Page 83 of Sexy as Sin
Stop being such a baby. And stop wishing you’d taken your phone. You didn’t take your phone, so there’s no point wishing.
She kept on because she had no choice, and heard a rumble ahead over the sound of the rain. Pillars above her, and a concrete bulwark. The motorway. Another good sign, if it was the right motorway, the one she’d walked under earlier. Another lurch of fear, and she thought,It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t the right direction. There are people somewhere.She passed a vacant lot and headed under the overpass, and saw what looked like a tent city under there, filled with odd humps and shadows, with the odd light bouncing off a pair of legs, a low yellow tent.
People worse off than you, that’s all, and fear gets you nowhere. She headed along the sidewalk, moving briskly, aware of heads turning to watch her, but nobody said anything, even though she felt like there was a target on her back. It was the new red coat, its sumptuousness making her feel guilty despite the lack of coyote fur. When she moved out from under the shelter, the rain pelted her back and soaked her jeans, but she had her coat, and gloves and a hat, and shoes, even if her left foot was burning like fire. She was lucky. She waslucky.
Ahead of her, somebody was shuffling along, head down and pelted by rain. Willow ran to catch up, but the person didn’t turn. A woman, she thought. “Pardon me,” she said. “Can you tell me—”
Whoever it was, they didn’t look at her, just shook their head, hastened their steps, then turned and headed down a side street. Ahead, though, there were lights showing higher up. A bigger building. Lights. People. She was coming into the downtown—adowntown, surely. Some more commercial area. She was shivering now despite the coat, and she kept running, trying to ignore the pain from her toes and not able to.
It was a hotel, she saw once she was there. A heavy, old-fashioned glass door with a huge brass handle. Black and white squares of linoleum, and a wooden counter with a man behind it, all of it shabby and very nearly dirty.
“Excuse me,” she said, when she’d dripped her way across to the counter with the man eyeing her without enthusiasm the whole way. “May I use a phone?”
“No public phone,” he said. “Stand back from the desk. You’re getting it wet.”
“Please,” she said. “I left mine at home, and I’m from... from Australia. I just got here. I’m lost.” Her teeth were chattering more now that she was out of the cold, her nose was running, her throat had closed up, and when she pushed her hood back, the front of her hair dripped cold water down her face.
“Sorry,” he said, and didn’t sound it. “No public phone. No public restroom, either, since you’re about to ask.”
A voice from behind Willow. A bigger man, in camo-print pants and a khaki jacket, with a brown beard all the way down his neck and a black watch cap covering a mop of hair that blended with the beard. He said, “For Christ’s sake, Mac, let her use the phone. You get off on being a jerk?”
The man behind the counter, whose narrow jaw and beady eyes made him look like a weasel, said, “It’s the rules.” Stiffly.
Oh,Willow remembered.Wallet.She fumbled off her soaking-wet leather gloves, reached into her coat pocket with fingers that were almost too numb to feel, pulled out a few notes, and set them on the counter. They were all the same size and color, and telling them apart in her befogged state was taking her a minute. “How much for a call?” she asked. “How much to ring for a taxi?”
Mac’s skinny hand snaked out and grabbed one of the bills before she could see the number on it, then shoved a grubby beige instrument across the desk at her. “One call,” he said. “Local.”
Her hand stilled on the receiver. She didn’t know Brett’s number. Whose numberdidshe know by heart? Her aunt and uncle’s, which was the last thing from local. She focused hard. She needed a taxi, if she knew how you rang for a taxi here, but Rat Man probably wouldn’t tell her.
It was exactly like surfing, that was all. No room for panic when things turned to custard. The sea didn’t forgive weakness. You focused on the moment.Start again,Brett would say.Start from here.Same thing. She pressed the phone’s buttons fast, before Rat Man could object.
It just rang. Of course it did. Hollywood stars didn’t answer calls from strange numbers. She waited impatiently until she heard, “Leave a message, please.” Not in Rafe’s voice. In Lily’s. More layers of privacy protection.
“It’s Willow,” she said. “Ring me back at this number. Please, Rafe. It’s an... an emergency.” She hung up the phone, but kept her hand on the receiver. Rat Man said, “I said one call,” and she ignored him. And when the phone finally rang, she picked it up fast.
“Rafe?” she asked.Please be Rafe.I’m lost.
“Tell me how bad an emergency.” Rafe all the way.
“Uh...” Her voice was shaking, and she did her best to control it. “Could you ring Brett, please? Do you or Lily have his mobile number?”
“Somebody will. Why? What’s going on?”
She stuck her elbow on the counter and rested her head on her hand. She wished Rat Guy wasn’t listening. “Tell him I’m in the... the... I’m, uh...” Oh, crikey, but did she ever have to pee all of a sudden. She was nearly dancing.
The fella in the fatigues had come closer. Probably too close, especially since he smelled like cigarettes and unwashed clothes, but he didn’t feel dangerous. Either her sensors were frozen, or he actuallywasn’tdangerous. “The Palisade,” he said.
“The Palisade,” she repeated. “Hotel. In, uh...” She couldn’t remember.
“Portland,” the big fella said.
“Portland,” she told Rafe. “Here. In the States, I mean. Or... just ring a taxi for me instead, and ask them to come? Straight away? I’ve got myself lost, and it’s raining, and this bloke won’t let me make another call, and...” She shut her mouth hard on the babbling. “Please.”
“Hand the phone over to him,” Rafe said. “Now.”
She held it out. “My cousin wants to talk to you.”
“Yourcousin.”Rat Man looked at her with flat, seen-everything eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to talk to your cousin.”
