Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “Okay. We’re not dead. This is a good start.”

  “So, what’s the plan, lady? You find your friend last night?”

  “The plan is you’re driving me to Rockley, I’m rescuing my friend, and you are driving us back to the resort in time for the wedding.”

  “Good plan,” Antonio nodded. “Where’s Money Bags?”

  “Aiden?” Frankie glared out the windshield. “He had business to take care of.”

  “So, you’re going to rescue your friend by yourself?”

  “If you want something done right…”

  Antonio nodded sagely.

  “Speaking of Money Bags,” Frankie began. “My pockets aren’t as deep as his.”

  “That’s okay. You can pay me by flashing your boobs again.”

  Frankie cuffed him on the back of the head. “Hey!”

  He grinned.

  Frankie’s phone rang. “Oh, hell.” It was Pruitt.

  “Hey, bride!” Frankie answered. She sounded like a complete phony.

  “Where are you? We’re ready for bridesmaid pictures.”

  Frankie slapped herself on the forehead. Shit.

  “I’m not there actually. I’m, uh, heading to the… dock?”

  “The dock?”

  Frankie could hear the note of panic in Pru’s voice.

  “Yeah, I wanted to get down here and check in on Chip for you. Just so, you know… you’d know,” she finished lamely.

  “You’re the best friend a girl could have,” Pru sniffed. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I’m tied up in knots. I need to hear his voice and know that everything is still good.”

  “Everything is going to be better than good,” Frankie promised. “I’m going to have him call you as soon as I see him. He probably just dropped his phone overboard or something. You know how he is with those things.”

  “Yeah,” Pru sniffled. “I do. I just… come back soon, okay? I can’t wait for you to see Margeaux’s eyebrow. They had to draw it back on.”

  Frankie rubbed her temples. “I’ll be back before you know it,” she promised.

  She hung up and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my god. If I can’t pull this off I’ve ruined not only her wedding day but our friendship.”

  “It’ll work out,” Antonio said cheerfully.

  “Is that a school uniform?” Frankie asked, eyeing the loafers working the gas pedal.

  “Yep. You got me out of a geography test.”

  “You’re skipping school to drive me around?”

  “Sure! I do it sometimes. It beats sitting behind a desk and listening to teachers blah blah blah all day.”

  Frankie tried not to think about all the laws they were probably breaking at this exact moment. Her phone rang again, and she picked it up without thinking.

  “Franchesca! You’re alive! I’ve been so worried.”

  “Mom?”

  “Oh, thank god you remember me,” May said, laying on the sarcasm. “I thought you went paragliding and hit your head and got amnesia.”

  “Ma. Now’s not a good time.”

  “What could possibly be more important than reassuring your mother that you’re alive and well?” May insisted.

  “Ma, it’s Pru’s wedding day, and I’m running an errand for her. I really have to focus, okay?”

  “Pruitt’s parents must be over-the-moon excited.” Reality didn’t exist in May Baranski’s world. She’d met R.L. and Addison Stockton on dozens of occasions. The Stocktons weren’t an overly excitable bunch. “You know, I’d love if my daughter had a wedding day someday,” May sighed.

  “Yeah, yeah. Poor you. No grandbabies except for the one on the way from Marco and Rachel. I’ll get knocked up next time I go out with a guy on Tinder. I promise.”

  “Franchesca Marie, you wouldn’t dare—”

  “I gotta go, Ma. I’ll call you.”

  “When? You’ve been gone for so long already!”

  “Soon.” Probably. “I gotta go. Bye!”

  She hung up before her mother could deliver yet another guilt trip with the precision of a surgeon.

  Antonio snickered. “Your mom sounds like fun.”

  “Shut up, underage felon, and drive.”

  She had Antonio get as close to the gate as possible. She couldn’t waste time crawling through jungle this time. After three embarrassing attempts, she finally made it over the wall scraping the shins of both legs on the sharp stone of the wall.

