Page 16 of Code Word (The Atrous #3)

TEN

I’d been to Mexico many times. Admittedly, that was to Mexico City and I’d flown there in a private jet.

Flying economy on a commercial airline was a whole new experience, and not one I’d be too excited to do again.

There was a smell I couldn’t quite place and a screaming kid a few rows back.

But I paid for Wi-Fi—only after I heard someone complaining about having to pay for Wi-Fi. I had no clue that was a thing.

But it allowed me to find that photo of Luke online, then set about trying to find where the hell it was actually taken.

After absolutely no luck, I had an idea.

Atrous fan accounts on social media . . .

They used to be able to pinpoint our locations from some random thing in the background. Down to a few feet. It was frightening. I remember one time when some fans recognized a shirt Maddox had worn by the stitching and could provide photos of the two times he’d worn it years before.

There was nothing they couldn’t find.

So I began searching hashtags, anything to do with Atrous or Luke, and then I began scrolling .

And bingo.

Someone had Google Maps screenshots of the surrounding beach, the cabana in the background. They even had the brand and cost of the clothes he was wearing.

La Fortuna Beach, northeast of Cabo.

Freaking hell.

Okay, so that person should be working for the CIA...

But then I saw all the comments about Luke and Vana breaking up, about how terrible I’d looked in the photo with those girls in the record store, how these two facts must be related...

I mean, they weren’t wrong.

But for fuck’s sake.

It was bullshit like this that did my head in.

But I had a location. Well, I had a location of where Luke was yesterday, or earlier today. The news piece hadn’t said exactly when he’d been spotted, but it was more information than I had before.

It was somewhere to start, anyway.

I felt better already. That lump in my gut seemed to ease a little, the heaviness lifted off my chest, and the lack of sleep over the last week hit me hard.

I pulled my cap down, pulled my face mask up, and closed my eyes.

Yes, Becca gave me her pink baseball cap from her car, and she found a new face mask in her glove compartment. She said it would help with the anonymity.

I reasoned that I looked like shit. Actually unshaven with scruffy hair and hadn’t slept in a week, I kinda looked homeless. I had zero luggage with me, traveling solo, and therefore it was highly unlikely anyone would recognize me.

The guy at TSA did, said he was a big fan, but I explained I was on the DL and about to miss my plane, so he rushed me through.

I was one of the last to board the plane, which wasn’t a bad thing. The least amount of time on that plane, the better. My legs were too long and my patience was far too short.

And being visibly impatient and without any luggage or clothes was not a good idea at customs because they questioned me and looked me up and down. I thought for a minute they were going to deny me entry and I was starting to panic.

But then, of course, they knew who I was, and then more officers came and some other staff from somewhere. It took all my self-control not to lose my ever-loving shit because all I wanted to do was find Luke and I was so fucking close.

Yet oh so far.

“I’m not here as a singer or... My friend is missing,” I told them. It wasn’t an outright lie. “I’m here to find him and bring him home. I don’t plan on staying long. Please. You can call my manager at the company. She’ll verify everything.”

Well, I’d like to think my ex -manager Amber would lie to a foreign government for me. Wasn’t too much to ask...

“Or my friend’s family. They asked me to come get him. His sister drove me to the airport. Or you can call my lawyers.”

I’m sure they’d love that.

They’d love to bill me for that.

The customs guy slid a piece of paper toward me and a hundred scenarios ran through my head.

Was I being denied entry?

Was I being bribed?

Did I have to pay someone?

Did I have to write my last fucking words?

“Can you autograph for me?” he said nervously, grin wide. “My daughter is a big fan.”

I blinked at him and had to remember to shut my mouth so I could speak.

“Oh. Of course.”

I scribbled my autograph, then a dozen others to waiting, smiling official faces, then I was handed back my passport and told to have a good trip.

“I hope you find your friend,” the customs guy said. “If he wants to be found.”

If he wants to be found . . .

What the fuck did that mean?

“Some people come here to not be found,” he said with a shrug. “Good luck.”

For one brief moment, I considered asking them for help. Maybe they could help me find him, track his passport number or something. Just a small blatant abuse of power, maybe?

But then I remembered thinking they were about to deny me or detain me, so I just took my passport, gave a nod, and got the hell out of there.

