Page 48 of Sunburned

I filled a cocktail shaker with ice.“Everyone, I think. Except for Tyson.”

“Ah,” Samira said.“We’ll see if he lets me go.”

I poured our shots of espresso into the cocktail shaker and handed it to Gisèle, who added liberal amounts of vodka and Kahlua, then capped it and shook it over her shoulder.

“You look like a professional,”I commented, grabbing three martini glasses from the shelf.

“She was a bartender in Paris,”Samira said.“Until she was discovered by a modeling scout and started booking so many jobs she didn’t need to work in a bar anymore.”

Gisèle uncapped the shaker and poured the dark liquid into our glasses. Each of us took a stem, cautiously raising the precariously full drinks.

“Santé,”I said.

We carefully clinked glasses, then slurped off the top before we could spill them, laughing when we realized how ridiculous we all looked. “Damn, that’s good,” I said, taking another sip of the chilled, rich martini.

“My favorite,”Samira said.

“We always have them before a night out,”Gisèle added conspiratorially. They smiled as we sipped, the frostiness they’d exhibited toward me since I arrived thawed.

“Did you two meet modeling?”I asked.

They shook their heads, and again I could feel the intense connection between them as their eyes met.“We met in dance class when we were teenagers,”Gisèle said.“She was already a successful actress.”

“I was a little successful in Belgium,”Samira said.“Which is…”She shrugged.

“You would have been successful everywhere if you’d stuck with it,”Gisèle chided.

“Plans change,”Samira said. As she tossed back a large gulp of her drink, I tried to imagine her leveling a shotgun at her first husband’s head and pulling the trigger. But for some reason, it was Gisèle I saw behind the sight.

“I’ve got to get dressed,”Samira said, setting her glass down on the counter with a clink.

Gisèle seemed pensive as she watched her friend stalk down the stairs to her quarters. I lingered, hoping she might talk to me, but she didn’t, instead shouldering her beach bag and starting for the stairs up to her room, glass in hand.“À plus tard,”she said.

As I sipped my drink, I was already thinking about later, about how to break through Allison’s aerodynamic exterior and get the information I needed so that I could go home. Everyone had an Achilles’ heel. I just needed to find hers.

I cast a glance toward her suite. Maybe luck was on my side, I thought as I padded across the living room to her door. I knocked softly, calling out, “Allison?”

There was no answer. I knocked again. “Hello?”

After a moment, I laid my hand on the doorknob, holding my breath.

But the door was firmly locked.

Eleven Years Ago, August

Tyson paced along the boardwalk beside the marshy waterway, running his fingers through his hair. “Can you believe this motherfucker is still demanding money from us, even after we saved his life?”

I leaned against a palm tree, taking refuge in its small slice of shade. The day was sweltering, but I hadn’t wanted to talk about Ian in my mom’s house and couldn’t leave her long enough to go to Tyson’s, so we’d met at a park down the street.

My mom had done so well after the first treatment, but the second one hadn’t been as smooth. One of the side effects she was now suffering from was vertigo, which meant she needed me by her side to make sure she didn’t fall and hurt herself. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her for more than fifteen minutes, which meant I hadn’t seen much of Tyson since we’d last returned from Naples.

“We would have been better off letting him go up in flames,” he groused.

“Not funny,” I said, though I was beginning to worry he was right. It had been three weeks since the fire, and instead of gratitude forrisking our lives on Ian’s account, we’d only received increasingly steeper demands from him for money.

“I’m not joking. And now he has the balls to demand we cover his and Andie’s hospital bills. He’s hired a lawyer to claim the fire was our fault for not maintaining the trailer properly, when he’s the one that left a fucking burner on and passed out!”

“Are your parents coming back to deal with it?” I asked.

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