joker?” she called.

  Fernando looked over to her. “What?”

  “Somebody took my shoes.”

  “Nobody would take your shoes, Brit. Jesus. You must have put them somewhere.”

  She shook her head. Idiot. She knew where she put her damned shoes. Right at the foot of her sleeping bag. She always put her shoes at the foot of her bed. Why would it be any different now? How the hell could he not know that?

  “Carlos, give me my damned shoes back.”

  Hearing his name, Carlos walked over to her. “I didn’t take any shoes.”

  “Well, somebody sure the hell did. Your brother knows better. If it wasn’t you, it had to be Steve, and he has no reason.”

  “I didn’t take your damned shoes.”

  Carlos walked back to his own sleeping bag and started to roll it up.

  Fernando looked around Brittany’s sleeping area, lifting the bag up but there were no shoes.

  She moved closer to him and held his face between her hands. She knew that he still coveted her body, and she smiled at him. His eyes widened and she felt his face relax.

  “He took them,” she whispered. “You know that.”

  “No, I don’t think — ”

  “Give me yours.”

  “They must be here somewhere.”

  “Give me yours. He’ll find my shoes fast enough after that.”

  Fernando crouched down onto one knee and undid his sneakers. They were way too big for her, but she wore them anyhow.

  “Now tell Carlos to find my shoes or you’re walking out of this fucking canyon barefoot.”

  Fernando left, and she moved over to where Steve was.

  “Damned morons,” she said.

  Steve smiled but didn’t offer a comment.

  “Don’t let this be aired, but I can’t stand him. I don’t know what I ever saw in him.”

  Steve nodded.

  “Must have been something once upon a time,” he said.

  She shrugged. “You married?”

  “Nope.”

  She looked at him. Nice dark hair, beautiful smile when he showed it. Handsome. Strong. Everything Fernando wasn’t.

  “I should have married someone like you,” she said.

  She locked eyes with him and realized he was studying her face. She knew he’d love what he saw. She’d paid enough over the years to have the face of a girl ten years younger than her real age of 35.

  Then he touched her hair. She briefly wondered what Fernando was doing but decided she didn’t care. Steve ran his fingers through her hair and then stroked her cheek. God, that felt nice…

  “I think I saw your shoes behind that boulder.”

  He pointed to a rock about thirty feet away.

  “How would they get there?”

  He just smiled. “Maybe you’ll find out if you ever watch the show.”

  Chapter 9: Team Genius

  Jonathan - Galapagos Islands

  They’d called themselves the Three Musketeers when they were kids. Jonathan, Pietre, and Samantha grew up in the same Phoenix suburb, on a dead-end street filled with welfare recipients and drug addicts. They were the only three kids on the block that were the same age and they stuck together from the time they were five until they all scattered to the winds later in life.

  Jonathan graduated from a local architectural college in Phoenix, but he knew that his future would be in New York City. That’s where all the world-class architects lived. That’s where his career would be. Where he belonged.

  The worse part was leaving Pietre and Samantha, but he knew they’d be in touch always. That’s what BFF’s did.

  More or less, they did. He’d talk to Samantha every week, either by phone or more often by e-mail. Since she’d gotten married, he felt it was awkward to call her on the phone, but e-mail worked just fine.

  Pietre had fallen out of touch a couple of years ago. He’d never explained why. He just stopped returning phone calls and e-mails until Jonathan gave up. Then suddenly one day he phoned and gave Jonathan hell for the design of a building that Pietre had seen in the news. It was a little creative even for Jonathan, and Pietre said it sucked. Jonathan laughed, knowing Pietre thought no such thing.

  He’d never asked what happened during those couple of years when he broke contact. One day he would. Or Pietre would tell him. Maybe they needed a good long night in a bar sometime…

  “So boring,” Jonathan said.

  The sky was brig
ht blue, and all around them the crystal cool waters of the Pacific Ocean splashed onto the sides of the speedboat they were on. It’d been two days of open ocean, and Jonathan was sick of it.

  Their task was to rent a boat and motor to the 15 main islands that made up the Galapagos archipelago. They’d started at Baltra, where the airport was. They’d hopped off the plane and immediately looked for boats to rent.

