The Best of Enemies (39 page)

“So good,” I confirm.
“But is this just because you want to avoid spending time with Kelly?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Maybe a little.
I’ve had enough drama for one day.”

“Fair enough,” I agree.

“There’s just one thing,” Jack says.

“What’s that?”

Jack looks pointedly at the steering wheel.
“I’ll need to drive.”

Miami, Florida

Friday

“I want to believe it was that easy, but I can’t,” Kitty says.

“What if it can have been that easy?”
I reply.

“To find Ingrid here before you even left this hotel to ask around at the Wintercourt?
It’s unbelievable.”

We arrived at the Delano around five thirty this morning and slept like the dead for the next six hours.
The plan was to split up—Kitty would discreetly inquire here as to Ingrid’s whereabouts and I was taking the Wintercourt.
Kitty claimed the first shower, so I was only just now ready to head out, which is no longer necessary.

Kitty says, “Seems a little too convenient.
There I am with Ingrid’s picture on my phone, and I ask the doorman, ‘Have you seen this woman?’
and he’s all, ‘Am I on
Dateline
?’
because she’s standing ten feet away getting out of a limo with a bunch of bags.
The doorman was the first guy I even asked!
Then I had to hide behind a palm tree because I didn’t want her to see me.
We’ve met a few times and I’m sure she’d recognize me.”

“Thank God she didn’t,” I say.
“She’s headed out to the pool?”

“Yes, according to whomever she was loud-talking to on the phone.
I wanted to tell her, ‘Inside voice, honey!’
Even Kassie knows how to adjust her volume in public spaces.
I want to have a word with every one of these Millennials’ parents.
No flipping manners.
BTW, I took a bunch of twenties out of your wallet so I was able to bribe the driver who picked her up.
He said she was coming from Bal Harbour.”

I ask, “Should I be familiar with Bal Harbour?”

“Only if you care about the best shopping in Miami.”

“So, no.”

“Here’s what I don’t get, Jack.
You said she must be out of the country because of the error messages, but she’s
here
.”

“That is puzzling.
I guess the explanation doesn’t matter—she’s here and now I can question her.”
Kitty has a hand on her hips and she’s shaking her head.
“Now what?”

“Did you learn nothing from our caper at the Monaco?”

Her meaning’s immediately clear.
Only now do I notice that she’s carrying a bag from the hotel’s boutique.
This?
Right here?
Is why I never did covert investigations.
“Not again.”

“Yes.
It’s all you, babe.
I can’t go—she knows me.
I already bought the accessories you’ll need, too.
Charged them to the room.
I have sunscreen, celebrity magazines, a couple of cool bangles, awesome sunglasses—they’re Chanel, dibs when you’re done with them—and a bikini.
And P.S.
I bought you two razors, because, damn.”

•   •   •

Kitty suggested that I download the tracking app she uses to GPS her kids’ locations and then hide my phone in Ingrid’s bag.
However, if Ingrid does leave the country, I’m not sure the software would work.
We couldn’t determine a clear answer from our Google search, and John hung up on me when I called to ask him.
So I’m going old school, with the goal to befriend Ingrid.
I’ve traveled enough to understand the quick camaraderie inherent between two strangers who are both far from home.
But simply embracing the geography game here won’t be enough.

And because I’m running this op alone, I can’t rely on simply spewing text-message language while Kitty does the heavy lifting.
Back when we were together, Sean used to crack up whenever I’d do my Kitty impersonation for him, even long after either of us had any contact with her.
Funny is funny, regardless of the context.
The minute I take the chair next to Ingrid, clad in her roommate’s gingham bikini, I begin to channel my inner-Kitty, circa 1995, so she’s with me in spirit.

Flipping through my
Us
magazine, I say aloud, more to myself than anyone else, “Ohmigod, I love Kimye so much.”
Thanks to Kitty’s crash course through the bathroom door while I groomed, I’m armed with the latest in pop culture.

I’ve piqued Ingrid’s attention, but I pretend not to notice.
I liken this to the time Sean and I fished for red salmon in the Alaskan Russian River the summer before he left for med school at UCLA.
Because red salmon are fairly passive, we used the flossing method (since fallen out of favor in the fishing community), which entails casting out the hook and then yanking it back as the salmon swims by.
They don’t bite so much as they are inadvertently snagged by quickly reeling in the hook.

I flip a few more pages.
“Welcome to Stalkertown, Taylor Swift.
Population, You.”

Ingrid’s definitely paying attention now.

“Oh, Khloé, honey, no.
Could you be any more try-hard?
P.S.
your mom is tragic.”

Ingrid closes her own magazine and angles herself to enable conversation with me.
I ignore meeting her gaze.
(Too try-hard.)

A waiter comes by and I hold out my menu, bracelets clinking merrily as I point.
“Okay, I want something delish, but not, like, too carb-y, you know?
What do I want then?
Am I more raspberry mojito or spicy mango margarita?
Or should I just get both, because hello, vacay!”

“You should totally get both!”
Ingrid exclaims, unable to contain herself.

“Would you drink whichever one I don’t like?”
I ask her.

“Totes.”

