James Patterson - Swimsuit

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

I had been thorough. I was sure of it. I revisited that night when I'd just returned from New York, and Henri called me at Amanda's apartment minutes after I'd walked in the door. I'd checked Mandy's phones and mine, checked both of our apartments for bugs.

I hadn't noticed anything unusual around us on the highway this afternoon. There was no way anyone could have followed us when we took the off-ramp to Santa Barbara. We had been alone for so many miles that we'd practically owned the road.

Ten minutes ago, after the maitre d' escorted us out of the dining room, he'd told me that the champagne had been phoned in, charged to a credit card by Henri Benoit. That explained nothing. Henri could have called from any point on the globe.

But how had he known where we were?

If Henri hadn't tapped Mandy's phone, and if he hadn't tailed us -

A stunning thought cracked through my mind like a lightning strike. I stood up, and said, “He put a tracking device on your bike.”

“Don't even think about leaving me in this room alone,” Amanda said. I sat back down beside her, took her hand between both of mine and kissed it. I couldn't leave her in the room, and I couldn't protect her in the parking lot either.

“As soon as it's light tomorrow, I'm dismantling your bike until I find the bug.”

“I can't believe what he's doing to us,” Mandy said, and then she started to cry.

We held on to each other under the bedcovers, our eyes wide open, listening to every footstep overhead, every creak in the hallway outside the room, every groan and pitch of the air conditioner. I didn't know if I was being rational or extremely paranoid, but I felt Henri watching us now.

Mandy had me tightly wrapped in her arms when she started crying out, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.”

I tried to comfort her, saying, “Honey, stop. This isn't such bad news. We'll find out how he's tracking us.”

“Oh, my God – this, ” she said, poking me hard high on my right buttock. “This thing on your hip. I've told you about it. You always say it's nothing.”

“That thing? It is nothing.”

“ Look at it.”

I threw off the blankets, switched on the lights, walked to the bathroom mirror with Mandy close behind me. I couldn't see it without contorting myself, but I knew what she was talking about: a welt that had been tender for a few days after Henri had clubbed me in my apartment.

I'd thought it was a bruise from the fall, or a bug bite, and after a few days the soreness went away.

Mandy had asked me about the bump a couple of times, and, yes, I'd said it was nothing. I reached around and touched the raised spot, the size of two grains of rice lying end-to-end.

It didn't seem so nothing, not anymore.

I rifled through my toiletry kit, dumped it out on the vanity, and found my razor. I beat it against the marble sink until the shaving head broke into parts.

“You're not going to? Ben! You don't want me to do it?”

“Don't worry. It'll hurt me more than it hurts you.”

“Wow, you're funny.”

“I'm fucking terrified,” I said.

Mandy took the blade from my hand, poured Listerine over it, and dabbed at the spot on my rump. Then she pinched a fold of skin and made a quick cut.

“I've got it,” she said.

She dropped the bloody bit of glass and metal into my hand. It could only be one thing: a GPS tracking device, the kind that are implanted into the necks of dogs. Henri must've injected it into my hide when I was lying unconscious on the floor. I'd been wearing this damned bug for weeks.

“Flush it down the toilet,” Amanda said. “That'll keep him busy.”

“Yeah. No. Tear some tape off that roll, would you?”

I pressed the device against my side, and Mandy ripped off a length of adhesive tape with her teeth. I patted the tape across the chip, securing it to my body again.

“What's the point of keeping it?” Mandy asked.

“As long as I'm wearing it, he won't know that I know that he's tracking me.”

“And? what good is that?”

“It starts the ball rolling in the other direction. We know something he doesn't.”

FRANCE.

Henri stroked Gina Prazzi's flank as his breathing slowed. She had a wonderful peach-shaped ass, perfect rounded haunches with a dimple on each cheek at the small of her back.

He wanted to fuck her again. Very much so. And he would.

“You can untie me now,” she said.

He patted her, got up, reached under a chair and into his bag, then went to the camera that was clipped to the heavy folds of the curtains.

“What are you doing? Come back to bed, Henri. Don't be so cruel.”

He turned on the floor lamp and smiled into the lens, then went back to the canopied bed, said, “I don't think I caught the part when you were calling out to God. Too bad.”

“What are you doing with that video? You're not sending it? You're crazy, Henri, if you think they'll pay.”

“Oh, no?”

“I assure you, they will not.”

“It's for my private collection, anyway. You should trust me more.”

“Untie me, Henri. My arms are tired. I want a new game. I demand it.”

“You always think of your own pleasure.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. “But there will be a price to pay for this.”

Henri laughed. “Always a price.”

He picked up the remote control from the ornate night table, turned on the television set. He clicked past the hotel welcome screen, found the channel guide, pressed the buttons for the BBC.

First there were sports scores, then a market wrap-up, and then there were the faces of the new girls, Wendy and Sara.

“I absolutely loved Sara,” he told Gina, who was trying to loosen the knots binding her wrists to the headboard. “She never begged for her life. She never asked any stupid questions.”

“If I had use of my, ah, hands, I could do some nice things for you,” Gina said.

“I'll think about it.”

Henri clicked off the remote, rolled over, and straddled Gina's fantastic ass. He put his hands on her shoulders, rubbed his thumbs in circles at the base of her neck. He was getting hard again. Very hard, painfully so.

“This is becoming boring,” she said. “Maybe this reunion was a bad idea.”

Henri closed his fingers gently around her throat, still just playing a game. He felt her body tense and a film of sweat come over her skin.

Good. He liked her to be afraid. “Still bored?” He squeezed until she coughed, pulled at the restraints, wheezing his name as her lungs fought for air.

He released her, and then, as she gulped for breath, he untied her wrists. Gina shook out her hands and rolled over, still panting, said, “I knew you couldn't do it.”

“No. I couldn't do that.”

She got out of the bed and flounced toward the bathroom, stopping first to wink at the camera. Henri watched her go, then he got up, reached into his bag again, and walked into the bathroom behind her.

“What do you want now?” she asked, making eye contact with him in the mirror.

“Time's up,” he said.

Henri pointed the gun at the back of Gina's neck and fired, watched in the blood-spattered mirror as her eyes got large, then followed her body as she dropped to the floor. He put two more slugs into her back, checked her pulse, wiped down the gun and the silencer, placed the weapon at her side.

After his shower, Henri dressed. Then he downloaded the video to his laptop, wiped down the rooms, packed his bag, and checked that everything was as it should be.

He stared for a moment at the three diamond wristwatches on the nightstand and remembered the day he met her.