  She grunted and groaned her way out of the flowering bush with the sound effects of an elderly person. At least her hair helmet hadn’t moved.

  Now, to stealthily—shit!

  Three maids were catching a smoke break at the back of the building closest to her. They were all watching her warily.

  Frankie brushed the dirt and leaves off her of dress and strolled toward them casual as can be.

  “Good afternoon,” she greeted them smiling like a normal person. “So, here’s the thing…”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Frankie tied the apron around her waist. “Thank you again for this, Flor,” she said to the woman she’d swapped clothes with. The bust was a little tight and the shoes were a little big, but other than that, Frankie was confident she could pass for a resort maid. At least temporarily.

  “Is no problem,” Flor said, straightening Frankie’s collar. “That man is an ass. I’m happy to help.”

  “Do you know if there’s anyone else staying in the room with him?” Frankie asked as her new friends hustled her down a back hallway.

  “He’s got an assistant who hovers around. Big man,” Bianca told her. “But he stays in a different room.”

  Okay, so hopefully only one potential hired gun to get around. Frankie pressed a hand to her stomach as Wilma punched the call button for the elevator. She was either going to die today or pull off the greatest wedding day miracle of all time. And she was really hoping she wasn’t about to die. Not without slapping the shit out of Aiden Kilbourn first.

  They got off the elevator in the basement. Flor played lookout while the other two stocked a room service cart with liquor.

  “Just tell Mr. Hasselhoff you’re there to restock the bar,” Bianca instructed.

  Hasselhoff. At least the kidnapper had a sense of humor.

  “And don’t make eye contact with him. He hates that,” Wilma suggested.

  They returned to the elevator with a white sheeted cart and half a dozen bottles of liquor.

  “Keep your head down to avoid the cameras,” Flor said, ushering them back into the elevator car. “And if you need help hiding the body, call 101 from the room phone and say you’d like to order room service.”

  “Cameras. Body. Room service. Got it,” Frankie said. Her heart was thudding in her ears like the bass in her high school boyfriend’s Chevy Cavalier.

  Was she doing the right thing? Should she have trusted Aiden to handle it? Would she at least see Chip before she was gunned down in the prime of her life?

  It was the longest elevator ride of her life, and that was counting the one with the guy who was breaking up with his girlfriend on speakerphone. The longest elevator ride was followed by the longest, creepiest walk down a hotel hallway. 302, 304, 306. As the room numbers counted up, Frankie’s heart started pulsing in her head. She should have written up a will before this trip.

  What if her brothers fought over her NHL memorabilia collection? She could see Gio and Marco coming to blows over her signed Kreider jockstrap. She hoped whoever took her apartment would be a good neighbor to the Chus across the hall. Mr. Chu was constantly losing his glasses, and Mrs. Chu thanked Frankie for finding them with gift cards to their Korean restaurant around the block. She’d never again get to taste their bulgogi.

  Tears swam in her eyes as 314 loomed in front of her. She took a deep breath. She was doing this for Pru. Her best friend deserved her happily ever after. And she’d totally get over the death of her best friend.

  She was lousy at pep talks. Franki
e raised her knuckles to knock and hesitated for a second. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself. “You can go in there and show him that nobody kidnaps your friends and gets away with it.”

  Her pep talk was interrupted by the questioning glances of a hungover couple dressed to the elevens. The nines were so last year.

  “She looks a little like that reality star that threw Kennedy in the koi pond last night,” the woman said in a stage whisper.

  Frankie put her head down and, eyes clenched shut, knocked.

  The door wrenched open. “Can you read the ‘Do Not Disturb’? Or are you all illiterate and stupid?”

  All rich assholes tended to look the same. And this guy was no exception. He was medium build, medium height, spray tanned complexion with medium brown, carefully coiffed hair.

  “I am here to restock dee barrr.” God, her fake accent sounded more pirate than Bajan. Only an idiot would fall for it.

