“That one,” George whispered when the waitress left their table. “Looks just like a shampoo model, don’t ya think?”

Ana watched the slim young woman sashay to the bar, carrying the empty bottle of sauvignon blanc they’d just finished. Her blonde hair was long and lustrous, falling to her back in gentle waves. The girl reminded Ana of herself twenty years earlier. 

“You like her?” George asked, leaning closer. 

Ana smiled, smelling the alcohol and cheesy garlic on his breath. They were in an upscale wine bar on St. Maarten near the resort she’d booked for their mid-winter vacation.  

George raised his eyebrows. “Come on. She was flirting with you too.” He reached his hand under the table and rubbed her thigh. “You’re not going to renege on me, are you?”

“We’ll see what happens when she comes back,” Ana said. She tapped her long pink nails against the mahogany table top.

George squeezed her leg and grinned. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were half-lidded, sly. “That’s my girl.”

The sommelier’s name tag read Milena. After George ordered the second bottle of wine, she lingered at their table; made small talk as her long, delicate fingers expertly worked the wine opener. She poured a small amount in his glass for him to taste.

George nodded. “Perfect.” He motioned for her to fill their two glasses.

 Ana watched George, his eyes glued to the waitress’s cleavage. She wore a gold necklace with a seashell charm.

“Where are you from?” Ana asked.

“Serbia,” the young woman answered. “Belgrade. I came to St. Maarten a few years ago.” Her eyes were a glacial blue even in the dim light of the noisy bar.

“Ah,” George said. “I thought you might be from Russia or the Ukraine.”

Milena smiled. “You were close.”

Ana watched their body language more than she paid attention to the ensuing conversation. Milena stood, head tilted toward George, as if she were intrigued by every word out of his mouth. He was trying to impress her with his knowledge of world events and what little he knew of her homeland. She watched the young woman laugh at George’s lame jokes; move closer to him; touch his shoulder; linger longer than she should at their table while he got louder and giddier from all the attention.

“Why don’t you join us for a drink when you get off work?” Ana finally asked when she caught Milena’s eye. “We’d love to talk more.”

“I’m done at eleven,” Milena said, her gaze fixed on Ana now. Ana winked.

Signals received and understood. “We’re at the Sun Bay Hotel,” Ana said. “Right around the corner.”

“Room 805,” George added. “I’ll write it down.” Milena handed him a pen and he scrawled the room number on a cocktail napkin. “My cell phone number is on there too in case they lock the outside door.”

Milena folded the napkin and tucked it in her pocket. She smiled at Ana. “I’ll see you then.”

“You think she’ll come?” George asked, pacing from the kitchenette to the sitting area in their large hotel suite.  Ana could tell he was beside himself. “Holy shit, what if she does?”
“Then you’ll have your wish,” Ana said. She slipped into the slinky black dress George had bought her for their trip to the Caribbean, and then sat at the edge of the bed, hugging her knees. “What you’ve wanted for awhile now. Are you ready for this?”

 “Oh hell, yeah,” George said, grinning wide like a kid in a candy store. “It’ll be great. What about you? Are you ready?”

Ana nodded. She looked at George, this man she’d married eight years earlier. His hair had turned silver and years of long hours at the law office in Atlanta had taken a toll; he had a sizeable paunch that his untucked shirt failed to hide.

“Do you have enough cash?” she asked. 

“For what?”

His genuine puzzlement made her laugh. “George. She’s what, twenty-nine, thirty years old? You’re fifty-seven. The people on this island are poor, you know that.” 

“For Pete’s sake.” His face, already flushed from too much alcohol, turned a brighter scarlet. “Fine. If that’s how it goes, I’m willing to pay.” He mumbled something under his breath while he thumbed through his billfold. “You think a couple hundred’s enough?”

Ana turned her back on him so he couldn’t see her roll her eyes. She went into the bathroom to reapply her lipstick and studied the reflection of the middle-aged, well-preserved blonde in the mirror. Sure, her third decade had come and gone, but all things considered, she wasn’t hard on the eyes. Not that she was enough for George. He’d been making that abundantly clear the past couple of years. She wasn’t the dewy-eyed young trophy wife anymore. This year she was quite aware she was the same age as the first wife he’d kicked to the curb. 

