Chapter 17 #2
Billie would write something that was trying to be firm but had some apology built into it. The directness— the coldness?—
Alana wrote this from Billie’s phone.
Which means Alana has Billie’s phone.
Which means Alana… has Billie.
I open Instagram before I have finished thinking this through.
Alana’s stories. The first is from earlier tonight— Tilly’s, the photo I already know, the drinks raised, the amber light.
The second was posted ten minutes ago: Alana and Billie, together in a place I don’t recognize immediately.
White walls, good lighting, designer outfits hanging on racks.
It looks like a luxury women’s clothing store.
Did Alana kidnap Billie… to go shopping?
I expand the photo.
Alana is holding something against herself— a jacket, silk or something very close— and her expression is its usual radiance.
Beside her stands… Billie.
She is wearing— or has been put into— some kind of structured blazer. Fancy. High-gloss. The sort of garment that belongs on an executive who walks into rooms and makes decisions. Billie is raising a hand toward the phone as if she does not wish to be photographed.
Her eyes are not smiling.
She is not fine. She is along for the ride. Appeasing Alana until she can get away. I am familiar with this.
Then, I notice a sign in the back. It reads: Exclusivo en tienda, meaning “in-store exclusive.” The sign is in Spanish. The store interior is upscale and glamorous, like many I’ve visited in Barcelona’s premier shopping strip, Las Ramblas. Is it possible…
Alana and Billie are not in Chicago?
The idea lands on me, making me press myself back into the mattress.
Alana said she would come to me. And she knew I was headed to Spain. And now, she has brought Billie with her. Which means Billie is here, in Barcelona, possibly against her will.
I look at the photo for another moment. Then I close the app.
I find Melissa in my recent calls and press call. The phone rings.
Outside the window, the pharmacy's delivery alley is dark and quiet. The lamp flickers slightly when a truck passes on the street below.
The phone rings a second time.
I am not leaving Barcelona until I know Billie is safe.
Finally, the line connects: “She’s here,” I say, before Melissa can even say hello. “Alana brought Billie here, to Barcelona.”
I explain the text message I received from Billie— telling me to stay away— and that the store pictured on Instagram is somewhere on Las Ramblas.
I do not say the other thing I noticed about the photograph— Billie’s eyes, her open lips, her perfect features. How beautiful she looks, even when protesting having her photograph taken.
“Well, that makes sense, because I finally heard from Billie,” Melissa says, and her tone makes me imagine that her eyes are rolling.
“And?”
“She sent me a message saying we couldn’t be friends anymore,” Melissa continues, annoyed.
“And it said—” she pauses, and I hear the sound of her unlocking her phone— “‘Hey so like, this has been fun but I think we’re honestly just at different places in our lives. Like I’m sure you’re great but this whole baby thing is kind of a lot and I’m just not, like, feeling it. Totally not sorry, bye.’”
There is a long silence between us.
“Totally not sorry, bye,” she repeats. “I’m supposed to believe that Billie Harper, who made me a card when my cat died that was four pages long and had a dried flower pressed into it, sent me ‘totally not sorry, bye’ to permanently end our friendship.”
“Alana wrote both messages,” I say.
“Obviously Alana wrote both of us,” Melissa says.
“I got a call from Tyler, too. He’s freaking out.
Apparently Alana texted him from Billie’s phone and broke up with him.
Something about him being a selfish asshole who she never wants to talk to again, which is true, but— is Alana trying to overhaul Billie’s life? ”
Alana is not that selfless, I want to say, but I get to more important things instead.
“Billie’s boyfriend is so bad you see this as an improvement?” I ask, trying not to let too much curiosity into my voice.
There’s a long silence, and I almost feel like I can hear Melissa smiling on the other end of the line if only briefly. Then, she gets straight to business.
“We called the police, but they said there’s nothing they can do internationally. And Billie’s in Spain, so— so we’re coming,” Melissa says. “We’re already on our way to the airport.”
I pause. “We?”
“Steve and I.”
“Melissa,” I say.
“Don’t.”
“You are very pregn?—“
“She’s my best friend and she is in Spain with an international arms dealer, and she doesn’t have anyone else.”
“What about Tyler?” I try not to let a sarcastic edge enter my voice. Tyler does not sound like a winner, so far.
“Tyler is and always has been— useless,” Melissa admits.
“He’s having a meltdown right now because he genuinely believes she’s dumped him.
Every time I try to explain what really happened he freaks out, says I’m lying, and hangs up.
I’m going to try to get him on a plane too,” Melissa continues, with the weary determination of a woman who is managing a great many people at once.
“If he can get over himself long enough to understand what’s actually happening and that his girlfriend has literally been kidnapped. ”
“Good luck with that,” I say, and mean it. “But are you sure you should fly when you’re pregnant and?—”
“The baby is coming in four weeks whether I am sitting in my living room or on a plane, and if the baby comes early then Steve will handle it, because he is a grown man who has been to Lamaze class, and we will figure it out, and my baby will have a cool story about being born in Spain. But I am not sitting in Chicago doing nothing.”
I consider arguing further. I decide this would be the same as arguing with a wall that has decided to move and has the full structural advantage.
“Fine,” I say. “I can call Interpol. I know I said no Police, but at this point Alana is aware that Billie knows what she is.”
“You can do that?” she asks. “Just— call Interpol?”
I have been, for the last six months, adjacent to a world that operates alongside institutions like Interpol in the way that a drainage ditch operates alongside a river— parallel, aware of each other, occasionally exchanging information under conditions of mutual benefit.
I know a name. I know a number. I know a man who has, in the past, found it useful to be owed a favor by someone who knows where certain cargo goes and who moves it.
I have never called in this kind of favor before.
I had hoped, genuinely, never to need to.
“I can try,” I say. “I have a contact. He’s motivated, I think, by the prospect of a Twin Ledger connection. It’s not nothing, what I can offer.”
“Then do it,” Melissa says. “As soon as we hang up.”
“Sí,” I say.
“And Rodrigo—” she pauses, and her voice shifts slightly, “Billie is okay. I think she’s okay. Alana likes her. She’s not going to hurt someone she likes, right?”
I think about Billie’s eyes, and what she told me about painting, and that electric single moment I have not been able to forget. Billie has to be okay.
There is a knock at the door.
“—the flight is at six-fifteen,” Melissa is saying in my ear. “Steve found two seats, business class, which he insists on?—”
“One moment,” I say.
“Rodrigo?”
The knock comes again. Housekeeping, almost certainly.
“Hold on,” I say, to Melissa, and then louder, toward the door: “No, gracias. Tomorrow, please. Ma?ana.”
Silence from the hallway.
“Anyway,” Melissa says, “Steve found the seats, and we?—”
The door flies open. The sound of the lock breaking shocks me into action. The frame splinters in a cascade of shards, making me avert my eyes. I hear the thud of the door hitting the wall, and the wallpaper behind it accepting the impact.
The man who stands there is large. Larger than I am. He has, in his right hand, a gun. Not a rope. No rope this time— the Ledger has apparently decided to upgrade.
The lamp flickers when he steps in.
I look at the gun and then at the man. His expression says he has done this before and found it uncomplicated.
“Melissa,” I say into the phone, and my voice is— I am going to say this with some amount of private pride— extremely calm.
“What’s happening,” she says immediately.
“I’ll have to call you back. If something happens to me, tell Billie—” I pause, trying to find the words. The big man looks at me like I’m slowing down his evening. “Tell Billie I tried. And she deserves better, than this Travis?—”
“Tyler,” Melissa corrects.
“Exactly,” I say. “Just— tell Billie I tried.”
I put the phone in my pocket, and prepare to fight.