Page 28 of Maneater
“I think your gut is right. I can’t imagine he’d be behind sabotaging a location he was rooting for. It would put his entire career on the line.”
I refuse to give in to the confusing relief running through me.
“Everyone is a suspect until they aren’t,” I say, more of a reminder for myself than anything else. If you knock anyone out too early, you lose context. Sometimes, people do things that make no sense untilyou dig deeper. “But at the very least, he wouldn’t have been able to actually set the fire himself since he wasn’t here. He would have to have had an accomplice.”
Rory nods, continuing to click and type, probably making notes in the file she creates for every assignment we’re on. “Maybe someone is trying to pin things on him? Or ruin it to prove a point?” she asks after a moment or two.
“I mean, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they didn’t like this location.”
We sit in silence, both of us mulling over the thought, before finally Rory breaks it.
“Okay, well, regardless, he’s obviously into you. Maybe that’s a good place to start. Butter him up, see what you can get from him.”
I sigh and shake my head. “I told you: I don’t think he’s going to be into that.”
“I saw the way he was looking at you, Josie.”
A rush of warmth slides through me since Rory doesn’t say anything just to blow smoke or to make someone feel good about themselves. If she says he was looking at me in any kind of way, she means it. Regardless, I shrug, not wanting to cloud my mind in the least.
“Yeah, and I felt the way he was into me when he was fingering me in a bar office, but now, when I asked if we could get dinner, he said no. He doesn’t hook up with guests.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Rory says with a smile, and I laugh.
“True, but I don’t want to put my efforts where they won’t be useful. We only have two weeks here.”
She looks at me like she’s not buying it. I’m not really either, but I can fake it with the best of them.
“If anyone could crack him, it would be you.”
I stare at her before I take a deep breath. “Maybe. But can we focus on what we have control over right now? Who do we have on our shortlist?”
She stares at me assessingly and must see my desperate need for a subject change, because she nods and reaches to grab our list.
“The GM is an obvious suspect just because of his broad accessto things. His job would be on the line, but maybe there’s something more happening there,” she says, and I start to pace the room. I work best when I’m moving.
“And that redhead who got jealous. I want to figure out who she is and what her connection is to the resort.”
Rory nods, then types. “That article said an investment firm was trying to purchase this location, but Daydream Resorts bought it out from under them preemptively. The island never went to auction. We should add them to the list of potential suspects. Do we know who was heading that project?”
More clicks and a grimace that means she’s not getting the info she wants before she continues her search. Finally, she gives me a satisfied smile. “A Horace Greenfeld.”
“God, that’s a shit name,” I grumble, and she lets out a laugh. Still, I add the name to my mental list, hating how long it’s getting. At the beginning of an assignment like this, the list always looks so daunting because just about everyone is a suspect.
“We need to check out the other incidents and see if he was here for those,” I say. “And if not, where was he?”
“We need to do that for all of the employees of the resort,” Rory says. “Find out who was on the clock, who was off.” I nod, and she continues. “The cameras were clearly tampered with around the time of the fire since they all went down for about ten minutes. I want to know who has access to those. Annette won’t give us access to them since that would raise alarms, but she said if I can find access myself, that would be fine.” Rory smiles, and I return it, knowing how much she loves hacking into camera and computer feeds. “A great time to also test their cybersecurity, I suppose.”
Not being given access to computers and cameras isn’t unusual when we enter a corporate setting. Employees talk and whisper, so in order for our job to be done as seamlessly and as secretively as possible, it often makes more sense for no one to know why we’re really here. Giving two random women that kind of access would set off alarm bells.
“While you do that, I’m going to look at the calendar of events and see what we want to focus on first. We already checked out the rental building—you grabbed your own pictures of that to look at later, right?” I ask, and she nods. We like to have our own evidence file whenever possible because, again, you never know who is a suspect or a friend of a suspect. Once, we had a fire chief who was friends with an arsonist and doctored photos to hide evidence. You’d be shocked at how deep deception can go.
I pick up the pamphlet we were given at check-in, and remembering what the GM told us at the pool, I start scanning for times and opportunities.
“There’s a meet-and-greet dinner tonight. We should definitely go to that. There were a few mishaps with food deliveries that might be related to the issue at hand. Maybe we can try and talk to some of the staff there, do our thing.”
Rory nods and jots it down on our schedule before continuing to look through the pamphlet with me and making our plan.
ELEVEN
