Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (debian ebook reader .txt) 📕

So I slid the bobby pin into that small hole. At first I jiggled, but then I thought that movement wasn’t right, too hasty, too chaotic. I pushed the knob in with the other hand as I moved the bobby pin slowly around. Now and then I got discouraged, my wrists aching a bit from the pushing and the turning, and took a break, and then I started up again, always listening for footsteps. Sometimes crying a bit, that weird dry-crying you do when there aren’t any actual tears, mostly from frustration. A few times I stood up, walked around, shook out my hands and aching wrists, gave myself a pep talk like a madwoman. Twice I thought I almost had it, I felt the pin catch, but then I lost it again.

The third time I thought I almost had it, and then I did. I turned the knob.

HOOKING MY FLIP-FLOPS from a couple of fingers, I bolted from that room like a bat out of hell. I ran, skin tingling, vision bleary with fear, to the service elevator. Then I didn’t want to be in another tight space, so I kept going right past it to the stairs, down the stairs on my bare feet, one flight, two flights, three flights and four—there was the door to the outside. It was a great feeling, coming out into the breeze and sunlight. I’d freed myself. I felt proud.

And from there I kept running, just ran and ran on those paved paths all the way back to the Pearl Diver Cabana. Now there were golf carts around, now when I didn’t have any use for them at all there were plenty of hotel guests moving to and fro, but I didn’t stop, just ran, smiling to be free, my phone hitting against my leg until I grabbed it in the non-shoe hand; I ran, not worrying about the sharp pebbles I stepped on, the stray leaves and grains of sand and flower petals that stuck to my heels and gathered between my toes.

It was the best I’d felt since we arrived, with the exception of a few seconds of sex on the first day. (Maybe.) Then I was banging on Steve’s door, breathing heavily, shooting worried glances over my shoulder.

It was Janeane who opened it, Janeane who said, “Good Goddess! I heard from Chip they kidnapped you—are you all right?” She pulled me in and shut the door, then bolted it. “We’re safe here. You poor thing!”

She was alone; the others had gone out before Chip called her about me; he’d told her not to worry them, that he and the stealth team had me covered, to just let them get the AV equipment.

We called Chip on Janeane’s cell, not wanting to use the hotel phone in case the bad guys might be listening in; I told him what had happened. Chip, whose voice cut out and in again, said they’d been on the brink of finding me, he was certain, but he’d tell me later about the obstacles they’d encountered. For now Janeane and I were in what she called a “safe space,” though I wasn’t so sure. But the doors to the patio locked too, and I figured that was probably the best we could do. Coasting on the high of my lock-picking self-liberation, I felt newly powerful.

Full steam ahead, damn it, said Chip, and I concurred. Those hotel-running, abductor bastards weren’t going to get us down.

I picked a lock, I texted Gina after plugging my phone in with Steve’s charger. Rock on, she texted me.

It was late by now, well into the waning afternoon, and before long Janeane and I were joined by Miyoko and Rick and Steve. They were loaded down with equipment, even a satellite dish, which Steve was manfully struggling to carry. There were no big-box electronics stores in the vicinity, so I was pretty amazed, but I didn’t have time to ask where they’d got the stuff, because Janeane was too busy squeaking out my kidnapping story.

“Jesus,” said Steve. “You actually escaped? Picking a lock with a bobby pin?”

“Must have been a cheap lock,” I conceded.

“Very good,” said Miyoko, but her composure wasn’t affected. She gave me a small, pleased smile. It’d take more than an amateurish kidnapping to faze Miyoko; I saw that now.

“Why you?” asked Rick. “Why bother with just one of us, wouldn’t they need to put all of us out of commission?”

“Maybe I was just the first,” I said. “I was the only one alone, anyway.”

“Phase one?” said Steve.

“Well, you were a sitting duck, going off by yourself like that,” nodded Rick.

“Blaming the victim!” said Janeane.

“So we have to stay in groups from now on,” I said. “I guess that’s the lesson here. No solo travelers.”

“Right,” said Rick. “I wonder what the situation is, litigation-wise. The parent company’s U.S.-based, you know. You should be able to sue these guys.”

“Instead we’re paying them,” I said. “I paid these people good money to stay here, and they go ahead and kidnap me.”

I found I could make light of the abduction, now that it was over.

We busied ourselves getting the tech set up—or at least Rick and Miyoko did, while Steve and Janeane and I offered moral support. Miyoko had brought her laptop in; she charged me with finding open-source video of the island that we could use. That was more up my alley than the AV end, so I set myself to the task.

It was almost dusk by the time Chip and Ronnie showed up—Chip and Ronnie, but no Thompson. They looked sub-bleached and waterlogged, with salt crusted on their skin and in their hair. When Chip and I were done with our reunion—not tearful, but a tad private, so we withdrew to the bedroom for a few minutes—he told me Thompson had stowed away. After they’d done some homework to identify the armada’s flagship yacht, and Thompson had equipped himself with a