Page 15 of Maneater
I nod. “Until the fire?”
“Until the fire. We’ve gathered more information on other previously dismissed matters, such as discovering three chest freezers unplugged last week. We’ve got cancelled food deliveries…lost towels. One morning, all the beach furniture was folded up and hidden in the pool house. Six days ago, a guest slipped and required first aid care after a puddle of oil appeared in the spa, the bottle of which was found in a nearby trash can and not a brand used internally. No one could explain any of these circumstances, but also, no one considered they could all be connected.”
I nod. “Okay, so the most extreme sabotage was obviously the rental stand. Unfortunately, it’s pretty well locked down, and the cameras were down.” I reach into my bag and pull out my own folder with papers I’ve doodled on to begin to get my own thoughts in place. It’s much less organized than Rory’s. Some of the photos in the stack are from the remains of the building, as well as the “before” shots. “We do have these photos, though.”
I spread them out onto the bed, and we both look over them once more with a closer eye, despite the fact that we’ve both done so a dozen times already.
“I wish we could see this corner better. I’d like to see where the fire was started.” She points to a section of the burned-down rental shack. I flip through my photos to find what she needs, but while one has a slightly better angle, I know it’s not exactly what Rory wants.
“We could go look at it,” I suggest.
“It’s a crime scene, Josie,” she says with an exaggerated eye roll.
I shrug as if that doesn’t matter to me. That’s because it doesn’t, not really. Part of this job is going where you’re not “supposed” to be. You’d be surprised how little you’re actually stopped, so longas you act like you’re allowed to be there. In general, the world relies on humans respecting implied boundaries and the inherent risk of getting in trouble.
“The main pool is not far from where the rental shack used to be—why don’t we go there, hang out, and do some surveillance, then we can go over to the shack when we see an opening?” I ask, pointing to the pool on the map, then trailing my finger across it to where the fire was.
“What if someone finds us over there? Won’t it blow our cover?”
Rory typically provides background on operations, but on one like this, it’s all hands on deck. I’ll definitely be the one handling the most person-to-person interaction with guests and employees, while Rory focuses on getting into the cameras and backend of things, but she’ll also be on the ground to help validate my cover. I shrug, then tell her the truth.
“They might catch us, but people are stupid. They want the easiest answer to most questions. We won’t blow our cover, not if we play stupid tourists, nosy guests who want to see something interesting, or dumb girls.”
“Dumb girl?” Rory asks with a disapproving grimace, and I smile.
“My specialty. It works best if a man is the one to catch us.” I stand, putting my shoulders back a bit more, my full chest popping out, and make my eyes wide and my lips pouty. Then I cock my hip out while I twirl a lock of hair around my finger. “Oh, my goodness, I amsosorry. I had no idea I wasn’t supposed to be in this taped-off crime scene. I thought it was just pretty decorations! Please, please forgive me.” Rory lets out a loud bark of a laugh, and I return the smile. “Works like a charm every time.”
“You’re out of your mind, you know that?”
“All part of the job, my friend.” Energized by the idea of a little snooping and trespassing, I move to my bag, digging through it. “Okay, come on. Bikinis it is. We’ve got some sunbathing to do.”
When we get to the pool, we begin my all-time favorite pastime: people-watching. I’m convinced I was made for this job since I’ve always been the one to take note of people everywhere I go, listen to conversations I’m not a part of, and put together different tidbits to build a perfect profile for those around me.
Fortunately, the people-watching is stellar here, with everyone sitting around in their bathing suits, more worried about how they look and what people might think of them than they are about enjoying their time in the sun. It’s also because the people here are the richest of the rich, celebrities, and people who think they have enough money and ego tobecelebrities.
To our left is a B-list television star whose attempt to break into film never quite materialized, so now her entire persona is defined by that one show from years ago. The irony of her reading a trashy tabloid is not lost on me, and I wonder for a single, catty moment if she’s scanning to try and find the whisper of a mention of herself.
There’s also a tech bro I vaguely remember from a video I stumbled upon recently, trying to explain the stock market and somehow making the concept evenmoreconfusing. Funny how his hair looks so much thinner in real life.
On the right side of the pool is a well-known eighties rock band member who, if I recall, was recently divorced in a messy case that stated infidelity as the main cause. It would make sense, considering he’s here with a woman who looks barely twenty.
I also take note of the employees: which ones are attentive, who’s on their phone, who whispers with coworkers, and who seems like an outcast. This is the key part of any early assignment: observing. We take in our surroundings, read people, and decide who we should target first. You can learn so much about people just by watching them, by decoding how they move when they think no one iswatching them, and how that differs when they think someoneiswatching them.
“That one,” I say, tilting my eyes to where a middle-aged blonde lies on a beach chair. She’s in a cover-up, a thick book in her hands, seemingly reading. But moments before, she had her phone behind it, stealthy tapping at the screen while not looking at it before sliding it back into her bag. The entire move was smooth, I’ll admit, because if I hadn’t been looking for the smallest thing, I would have missed it. But unfortunately for her, my job is exactly that. “She’s taking notes of something or messaging someone. She’s pretending to read, but her gaze hasn’t left the couple at your two o’clock.”
Rory pretends to shift to dig in her bag while inconspicuously looking at where I tipped my chin.
“The leak?” she asks.
I shrug.
Among the corporation’s list of things that have gone wrong in the past year are a series of unauthorized celebrity leaks from various locations. My gut and the owner’s instinct tell me it’s not related to the issues this location has been facing, but it’s something of note as they haven’t been able to find the source.
“Could be. It’s not her writing a to-do list, that’s for sure. She looked around right before and after, making sure that no one was watching her.” Some people are justnotgood at being stealthy.
Rory nods in agreement and picks up her book to look less obvious, and I slide my sunglasses back up my nose, grabbing a book of my own. A minute or two later, a tall man with short-cropped hair and a wide, panty-dropping smile comes over to us, his shadow blocking my sun.
“Hey ladies, how are you enjoying your stay?”