Suddenly George appeared behind her, his pudgy hands groping her breasts. She stiffened but stopped herself from slapping him away.

“We’re going to have so much fun tonight,” he said hoarsely in her ear. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“Yes, you have,” she said. He’d become more and more insistent that they “needed” this to keep their marriage fresh. It’d been getting stale, he’d said. He’d joked that if she didn’t want to “try new things,” she might just end up as Ex-Wife Number Two. And of course, the pre-nup he’d made her sign pretty much ensured she’d walk away from eight years of her life with him with very little. He often joked that if she wanted to keep him happy, she’d agree to give it a whirl. But she knew him well after all this time.

 He really wasn’t joking.

The knock at the door came at 11:20 pm.

“She’s here.” George turned off the TV and scrambled off the bed, the bedsprings creaking under his weight. “Good thing, I was almost ready to fall asleep!”

Ana put down the newspaper she’d been reading and stood up, smoothing her black silk dress. She took a deep breath.

It was Go Time.

Milena had changed from her white shirt and tight black pants to a sexy blue jumpsuit that showed off her slim figure. Her lips were a deep red, a stark contrast to her pale skin.

“Come in, come in,” George gushed, stepping aside from the doorway.

She held a bottle of wine in one hand, a dark tote bag in the other. “What you were drinking at the bar, yes?”

“Thank you,” Ana said, and took the chilled sauvignon blanc to the small kitchenette counter. She removed three wine glasses from the cabinet above the sink, and searched the utility drawer for a bottle opener.

“Allow me,” Milena said and produced a corkscrew from her tote bag.

“You come prepared,” George said and chortled. “Guess that would make sense, you’re a sommelier.”

While Milena poured the wine, her back turned to them, George motioned to Ana to sit in the beige wingback chair near the window. That left only one place for Milena…right next to George on the couch.

One empty bottle of wine on the countertop, then two. Ana had a vague memory of Milena looking through the refrigerator to find their wine stash and refill their glasses, but things seemed to be moving in slow motion. Slumped in the wingback chair, she leaned forward and struggled to focus, closing one eye to stop seeing double. Someone had turned off most of the lights but she made out the figure of her husband sprawled face down on the king bed, shirt off, pants pulled down to his ankles. His briefs were like a white beacon drawing her attention. What had happened?

“Ana.”

She turned her head. Milena was standing next to her chair. She stooped down until she was at Ana’s eye level, her long hair brushing against Ana’s left arm. 

“Are you all right?” Milena asked. 

Ana caught a whiff of a floral perfume. She reached out to touch Milena’s blurry face, but her hand felt heavy and numb. She stared at her fingers, at her diamond engagement ring, her wedding ring, at Milena’s hand grasping hers and sliding her gold Rolex off her wrist.

“Join us,” Milena whispered into her ear, and Ana felt herself being pulled from the chair as though she were a heavy rock being dislodged from the ground. Now Milena was holding her up, supporting her in a bear hug. 

Was someone knocking? What was that? Ana turned her head and tried to point to the door.

“Don’t worry,” Milena said. They moved backwards and Milena set her down gently on the bed next to George, who muttered something incoherent and then began to snore.

Ana awoke with a start. The sun was shining through the half-open slats of the wooden blinds and the light was like a dagger, hurting her eyes, worsening the sharp pain in her head that pulsed like an electric shock. What the hell? She was naked on top of the sheet, the bedspread in a heap at the foot of the bed. Beside her George was nude too, stretched out on his back, his belly a pale white mound of flesh.  A white bath towel with brownish-red streaks was crumpled on top of him. Ana shook his shoulder.

“Wake up! Wake up!” 

“What…” He opened his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. “I have the most godawful headache.”

“I do too.” She pulled back the sheets. A steak knife from the kitchenette lay on its side, its blade stained red.

George’s mouth dropped open. Then his cell phone rang.

 “What the hell do you mean? Who is this?”

