Page 68 of Maneater
“Is that…good?” I ask, half joking, because I never know with Rory.
She glares at me like I’m an idiot. “Yes, it’s good. It means we can see all card entrances and exits for all employee keycards, past and present. Some are assigned to people or account numbers, but it seems like universal cards like this are generic and not linked to anyone in particular.”
“Sounds a bit like a hole in their security,” I grumble, and she nods.
“Trust me, I already have a file created for Annette on all of their weaknesses and how to fix them.”
“Of course you do,” I say with a smile. “You’re nothing if not thorough.” The heaviness from a few minutes starts to lift as I sit up straighter, grabbing a notebook and pen to start jotting things down. “Okay, so this has been a productive night. We need to add security personnel to our main list officially. What else do we have?”
“I got a few things at the party,” Rory says. “One, Carter, the kid from landscaping, was absolutely plastered, and he had a lot to say to anyone who would listen.”
“Let me guess, you were all ears?”
She smiles proudly. “Well, of course. It seems he got Tanya her job, and he feels like she’s throwing everything away by hooking up with Daniel.”
“So, we’ve confirmed they have a thing?”
She nods, and my mind moves over the jealous redhead at the pool. We need to fast-track figuring out who she was, especially if Daniel is hooking up with some other staff member at the resort as well. “Why would he care about that? And why would that be her throwing her job away? I didn’t see anything in the employee handbook about hooking up with coworkers, though I suppose the GM hooking up with employees wouldn’t begreat, but mostly for him, right?”
“I don’t know. But he also told me that Daniel is the biggest player on the resort, always flirting and breaking hearts.”
I shrug. “I could have called that,” I say with a small laugh.
“Also, the reason the hostess was crying the other day is because she was dating the chef, and they broke things off. Unfortunately, Daniel wouldn’t move her to another restaurant, so she’s stuck working near him all day.”
“Oof, rough,” I grumble. “Though I don’t think that makes either of them a suspect, really. Unless she’s mad at Daniel and wants to make him look bad? But this seems like a lot of work to go through because you’re stuck working near your ex.”
“Agreed, but it’s good to have on hand.”
I nod again.
“Who wasn’t at the party?” I ask, flipping the notebook and jotting down all the people we saw. We met so many people there; it was the perfect place to get to know the staff. Though, even we couldn’t fully foresee another sabotage happening while we were there.
We each start rattling off names, and Rory begins to sort through the photos she took on her phone, pretending to take selfies with new friends, before cross-checking each person to see if we can find where they were before and after the party. Then we pull out our list of all of the resort employees who were on the clock and use our newer access to the cameras to track them all. There is a third list of employees who were neither working nor at the party, although none of them overlap with our primary suspect list. Still, we push them onto our secondary list just to keep track of them.
“I think we need to go to the spa,” I say.
“Ah, what a sacrifice this job is,” Rory says with a smile that I return.
“I want to see who we can talk to there. Maybe we can find something out about Tanya?”
She nods. “We should also try and find the break room there, seeif we can bug it.” She starts clicking and clacking before she smiles. “Done. Two spa appointments at three tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” I say with a smile, looking through the other activities over her shoulder. “I’m going to hit up the Pilates class at noon.”
“Oh?”
“The guy I was dancing with runs it, and he was very chatty before I got dragged away.” We exchange a smile. “I’d like to get a handle on him, see what he might know, how he acts on the job.”
She nods. “Okay, perfect. I want to do a bit more digging on this,” Rory said, lifting the keycard, “tonight, but if you want to go to bed early, that’s totally fine with me.”
“No, no,” I say with a shake of my head, reaching for the file of papers and photos we’ve been accumulating. “I’m going to keep going through these, see if I can find anything.”
Like I could sleep right now with the adrenaline running through my system, both from my time with Rowan and the pro.
“We’re close,” Rory whispers.
I smile, knowing she’s right.