  Pietre seemed perfect for this. Jonathan looked all around while stretching his legs, but Pietre’s eyes just seemed to eagle right down to a dock about a half mile away.

  “There,” he pointed. “We’ll catch something there.”

  Not having a better suggestion, Jonathan and Samantha followed. When they got to the dock, Pietre barely hesitated before walking up to a slick 42-foot cabin cruiser and started talking in Spanish to an old guy leaning over the railing.

  Jonathan and Samantha both knew bits of Spanish and could follow some of the conversation, but they let Pietre do all the talking.

  The negotiation lasted for about five minutes.

  “We’re good,” Pietre finally said. He smiled as he turned to his friends. “We leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Not now?” asked Jonathan.

  “He needs supplies. Besides, we only have a few hours of light left today.”

  Samantha asked, “How much?”

  “Six thousand dollars.”

  “Less than we planned,” said Jonathan.

  Samantha laughed. “Thank God something is.”

  “Let’s get the first photo,” said Pietre. “You two can star in this one.”

  They pulled out of the dock at six o’clock in the morning and headed to North Seymour Island, only a short ride away. They hopped out and this time Samantha took the photo.

  Then Pinzon Island, Rabida, Santiago, Bartolome, and Genovesa. At each island, the boat had to slow down to dock, so that the team could hop out and take a photo.

  After dinner, they continued to Marchena and off to Pinta, where they docked for the night. It was too dark to go any farther.

  That night Jonathan calculated that it would take two more full days to hit all the islands. The task was so boring, and so time-consuming. He fell asleep trying to think of ways to cheat, but nothing came to him.

  The second day was even more monotonous. Long stretches of water, the sun beating down on them. Even though it wasn’t hot — only about seventy degrees — the three of them were all getting sunburns.

  The evening of the second day, they still had an hour before docking at Fernandina Island. They’d been heading there for three hours already, and it would be their last stop that day.

  They all sat on the deck, drinking a beer they’d never heard of before. Jonathan figured now was as good a time as any. He looked at Pietre.

  “So how come you dropped out of our lives?”

  Pietre stared at Jonathan and then glanced at Samantha. The smile faded from his face.

  Samantha said, “You can trust us. We’ve always been there for each other.”

  The boat kept rocking on the water as it zipped along at thirty knots. The three friends all kept silent for several minutes.

  Finally, Pietre said, “It’s not something I’m proud of. I felt like I was on top of the world. Then everything fell apart. It’d take longer than an hour to tell you the whole story.

  “We can continue when we get settled on the island,” said Samantha.

  “Another time.”

  “No pressure,” said Jonathan. “Sammie, it’s your turn.”

  “Me? What?”

  “It’s time for you to tell us about Carl. The real Carl. Not the fantasy version you talk about in your e-mails.”

  Samantha looked downward. “Wow. That’d be a long story.”

  “We seem to have a lot of time.”

  Samantha - Seven Years Earlier

  “So when are you going to go out with me?”

  Samantha Henderson felt adrenalin race through her body. She stared at Carl and wanted to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming.

  Was he really asking her on a date? Carl McDonald?

  Carl was tall with wavy blond hair and an amazing smile. He oozed confidence, which might be why he was a pilot. She knew he liked control, like to be the one in charge, and she really had been turned on by that.

  Sammie had flown on flights with Carl several times, usually the Seattle-Dallas run. They both worked for American Sky, which only had a dozen routes, so their paths were bound to cross from time to time.

  He was hot.

  But she knew there were lots of other flight attendants more attractive than her. Her fantasies of him ever asking her out would remain just that.

  At least that’s what she’d thought until now.

  The whole flight crew was staying in Dallas overnight at the Shadow Inn, not far from the airport. They were shooting pool in the pub, although Carl was only drinking ginger ale. She liked that, knowing that he was flying their 767 at seven o’clock the next morning. She had one brown cow and then switched to Coke herself.

  “Well?” He smiled at her. The light was dim and that just made him look more handsome.

  “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

  “How about some dinner and dancing?”

  She felt herself blushing but smiling. “When?”