  “It’s about damn time. I called hours ago,” the idiot said.

  He ushered her inside, making annoying flapping motions like a chicken trying to take flight. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

  The suite was dark, heavy curtains closing out the tropical sunshine outside. It looked as though he was trying to make the room resemble a bad guy’s lair. But there was too much mess—room service trays, empty liquor bottles—marring the luxury. It looked like a crew of trust fund babies had gotten together on daddy’s dime to trash a hotel suite, not execute an abduction.

  Kidnapping Asshole didn’t look much better than the room itself. His hair was messed up like he’d been shoving nervous hands through it. His tie was loosened. Who the hell wore a tie to lounge around a hotel room in Barbados, anyway?

  She headed into the main living space of the suite and did her best to guess where the bar was hidden. She guessed wrong, finding the TV sequestered in a cabinet. Wealthy people didn’t like to stare at blank screens.

  Kidnapping Asshole snapped his fingers. “The bar is over there. What, are you new here?”

  She was saved from having to bite back a response by the man’s phone ringing.

  “Christ. What’s taking so long? Get back here. He’s going to be here any minute, and I’m not doing this without backup.” He stormed out of the living room and into one of the bedrooms, slamming the door behind him.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god,” Frankie chanted. She surveyed the room and ran for the next closed door. It was a bathroom. The next one was a freaking walk-in closet. Finally, she spotted another closed door on the far side of the room. When she jiggled the handle she found it locked.

  She yanked out the keyring Flor had loaned her and fumbled with the lock. She got it on the fifth try and ducked into the room. It was dark in here too, and it smelled like old eggs.

  Frankie quietly closed the door behind her. “Chip?” she whispered. “Are you here?”

  She tripped over him before she saw him. He was laying on his back on the floor beside the bed.

  “Oh, my god, Chip,” she hissed. Was he dead? Had that sonofabitch killed Chip?

  She reached a tentative hand toward him knowing that if she touched cold skin, she was going to throw up and then go commit a murder so heinous she’d go down in Barbados history. “Please don’t be dead,” she whispered.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Frankie prodded Chip hard with two fingers. It wasn’t the cold flesh of a corpse that greeted her but a still-warm armpit and a snore.

  “Chip!” She shook him again.

  “Huh? What?” he struggled to wake up.

  She breathed a sigh of relief so big it almost brought her breakfast back up. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A text from Pru.

  Pru: Where are you? Where’s Chip?

  Shit.

  “Chip, it’s me, Frankie. Are you okay?”

  “Frankie?” he asked, groggily. “Does Elliot still have me? Does he know you’re here?”

  Frankie looked back toward the door. “No time to talk. We have to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

  “Of course, I can walk. I fell asleep doing sit-ups. They gave me something to knock me out. Plus, super hungover. How’s Pru? Is she mad? Is her dad—”

  “Pru’s fine. She’s anxiously awaiting you in a poufy white dress.”

  “She didn’t cancel?” Chip lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

  “She doesn’t know you’re missing yet.”

  Frankie’s phone vibrated again and then again. A rapid succession of texts she imagined.

  “Why were you doing sit-ups?” Frankie asked, grasping his hand and pulling him into a seated position.

  “Didn’t want my six-pack to suffer just because I got abducted. I’m good. I swear.” To prove it, he bounded to his feet and promptly fell on the bed. “Sorry. My foot’s asleep.”

  Frankie pulled him back up. She could hear a voice in the other room and footsteps.

  “Hide,” Chip whispered.

  Frankie ran around in a circle panicking and was eyeing the bedspread as a potential hiding spot when Chip opened the closet door and shoved her inside. He had just shut her in the dark when she heard the room door open.

  Was Asshole Kidnapper coming to kill her? Reflexively, she hunkered further into the closet and hit her head on something large and metal.

  “Mother f—”

  Frankie clapped a hand over her own mouth when she heard the bedroom door open.

  “Stay in here until I tell you to come out,” Asshole Kidnapper insisted.