Ana motioned to George to put the cell phone on speaker, but he ignored her. His face had gone pale and she saw that his hands were trembling.  “What are you talking about? What proof?” He looked at Ana, eyes wide, and pressed the phone to his ear. “What? I don’t have that kind of cash.”

A pause. “Wait! No! Just give me a few days. Hold on-”

George looked at her, stricken, “He hung up.”

“Who was it? What’s going on?”

“Some guy named Vic. He says he’s Milena’s brother. He says I hurt her bad last night and he has pictures on her phone to prove it. He wants money or he’ll go to the cops.”

“Do you remember what happened last night? I think I passed out,” Ana said, her head still throbbing. She stood up shakily, fighting nausea. The room was a mess; the coffee table was overturned and it looked like someone had smashed a wineglass on the floor. She stepped gingerly over glass shards and pulled on a bathrobe from the closet. “What the hell happened, George? Were we drugged?”

“I don’t know!” He pulled on his briefs. “I don’t remember anything after she came over! I wouldn’t hurt her. Why would I hurt her?”

Ana felt her mouth go dry and her mind whirled. She looked at the bloody towel and at George. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything!” 

Ana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “What did he say? What does he want?”

“Fifty grand. To give our passports back,” George said. “If I don’t pay him by tomorrow, he said he’ll file charges. He says Milena had to go to the hospital to get stitches for wounds on her arm. He’s going to say – he’s going to say it’s attempted rape. Attempted murder. That I stabbed her when she wouldn’t let me have sex with her.”

They both rushed to his suitcase and Ana shoved his clothes aside, the bathing suit trunks, shorts, and polo shirts. There were random spots of blood on his clothes. 

George threw every item in his suitcase onto the floor. Both of their passports were gone.

“Think, think.” George sat on the edge of the bed. His face was flushed and his hands trembled in his lap. “How can we get out of this?”

“Think about what? This asshole going to the police?” Ana said in a steely voice, trying to get her bearings back. “Is that what you want?” When he didn’t answer, she stood over him and held his shoulders. “Do you want to go to jail in this country? They don’t even have a U.S. embassy here.”

 “Let’s just get the hell out of here. Go to the airport.”

“We need our passports to get back into the country.” She could barely conceal her contempt. “Did you forget that little fact?”

George looked up at her, his face stricken. “What are we going to do?” 

Ana paced from the bed to the window overlooking the ocean. The sun rippled on the waves below. She hadn’t bothered to tell him that her watch was gone too. Did it matter? 

Finally she turned to him. “I hate to say this, but just think about how this would look to your partners. Your career would be over, George. Not to mention what horrific legal crap would happen. For starters you’ll get arrested and charged with something. You might even go to jail.  Maybe they’ll charge me too! Do what you have to do. Just give him the fifty grand. You can afford it!  Then let’s get the first flight out the second we get our passports back.”

Of course even though George had money, plenty of money, it wasn’t a simple matter to round up fifty grand. At noon, many phone calls later, they were both still in their bathrobes. 

 “My accountant is going to wire me the funds,” George said. “Just in case. Just in case we can’t reason with this guy.”

“Reason with him?”

“Maybe he’ll take less,” he said hopefully. “I just don’t understand how I could have hurt that woman.”

“She drugged us!” Ana said. “I’m sure of it. And who knows what you might have done when you were drugged with God-knows-what!”

Just then George’s cell phone beeped. He grabbed it and they both looked at the text message that appeared.

Wire the money. Will send u account #.  The next text was a series of numbers, presumably the bank account number, and then three photo attachments. Both showed what looked like part of someone’s arm with an ugly, bloody gash. The third photo was of George lying nude on the bed, his face turned away from the camera. From the angle it wasn’t clear whether his eyes were open.

“How do I know this is her?” George stared at the photos, scrolling quickly past his.

“We don’t.”

“So maybe we should just go down to the police station and report this. We’re being blackmailed.”

“Okay, and then what? What if – what if Milena has cuts on her arm and says you tried to rape her? Or kill her? What then? And look at that nude photo of you…for God’s sake, who knows what else she has? You’ll be arrested. Do you want to be arrested?”

