He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something in the back of my mind is telling me they’re not related.”

“Maybe he’s a mentor.” I pulled on my wrap and felt so much better covered up.

“Or maybe he’s not,” he said.

He slipped his shoes on, draped his towel over his neck again, and hustled back inside the center. The man was straightening the free weights on their shelves. Chris examined him, a pained look on his face.

“This is dumb,” I mumbled.

I walked over to the check-in desk, where a bored-looking woman was doodling on a piece of notebook paper, her phone trapped between her ear and her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” I said. She looked up. I tried pasting on my best fake Nice Nikki smile. “I’m wondering if you can tell me who that guy is over there.” I pointed toward the man while trying to remain inconspicuous. “I think he’s someone who used to live on my street. I want to say hi if he is, but it would be really embarrassing if he isn’t. You know?” I let out a breathy laugh.

“Hang on,” the woman said into her phone. She held it facedown on her shoulder. “What now?”

I fought the urge to snarl at her. “That guy,” I said, pointing again. Chris had noticed I’d gone missing and was watching me, a look of horror on his face. “I think I know him, but I want to be sure before I’m all, ‘Heeeey, how ya doing?’”

“Oh.” She glanced at the man, who had moved on to refilling the disinfectant spray station. “That’s our equipment manager. Heri.”

I felt my stomach drop. “Heriberto?” I asked, though I was positive my faked persona had faded away.

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Heriberto. I haven’t been working here very long, but I want to say his last name starts with an A.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Wrong guy.” She went back to her phone call.

I turned to Chris. We had matching expressions on our faces.

I felt one side of my mouth pull up into a smile. “We found him.”

12

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to watch Heriberto from the car without being totally conspicuous, so instead we headed back to the pool deck and situated ourselves so we could see inside the building. Mostly, Heriberto carted equipment from one place to another, wiped things down, checked lockers, and sat at the check-in desk to give the receptionist a break.

In other words, completely boring shit.

I was pretty sure from the sound of his breathing that Chris had fallen asleep.

I slathered sunscreen on myself to keep from totally frying, but the sun was easing up as the afternoon began to be pushed away by evening. Every so often, when the lifeguard began eyeing me too suspiciously, I hopped around in the pool. As stakeouts went, this wasn’t a particularly bad one.