  “Look, Elliot. Let’s work this out. I’ll get you whatever it is you want if you let me leave.”

  “Nice try, Randolph. But there’s only one person who can give me what I want.”

  “Aiden is not going to let you get away with this.”

  Frankie froze. This guy had to be someone Aiden knew. Was that the reason he hadn’t let her kick in the door last night? She rubbed the knot on her head.

  She was reaching for the door, ready to burst through it and demand answers when she heard a faint knock.

  “Stay here and this will all be over soon,” Asshole snapped, slamming the bedroom door.

  The closet door flew open, and Frankie jumped back, hitting her head again in the same spot.

  “Are you okay?” Chip asked when she doubled over.

  “Ouch!” Frankie’s hair snagged on a clothes hanger. She felt a half dozen bobby pins explode out of her head. “Oh, my God!”

  “What?”

  “My hair! My head! We have to get out of here!”

  They both stopped, listened. There was more than one voice in the living room now, and it was only a matter of time before someone came back in.

  Frankie rushed to the wall and pulled back the heavy curtains. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered when she spotted the balcony. As quietly as possible, she muscled the sliding glass door open. The noise of ocean and resort life immediately filled the room, and she winced. If they stopped talking outside the bedroom, they’d hear.

  Ugh. Three floors up, she confirmed, looking over the balcony edge. There was no way down, but perhaps there was a way out. The railing banister was wider than the railing itself. Some enterprising architect had probably realized people would want to put their crystal martini glasses down to take sunset selfies. And it connected every balcony on the floor.

  “Chip, get out here,” Frankie hissed.

  He hobbled into the daylight like a hungover vampire.

  “Why’s the sun gotta shine all the time here?” he groaned.

  “Oh, my God. Climb up here.”

  “You’re bleeding!” he said, gaping at her.

  She touched her fingers to her hair. “I hit my head on the safe. It’s fine.

  “It looks like…” Chip doubled over and breathed deeply.

  “Pull it together, Chip.” He’d been pre-med at NYU until he realized that blood made him vomit and faint. “Don’t make me slap you.”

  “Okay. Maybe if I just don�
�t look at you.”

  “For the love of god, Chip. I need you to climb up on this railing and shimmy your ass to another room with an open balcony door. We need to go. Now!”

  Chip peered down to the terrace below. “Jesus, Frankie, that’s like instant death!”

  Frankie grabbed his face in her hand and squeezed his cheeks until he made fish lips. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to stare at her head wound. “Chip, do you want to marry Pru today or not?”

  “Yesh.”

  “Then get your ass up there and shimmy over to the next balcony.”

  “Okah.”

  She released his face and pushed him toward the railing.

  “You’re coming too, right?”

  “I’ll be right behind you. Out of curiosity, what did Aiden have to do with all this?”

  Chip paused on all fours balancing. “It’s not his fault.”

  They heard raised voices coming from inside the suite. “Go. We’ll talk later.” Frankie shooed him further down the ledge and ran back into the room.

  She’d barricade the door to buy them a little time. At least that was her plan when she tried to pick up the nightstand. The bedroom door burst open.

  Asshole Kidnapper stared at her for two full seconds before losing his shit.

  “Who are you, and where’s—”

  “Your kidnapping victim? My friend Chip? You want to know where he is?” Frankie’s voice was rising. Her fingers closed around the alarm clock and iPhone charger on the nightstand.

  “Yes!” he shrieked, tearing at his hair. “And why is there blood everywhere? Did you kill him?”

  “What’s going on—” The man in the doorway didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because Frankie hit Asshole in the face as hard as she could with the alarm clock.

  He doubled over, screaming. More blood rained down on the white carpet. Frankie gave him another whack for good measure that knocked him to his knees.

  “I tried to keep this civilized,” Asshole shrieked.

  Frankie turned on the second man and hefted the alarm clock.

  “You want a turn, Kilbourn?”