Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar by Ellie Ashe

grabbed my hand and pulled me away.
    We ran down the empty hallway, following the directions to the exit. We were in a service hall, and the only people we passed were a few housekeeping staff and servers, but they didn 't pay much attention to us. Jake pushed the exit door open and looked outside, and then pulled me out into the alley. The concierge was right—the men looking for us were not covering the back entrance. We hurried down the alley toward a street behind the hotel.
    Jake led us on a convoluted path away from the Mandarin, and I had to jog to keep up with his long strides. The oppressive heat didn 't help. No offshore breeze penetrated the maze of city buildings where we were and the air was thick with humidity.
    " Where are we going?"
    " To my hotel," he said as we passed a bus stop.
    " The bike?" I asked, my breath coming in gasps.
    " A rental. It's fine where I left it."
    As we left the casino and modern buildings behind us, the architecture changed from modern to Macau's own blend that reflected Asian influences and those of the region's Portuguese settlers. My feet slid and stumbled over the cobblestone streets that snaked between squat and cramped buildings. The exotic scent of incense from an open market mingled with the heavy exhaust fumes from Macau's impressive traffic. It would have been a lovely walking tour, if we weren't being chased. And if we weren't nearly running.
    Jake looked up at a storefront, paused and then yanked my hand and pulled me into the front door of a convenience shop.
    He went over to a display of tourist staples—hats, sunglasses, T-shirts, postcards. He grabbed a large black T-shirt and two baseball caps and paid with cash. Taking the plastic bag, he led me back out the door, his hand gripping my elbow as if I'd flee. He didn't have to worry. I had no idea where I was. I didn't speak the language, and I had no clue who was chasing me. I may not trust him, but at that moment, Jake Barnes was my lifeline.
    At a corner, where the alley ended at a boulevard, Jake pulled out one of the baseball caps and put it on. He handed me the T-shirt.
    " What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, holding it up and reading the slogan for an American beer company.
    " Put it on. In that shirt, you look like the main character in Where's Waldo ?" he said.
    I looked down at my shirt with its wide horizontal red and white stripes. "Isn't that good? No one can find Waldo."
    He frowned, and I sighed, putting the T-shirt on over my shirt. He handed me a cap, and I put that on, too. He shook his head, took the cap off my head, and handed it to me.
    " Tuck your hair up, best you can," he said.
    I did as he instructed, trying to coax my hair into staying beneath the cap. With an impatient sigh, he took the cap and handed it to me, then pulled my hair up in a sloppy pile and held it with one hand. He took the cap from me and fit it over the mess, tucking a few stray strands up, his fingers brushing my face.
    "Good enough," he said.
    " Way to make a girl feel special," I muttered, as he started off in a new direction. I had to nearly run to keep up with him.
    As the sun set, the sky turned a dingy shade of orange, then a deeper grey-orange shade from the light pollution. We wove through a couple more alleys, turning corners that seemed to lead deeper into dark corners of Macau. Gone were the shining buildings of the financial center and the glittering five-star hotels. The doors we passed now were unmarked, or covered with peeling signs for cigarettes. Occasionally, we'd pass an open door and the tantalizing scent of spicy Cantonese cooking wafted out, making my stomach rumble in protest. 
    Even in running shoes, my feet were tired and achy when we finally walked across a pedestrian overpass, and Jake pointed to a low squat building.
    "We'll stay here tonight," he said.
    It was a far cry from the Mandarin, but I didn 't care. I wanted to take a hot shower, wash the dye out of my hair, and put my feet up.