Another text message appeared. Do it now. Soon as I get the $, will text you when you can get your passports at the front desk.

George tapped a response. How do I know this is true? 

The response was immediate. You have an hour. Then we go to the cops.

“These corrupt bastards,” George mumbled. “Maybe the hotel is in on it.”

“Well, they have a bloody towel as evidence!”  Ana shook her head. “What a fiasco this is.”

“Are you blaming me?”  George’s eyes narrowed. “You were into this too. So don’t point the finger at me. Weren’t you the one who picked her out?”

She stared at him. “What?”

“You heard me. Maybe if we’d gone with the one I wanted the other night, at the other bar…you know, the brunette with the seahorse tattoo.”

“Just shut up, George,” Ana spat. Her fingers clenched into fists. She wanted to smack him. Instead she turned away and paced across the floor. This hadn’t turned out at all the way she’d expected. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down. Not at all.

Within a half hour, George wired the money to the bank as instructed. His face turned red as he angrily punched in the numbers on his phone. 

Ana glared at him. They hadn’t spoken since she’d told him to shut up. 

“We better get our passports back,” he said. “This is bullshit. There’s no way I hurt her. I don’t even remember anything after we had that first glass of wine. I think I just passed out. I just don’t know where that blood came from. We better hear from this guy soon!”

They didn’t have long to wait. A loud knock at the door startled them both and they froze.

“Should I answer it?” George stood up.

“No, don’t,” Ana whispered. “Maybe it’s the cops. Stay quiet.”

Another knock, and then a large manila envelope slid under the door. 

Ana watched as George grabbed the envelope and opened it. A blue passport slid out. George peered into the now-empty envelope, his brow furrowed. He snatched the passport and flipped it open.

“It’s yours,” he snapped. “Where the hell is mine?”

He flung the door open and looked out into the hallway.

“Anyone there?” Ana asked shakily. But she already knew the answer when he slammed the door shut.

“Okay, now what do we do?” George stood above her like an inquisitor, his face red with rage. “This bastard isn’t through with us yet.” 

Ana took a deep breath. “Text him.”

George’s angry texts to the man who called himself Vic went unanswered the rest of the afternoon.  By early evening he was beside himself.  They had stayed in the room all day. 

“I’m hungry and I’m sick of this shit,” he said. “I’m thinking the hell with it. Let’s go to the cops. This is blackmail, pure and simple.”

“We can’t do anything hastily,” Ana said, but she was rattled. What the hell was going on?

A text finally came a few minutes later, announcing itself with a chime.

My sister is hurt bad. $50K for second passport. By tomorrow morning at 10. Account number to follow.

“I knew it!” George raged. “This will never end!”

A bank name and account number came next, along with a photo. It was clearly Milena, her left eye swollen shut. Ana couldn’t stop staring at the woman’s one good eye and her slightly parted lips. Her once-beautiful face was marred on one side with a big ugly bruise.

“It’s her,” Ana whispered and turned to her husband. “Did you do this to her?”

George glared at her but said nothing.

Ana looked at him, her panic growing. “You don’t remember, do you? I don’t either.”

A crummy lunch and then an equally crummy dinner delivered via the hotel’s slow room service; George mindlessly watching television while Ana packed their suitcases. It took a huge fight and a lot of pleading and cajoling on Ana’s part, but George finally relented. He would pay the additional fifty grand. He’d worked things out with his accountant and sent the funds to the second bank account number that had been texted to them. Ana had convinced him it was their best option and if that didn’t work…well, then they would go to the cops. 

But she had a knot in her stomach and she paced restlessly in this hotel room that now seemed like a prison they were both afraid to leave. She picked up her cell phone, looking for messages, and flung it back on the bed more than once. She didn’t dare call or text anyone…and it was killing her. Nothing was going right. Not one fucking thing. 

Sometime in the middle of the night, George’s passport appeared in an envelope that had been silently slipped under their door. Ana wasted no time booking a flight and by mid-morning the next day, they were on a plane homeward bound to Atlanta. They barely spoke a word to each other the entire trip back. Ana tried reading a book but found she couldn’t focus. 

