Page 76 of Maneater
She smiles again.
“Dessert is good enough for me,” she whispers. “We can always order dinner in after round one.”
I can’t fight the strangled noise at her teasing, and she giggles.
“Dessert. Six o’clock tomorrow. Tell Rory you won’t be coming back to your room.”
“It’s a date,” she whispers, and I smile wide. She mimics it before pushing on my chest. “But right now, I have a yoga class to get to, and you have a boring call.”
I sigh, knowing she’s right, before stepping away and grabbing her hand and moving her out of the alcove I dragged her into, already counting down the minutes until tomorrow night.
THIRTY-ONE
JOSIE
“What was more relaxing, this treatment or Rowan eating you out yesterday?” Rory asks as we walk out of the spa locker room after our salt scrub treatment, looking nice and shiny with our bags slung over our shoulders.
Bags that were necessary for our goal to bug the supply room for the spa.
This time, we had enough time to not only install an audio bug, but a video as well. With our culprit able to mess with the camera feeds seamlessly, we decided we needed to step up our own game.
“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous,” I say with an exaggerated eye roll and a light push of her shoulder.
“So you’re not going to answer? I guess that means that he’s not as good as?—”
I’m preparing to defend Rowan’s skills when we hear it.
Shouts.
“Help! Someone!”
Rory and I look at one another quickly before we bolt in the direction of the calls. It takes less than thirty seconds before we find the culprit, a middle-aged woman with a look of panic on herface as she points toward the sauna. “Someone is stuck in there! The keyboard is malfunctioning, and it won’t let her out! It’s too hot, I think.”
We look at the sauna window, where a woman’s hand bangs at the foggy glass.
Instantly, I run to the door, pulling and tugging and hoping maybe it’s just stuck, though my gut tells me otherwise. Coincidences like this don’t just happen, not while we’re on a case like this. This is intentional, and it appears our guy is becoming increasingly dangerous.
“Call 911,” I say to Rory, moving around the sauna to see if there’s an emergency shutoff button. There is, butfuck—its wire has been clipped. I look at the plug and contemplate pulling it to disconnect the power, but I don’t know if the door would remain locked or if it would trigger some unlocking mechanism. And if it remains locked, I don’t know what the process is for the machine coming back on once it has power once more. There are far too many variables when time is of the essence.
“What’s going on?” a woman in a Daydream Resorts polo asks, coming over and looking worried.
“Someone is stuck in there,” the woman we found frantic informs her. “It’s too hot, and I think she’s going to get hurt.”
“The emergency stop is clipped,” I say to Rory, who still has her phone to her ear. She relays the information to the operator on the line.
“Is there any way to get in there?” I ask, noting that there’s a scan for a keycard on the side of the door. I try slipping mine in to see if it fits, and it does, but the machine makes a beeping noise to indicate I don’t have the correct card type.
“There’s an override,” the employee says. “We need to find someone higher up; they have overrides on their keycards.”
“You don’t have it?” I ask, tipping my head toward the card on a badge reel at her hip. She shakes her head, looking genuinely sorry.
“I’m housekeeping. I was just grabbing the laundry. Someonewho works over here should have the right access, though.” She looks around and, just like us, finds no one in the vicinity. But how? How would that be, considering there are normally a dozen or so people in this area? As if reading my mind, she responds. “It’s Wednesday. They have their weekly meeting around this time, when it’s not too busy. They’re across the spa right now.”
“Do you know where they are?” I ask, and she nods. “Go get someone. Now.” I turn to Rory, who is pulling her phone from her ear.
“Paramedics and firefighters are on their way, but they’re coming from another island,” she says, looking panicked.
“Call security for the resort. They should have their own cards that override everything,” I say, and she nods, finding the number quickly and calling as I dig through my bag. We used the card twice this morning to place bugs in staff spaces in order to monitor if and when the cameras go out next, but right now, I’m grateful I snagged this from Rowan. As much as I don’t want to use it because it will reveal I have it, I’m going to assume that it’s a forgivable, or at the very least, explainable offense as I move toward the sauna’s keypad and swipe the key card.