I walked out to the first waiting cab and tried to remember some Spanish. “Hola, Senor. Necesito ir a...” I held up my phone and showed him the screen, showing him the place Luke was seen at. “I need to... este lugar. Lo siento, mi espanol no es bueno...”

The cab driver, an older man with a kind smile, maybe fifty years old, took pity on me. “My English is not too good either.”

I laughed with relief. “Sorry. I need to go here, to this address.” I was still showing him my phone. “To this beach, I guess.”

He nodded. “I know where it is.” He set his meter and pulled the car into traffic. “It’s out of town. There isn’t much there. Just beaches and a few bars, some houses.”

I nodded, not really caring what was or wasn’t there.

“Are you meeting someone?”

I cut to his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Uh, yeah. I think... I hope.”

“Ah, an internet romance? You meeting a beautiful woman you’ve never met before on a beautiful beach? Because I hate to be the one to tell you...”

I snorted. “No.” God, could I tell him it wasn’t a woman I was meeting? “Uh, it’s my best friend. He was last seen here.”

The older man winced and mumbled something in Spanish, then he looked at me in the mirror again. “How long ago? How many days?”

“Just yesterday,” I said. “I think.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Maybe he not go too far, yeah?”

“I hope so.”

Because if he wasn’t here, I had no clue where to even start.

“How long you be staying for?” he asked.

“As long as it takes to find him,” I replied.

He nodded again, and maybe he could tell I wasn’t up for conversation, or maybe he didn’t have the heart to tell me this was a waste of time and money, but either way, he was quiet for a few miles.

The scenery was beautiful, in a desert-meets-the-ocean kind of way. I saw glimpses of the bay as the road followed the shoreline, and I was grateful that it was warmer here than it had been at home.

But I was glad I was still wearing the hoodie because I was pretty sure once the sun went down, the night would be a lot colder.

The cab slowed down and we pulled into what looked like a large parking lot that fronted the ocean. The lot was dirt and sand, no pavement here, and it was mostly empty save a few cars to one side. We pulled up close to them, and the cab driver turned in his seat.

“Bars up this way.” He pointed past the cars. “People walk from here.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I realized belatedly I only had American dollars on me, and I only had fifties. “Shit. I’ve only got dollars. ”

“Just as well I accept those,” he said with a laugh, but then his smile faded a little. “You not come prepared, huh?”

I gave him a fifty, even though it was more than double the meter. “I heard where he was seen last and literally boarded a plane. No luggage, no anything.”

“I hope you find your friend,” he said gently.

“Me too.”

He took a card from his sun visor and handed it to me. “My number. You need a lift to a hotel or back to the airport, you call me. You’ve got not even two hours of daylight left.”

“Thank you.” His kindness surprised me, and I tried not to get emotional. “I have to go.”

I got out of his cab and, without looking back at him, headed the way he’d told me to go.

I walked out onto the beach, and it did look exactly like the photos the Atrous fan had posted with the location.

The white sand stretched for maybe a mile, the water was blue, but the evening sunlight was making everything pastel and pretty.

There were bars up on the shore to my left, with fire pits and hanging lights, some cabanas. People walked along the waterline, some with dogs, some with kids.

There were people in the bars too. It certainly wasn’t pumping busy, but I wasn’t alone.

And these bars, those cabanas weren’t the ones in the pictures. So I kept walking, looking at my phone, at the photos every so often. I tried to allow for the different angles, for the time of day and change of sunlight.

Toward the end of the beach, I stopped.

I looked at my phone, at the photos, then back up to the bar, to the cabana. I was pretty sure this was it. It looked like a private house; I wasn’t sure.

Except it wasn’t a cabana. It was a veranda, a covered patio that looked more like a bar than a patio. There were timber posts and ceiling fans, patio-style furniture, and a woman sweeping the floor .

I looked at the photos again, at the photo of Luke, and I was pretty sure it had to be it.

I walked up and called out to the woman, not wanting to scare her. “Hola senora, D-disculpe.” God, my Spanish was not good. “Uh... ?Puede ay-ayudarme? Por favor? Sorry, my Spanish is not good.”

She stopped sweeping and looked at me.

I gave her my best smile, trying to appear friendly and lost. I held up my phone, showing her the photo of Luke. “Have you seen this man? I’m looking for this man.”

She glanced at the photo, then at me. “No.”

Then she kept sweeping as if I wasn’t even there.

“I’m a friend of his,” I tried. “He’s kind of missing, and I’m trying to find him.”