To the waiter, I say, “We’ll have both, thanks!”
I turn toward her.
“I never know what to get when I’m at the pool bar.
Bottle service is so much easier, amirite?”

“The best!”

Is she buying my act?
I rather suspect she is.
I only have so much inane conversation/slang terms in my arsenal, so I need to move along the process.
Next step?
The geographical bond.

“I was just in Chicago visiting the bros and we went to the
sickest
club!
It’s this place called the Monaco—”

“I’m from Chicago and I love the Monaco!
We’re there every Wednesday night for DJ Illuminati!”

“Hashtag no way!
I relocated to London a few years ago, but I’m thinking of moving back to Chi-town just for the Monaco.
London is, like, enough with the shitty pubs and warm beer already, right?
Da fuq?”

(I’m sorry, London.
I don’t mean it.
Sean was right and you’re my favorite of all European cities.)

“Word.”
Her phone beeps with a text message.
She looks at the screen, scowls, and taps out a hasty response.

“You cool?”
I ask.

“Yeah.
I just keep getting obnoxious texts from randoms, so I’ve been replying ‘504: AT&T Error Message, Subscriber Not Found.’”

One mystery neatly solved and I must admit, her response is kind of brilliant.
I say, “Why not turn off your phone if the ratchets can’t take a hint?”

“I’m waiting to hear from my boyfriend.
Meeting him in the Caymans tomorrow and I need the deets.
He’s sailing in from Belize.”

Yes!
The pieces are coming together now!
I hadn’t even considered where Trip’s boat
The Lone Shark
might have been.
If he’s off to live incognito, doing so on a boat provides quick egress and no permanent address, especially if he disguised the boat and changed the name and the hull identification numbers.
Really, anything can be camouflaged, given enough cash.
Hell, thanks to a flashy swimsuit, sunglasses, and diligent shaving (shameful), I’ve been disguised for less than five hundred dollars.

Ingrid continues, completely unaware that I’m turning cartwheels inside.
“He was supposed to be there yesterday but there was this big storm and he was delayed.”

Ding, ding, ding!
More verification!
But how best to express my great joy and this tremendous victory for Sars and all those investors poised to seek justice as soon as Simon’s story hits the news cycle?
“Awesomesauce!”

“Right?”

“What kind of sailboat does he have?
My friend has a thirty-three-foot Watkins Seawolf on Belmont Harbor,” I say, describing the boat Bobby lived on one summer in Maine, about twelve years ago.

“Um . . .
his is a l’il bigger than that.”

Yes . . .
by approximately one hundred and thirty-four feet.
How was no one suspicious when Trip’s takeaway from watching
The Wolf of Wall Street
was not that he should conduct his business with integrity, but that he should add thirty feet to the back of his yacht to accommodate a helicopter landing pad?

Our drinks arrive and I take the margarita while she opts for the mojito.
“Proost,” I say, raising my glass in salute.

Before she can reply, her text alarm beeps again.
She reads the screen and lets out a small squeal.
Has to be from Trip—girls don’t squeal over notes from other girls.

I need to read that text.

While she beams at her screen, I say, “Whoa.
So much hotter in person!
I would hit that so flipping hard.”

Ingrid looks up.
“Who?”

“Leo.
He just walked by.”

“DiCaprio?”

“Affirmative.
I mean,
totes
.
He was headed toward the spa.
Major Speedo action.”

Ingrid bolts up from her chair, the idea of a famous millionaire in the hand greater than the billionaire she already has in the bush.
I snatch her phone and quickly transcribe the information.
She’s flying into Grand Cayman first thing tomorrow morning and meeting him at the International Bank of the Caymans at nine a.m.
Then they’ll take a private plane to Little Cayman at nine forty-five and the boat will pick them up on Sunday after a resupply run.
I have to read the text a few times, due to Trip’s inability to incorporate punctuation.

I replace Ingrid’s phone but a moment before she returns.
“I didn’t see him.”

“Ugh, TCBY, right?”

“What about yogurt now?”

Shit.
“I mean, STBY.”
Before she has a chance to become suspicious, I say, “Listen.
Gotta motor.
Bikini wax appointment.
Catch you on the flippity-flop.”

What I mean is, catch you
and
your scoundrel boyfriend on the flippity-flop.

•   •   •

“This is my unhappy face,” Kitty says, lips pressed tight, brows knit.

She’s been upset ever since we tore out of the Delano in order to catch a three-thirty flight to the Grand Caymans without her yet having found Ken.
I’d spotted someone who looked like him at the pool, but that guy was rubbing oil all over some woman, so I was clearly mistaken.

“I’m sorry, Kitty.
Truly.
But this was the only way we were going to get here ahead of Ingrid.
And since you refuse to fly with me, we had no other choice,” I reply.

Little Cayman is just that—little, populated by only a few hundred permanent residents.
Nonstop flights from Miami to Little Cayman don’t exist.
The island isn’t a direct entry point to the country; both visitors and residents must ingress from one of the larger Cayman Islands.
So, we’re staying on Grand Cayman tonight and puddle-jumping to the little island in the morning to stake out where Ingrid and Trip plan to stay.