  “Right now.”

  Sammie gave him a shy smile and felt her heartbeat speeding up.

  Carl stood up and held his hand to her, and she took it. She said a quick good-bye to her friends and they walked out of the bar.

  He held her hand as they walked a half block down Urbane Street to a small Italian restaurant called Al Dente. There were only a dozen small tables in the restaurant, and they were arranged among large flower pots and colorful decorations so that each table had quite a lot of privacy.

  The place smelled wonderful, a mix of garlic and wine and so many other things that she didn’t recognize.

  I’ve got to learn all these things, she thought.

  Carl ordered for them both. She didn’t care. She’d like whatever he asked for.

  The appetizers were small round white disks with a few colored drops around them. Scallops, she remembered him saying. She didn’t know what those were, but when she took a bite of one, it tasted great.

  Thank God.

  “They call you Sammie.”

  “Yes. All my friends call me that.”

  “But your legal name is Samantha?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to call you Samantha. It’s more sophisticated… like you. Is that okay?”

  Her? Sophisticated? She stared at him, wondering if he was joking, but he wasn’t. She could see it in his eyes.

  Sophisticated. She liked that. From now on she would be Samantha.

  She’d e-mail her friends as soon as she got back to her room. And post it on Facebook. And send out a tweet. She wanted everyone to call her Samantha now.

  The rest of dinner included a pasta dish that looked like spaghetti with a light pink sauce. Carl told her what it was called but it didn’t stick with her, and she was afraid to ask again. Afraid to look stupid. There were small bits of fish mixed in with the pasta. Salmon, she remembered.

  It was the best dinner she’d ever had.

  “Let’s go across the street,” said Carl after he’d paid the check.

  “Sure. What’s across the street?”

  “A nice club. Dancing. Romance. Excitement. It can be whatever you want it to be.”

  She felt her heart skip a beat, but she didn’t hesitate. “Oh. Yes, let’s go.”

  They danced for a couple of hours that felt like ten minutes. Carl took her hand as they walked back to the hotel.

  “Still early,” he said. “Let’s check out the pool.”

  Sammie hesitated, knowing it was sometime after midnight. She wasn’t much of a night owl, but tonight was special. She nodded.

  There was both an outd
oor pool and an indoor one, which had a hot tub attached.

  They decided on the outdoor pool; it would be nice to swim under the stars. They went to their rooms to change and met back in a few minutes.

  Carl was already swimming when Sammie returned. She had a white towel wrapped around her. When she dropped the towel on a chair, he seemed hypnotized by her. He just stared at her in the moonlight.

  Sammie was stunned that she didn’t feel self-conscious. He liked her. She could tell. She was wearing a sexy yellow bikini and she felt like a model. He continued to stare at her as he climbed out of the pool and walked to her.

  As he got closer, Sammie felt doubts flow through her and started to cover herself with the towel.

  “You have a beautiful body. Absolutely gorgeous. Don’t cover yourself up.”

  She smiled and felt trapped between her shyness and wanting to be with him.

  “You coming in or what?”

  They slid into the water and he pulled her to him. She gasped in surprise but laughed at how playful he was being.

  “You really are beautiful, you know.”

  Sammie wasn’t used to all this attention. She’d had guys attracted to her before but they were just boys. This was a man. She couldn’t believe her luck.

  When he brought his face down to kiss her, she didn’t turn away. She’d been hoping he’d try to kiss her. It was amazing… soft and tender at first, their lips barely touching, and then he parted her lips with his tongue. She melted in his arms and their kiss became more passionate.

  Carl gently moved his hand to her breast, and that’s when she stopped him. She didn’t want to offend him, so she playfully swam away. He paddled after her and they laughed at the moon together as they swam side by side.

  “It’s getting late,” she said. “Maybe we should call it a night. We have to fly out early.”

  “Party pooper!”

  He walked her to her room and gave her one last kiss before she went to bed alone and sighed.

  Pietre - Three Years Earlier

  Phoenix in the summer was fucking hot. As a result, the wedding was scheduled for seven o’clock at night. Not that it made a lot of difference; it was still eighty-nine degrees.