Getaway Read Online Free

packed, the sleeveless top and shorts. She considered having a whiskey from the minibar, thinking it might relax her, might help her sleep, but she already had the beginnings of a headache, so instead she took an Ambien. Tom’s prescription. Why let them go to waste?
    She climbed into bed, closed her eyes. What replayed in her head was not the robbery, the assault, but Daniel’s face, over hers.
    Maybe I should have gone to the hospital, Michelle thought as the drug began to take hold. Would that have been the right thing to do? But she barely knew Daniel, after all. Couldn’t even ask for him by name.
    The breeze from the ocean billowed the gauzy curtains on the balcony. I should get up, she thought. I should close the door. But she was safe here, wasn’t she? And she was so tired, and the air smelled good.
    She watched the curtains expand and contract, as though they were breathing.
    Eventually her breaths slowed down to match, and then she slept.
    “We hope you can stay a little longer, Ms. Mason.”
    The woman behind the front desk, a different woman from the one last night, briefly rubbed her hands before composing herself. She was trim, perhaps Michelle’s age, carefully made up, with a gold necklace and gold earrings that looked to be a set. Even in the heat of the patio that served as the hotel lobby, only the faintest dewy perspiration dampened her forehead. Michelle was already dripping sweat.
    “We are so sorry about what happened. We’d like for you to stay as our guest and enjoy yourself.”
    Everyone was being very kind, Michelle thought. Probably they were worried about lawsuits.
    The robbers had somehow gained access to a vacant room next to her old room, climbed from that balcony onto hers. Obviously the security was not what it should have been. If she were in America, she could probably sue.
    But in Mexico? How did things work here? Would it be worth it to try?
    “Right now I’m scheduled to leave on Sunday,” she said.
    “Of course, of course. We could make an arrangement for you to stay here in the future, if you’d like to return. Or if you decide you’d like to stay a little longer, we can do that as well.”
    “Thank you,” Michelle said. “I’ll think about it.”
    Even with what had happened, it was tempting. Spending time on the beach, drinking margaritas on the hotel’s dime, sounded better than her current life in Los Angeles. Living in her sister’s spare room. Listening to Maggie’s fights with her boyfriend, to her son Ben’s tantrums. It was why she’d come on this vacation in the first place, to get away from all that for a few days.
    A giggle rose in her throat as she walked up the stairs from thereception area to her tower. Maybe she just wouldn’t leave. See how long the hotel’s free room was good for. They hadn’t really said.
    I’ll live off room service and peanuts from the minibar, she thought. Let my hair go gray, my thighs get fat, get a couple of cats and a Chihuahua. Fill the room with purchases from the beach vendors: loud serapes, wooden dolphin statuettes, flying Batman parachute toys, piled in stacks, all smelling vaguely of cat piss. Take her Chihuahua on walks down the Malecón. Maybe one of the cats, too.
    She felt, for the first time in months, light. Unencumbered. Free.
    The feeling wouldn’t last long, probably, but why not enjoy it?
    Maybe I’ll take some pictures, she thought.
    Get out the good camera. Wander around. See what caught her eye. She hadn’t done that in ages, hadn’t done it here at all, not even a few snapshots with her point-and-shoot, and she was a pretty decent photographer—or had been, once.
    She decided to change out of the sundress and into some shorts and a tanktop. Better for taking photos, in case she needed to climb or crouch.
    The hotel people hadn’t arranged things the way she would, naturally, and she had to hunt inside the wardrobe to figure out where they’d put her clothes.
    Underwear on one shelf.