Who had beaten Milena up? Were the photos sent on George’s cell phone recent? And who was Milena, really?

“I’ll never go to any of these wretched islands again,” George muttered when they picked up their luggage. “Or maybe anywhere else.” 

Ana said nothing. Little did he know she already had a return flight booked.

WTF? They’d been back in Atlanta for several days. When George left for work, Ana sent yet another message to Alex, her former lover, and still he failed to respond. She hadn’t heard a peep from him since …since before she and George had left for St. Maarten and their plans had been set in motion. She had so many questions and no answers.

Where are you? I’ve got my ticket! she wrote frantically. Please get back to me! I love you!

Why was he ghosting her now?  She’d reconnected with Alex a year earlier when it was clear that George was ready to dump her.  They’d had a hot and heavy relationship years before in college, when both of them had been in a quandary about their future. College sweethearts. They’d both ended up going separate ways and hadn’t talked in years, but eventually Ana had found him on social media. Over the past several months their long-distance relationship blossomed while her marriage with George soured; she knew it was only a matter of time before they’d end up in divorce court.  Alex had told her he was single and worked in a restaurant on St. Maarten. He didn’t have much money; he warned her that starting a new life together wouldn’t be easy.

So they’d come up with a plan. It was sneaky and devious, and she’d played her part well. He’d thrown a couple curveballs though…he hadn’t said anything about his woman friend, Milena, his accomplice, really getting hurt. Or had George actually assaulted the sommelier? And why had Milena drugged her too? 

They’d also agreed that Alex would return both passports in exchange for fifty thousand. It was enough to get them started in their new life, but not so much that George would balk. Asking for another fifty thousand was not part of the plan. It was a big risk and easily could have backfired.

That afternoon after she sent another pleading message, Alex disappeared entirely from Facebook. His account was gone, and at first she thought there was something wrong with the internet. She finally understood what the deal was when she called his cell phone. 

This number is not in service. 

WTF? Milena’s clothes, everything she owned in their small apartment – gone!

Alex tore the house apart in a fury. Every drawer, every closet. Her two big suitcases were gone as well. Why would she leave him…now that they finally had the cash to better their lives?  How dare she leave him! His mind raced. Yeah, he’d roughed her up a bit the night she’d gone to make the play with Ana and her asshole husband. Alex had followed her and waited until Milena let him in the room when Ana and George were drugged and out cold. But once in the hotel room and seeing George half naked on the bed, he’d gotten a little jealous, accused her of going too far with it. She’d denied it and it led to a fight, with him busting up her face and her stabbing him in the arm with a knife. It all turned out all right, though  – the wound was superficial and he’d stopped the bleeding with a towel. It was a bonus that the bloody towel would scare George and Ana even more. 

But he’d made it up to Milena, he’d brought her flowers the next day…what more did the stupid bitch want? He punched in the number to her cell phone, got voice mail, and threw the phone across the room.

Milena didn’t breathe easy until she was on the plane to Serbia. She wore heavy make-up and sunglasses to hide her black eye and the bruise on her face. Thank God she’d bought the airline ticket as soon as the fifty thousand hit her secret account. It was enough for her to start a new life back in her home country, a life free of her husband’s constant abuse and his horrible scams. She hoped that Alex would be satisfied with his fifty grand and not bother to search for her. Enough was enough. When this opportunity arose, she’d grabbed it. Alex wasn’t the only one who could set up a con. 

She wondered if Ana had discovered the truth yet, and felt a momentary twinge of regret. Ana had fallen for Alex’s scam —  hook, line, and sinker. It was too bad Ana thought Alex had really cared for her; that he was interested in rejuvenating their college love affair. Clearly Ana believed Alex was her ticket to a new and better life. She hadn’t even known he was married. She didn’t know that Alex was a rat. Probably a bigger rat than Ana’s own husband, George, Milena thought, though Ana wasn’t such a prize herself, given all her lies.

Ko drugome jamu kopa sam u nju upada, she thought. He who digs a hole for someone else falls into it himself.

She looked at Ana’s gold watch on her wrist and smiled.

---