A Quick Bite

Prologue “It’s just a little dinner party.” “Uh huh,” Greg Hewitt murmured. Standing, he caught the receiver in the crook between his shoulder and neck, holding it in place with his chin as he began to clean up his desk in preparation of leaving the office. His sister’s voice had taken on a wheedling tone which was always a bad sign. Sighing inwardly, he shook his head as she continued rattling on, telling him what she had planned for the meal and so on, all in an effort to convince him to attend. He noticed she wasn’t mentioning who else was to be at this little dinner, but suspected he already knew. Greg had no doubt that Jackie had meant for it to be herself, her long suffering husband John, and yet another single female friend she hoped to hook up with her still single older brother. “So?” Greg paused and caught the phone in hand. He’d obviously missed something. “I’m sorry, what was that?” “So, what time can you get here tomorrow?” “I won’t be coming.” Before she could whine, he added quickly, “I can’t. I’ll be out of the country tomorrow.” “What?” There was a pause, then a suspicious, “Why? Where are you going?” “Mexico. I’m going on vacation. That’s why I called you in the first place. I fly out first thing in the morning for Cancun.” Knowing he’d just set his sister aback, Greg allowed a smile to tug at his lips as he juggled the phone around to don the suit jacket he’d discarded earlier in the day. “Mexico?” Jackie said after a long pause. “A vacation?” Greg couldn’t decide if her bewilderment was amusing or just a sad commentary on his life to date. This was the first vacation he’d taken since starting his psychology practice eight years ago. Actually, he hadn’t gone on vacation since starting University. He was a typical workaholic; driven to succeed and willing to put the hours in to do so. It didn’t leave much time for a social life. This vacation was long overdue. “Listen, I have to get going. I’ll send you a postcard from Mexico. Bye.” He hung up before she could say anything to stop him, then grabbed his briefcase and quickly escaped the office. Greg wasn’t surprised to hear the phone start ringing as he locked the office door, Jackie was the persistent sort, but he ignored it. Smiling faintly, he pocketed his keys and started down the hall for the bank of elevators that serviced the whole floor. Dr. Gregory Hewitt was now officially on vacation and the knowledge made him relax more with every step away from his office. He was actually whistling softly as he boarded the elevator and turned to push the button marked P3. The whistle died, however, and Greg reached instinctively toward the panel, his eyes searching for the hold button to keep the doors open when he realized a woman was hurrying toward the closing doors. He needn’t have bothered; the woman was quick on her feet and managed to slip through just before the doors closed. Greg let the hand he’d half-raised to the panel drop away and stepped politely out of the way so she could select the floor she wanted. He gave her a curious once over as she moved in front of the panel, idly wondering where the woman had come from. The hall had been empty when he’d traversed it and he hadn’t heard a door open or close, but then he’d been distracted with thoughts of his coming vacation. There were several offices on this floor besides his own, and she could be from any of them, but he was sure he’d never seen her before. She was not the sort of woman a man forgot in a hurry with her long legs, curvaceous figure and long dark wavy hair. Greg had only got a glimpse of her face as she’d boarded the elevator and most of her features were a vague blur in his memory, but her eyes had been attention grabbing, a silver-blue he’d never seen before. They were beautiful, but unusual. He now decided they were the result of colored contacts and immediately lost any interest in her. Greg could appreciate a beautiful woman, and had no problem with them making the best of their appearance, but when they moved on to this level of artifice to try to attract attention, he tended to be turned off. Shrugging her out of his thoughts, he relaxed back against the wall as the elevator began to move. His mind immediately began to fill with his coming trip. Greg had planned a lot of outings, he’d never been anywhere like Mexico before and wanted to enjoy all there was to do. Along with the usual lounging on the beach, he hoped to get in some parasailing, snorkeling and maybe go on one of those boat rides where you got to feed the dolphins. Greg was also interested in going to the Museo Arqueológico de Cancún to see relics from digs, he definitely wanted to go to the Museum Casa Maya, an ecological park with walking paths where you could see the local animals and a reproduction of how the Mayans lived centuries ago. And he might even give the bullfights a chance, though that idea wasn’t really very interesting to him, he hated to see animals suffer. Then there was the night life. Greg had looked into it on the web and thought he might like to have dinner on the Cancun Queen, a paddle wheeler that served dinner as it cruised a lagoon. If he had any energy after that, he might just hit Coco Bongo or the Bulldog café, dance bars full of half-naked people gyrating to deafening music. The elevator’s cheerful ding drew Greg’s thoughts from half-naked dancing women to the panel above the doors. P3 was lit up; parking level 3. His floor. Nodding politely in the general direction of his companion, he stepped off the elevator and started walking through the large, nearly empty parking garage. Half-naked women still dancing on the periphery of his mind, it took Greg a minute or two to notice the sound of footsteps behind him. He almost glanced over his shoulder to see who it was when it did infiltrate his thoughts, and then let the matter go. The sound was the hollow ‘tap tap’ of high heels on concrete; sharp and quick and echoing loudly in the nearly empty space. The brunette was obviously also parked on this floor. His gaze moved absently over the open space toward where his car should be, but got caught on one of the supporting beams as he passed. The large black P1 painted on the concrete beam made him slow in confusion. Parking levels 1 and 2 were reserved for visitors to the various offices and businesses in the building. He was parked on P3 and had been sure the elevator panel light had been on P3 when he’d looked…but it appeared he’d misread the sign. Stopping, he started to turn back the way he’d come. This is the right floor. There is the car ahead. “Yes, of course,” he murmured under his breath and continued forward. He strode up to the lone vehicle. It wasn’t until he stopped at the back of the car and found himself opening the trunk that the thought broke through his mind that this wasn’t his car. His was a dark blue BMW, not this small red sports car. But as quickly as that thought – with its accompanying alarm -- claimed him, it blew away like fog under the influence of a breeze. Relaxing, Greg set his briefcase inside the trunk, climbed in after it, arranged himself in the small space, then pulled the trunk closed, trapping himself inside.