Halfway down the breezeway, the already dim lights flickered. I paused, my heart pounding in my ears.
Then everything around me went black. Pitch black.
What in the world?
My eyes adjusted to the change, and I was able to make out a table and a plant.
I blinked down at the end of the hallway. A man stood there.
Or did he? Maybe that was an artificial tree or my eyes playing tricks on me.
I rubbed my eyes.
No, that was a man down there. He stood in the center of the breezeway staring at me but not moving.
Blood pulsed through my veins when I noticed the all black clothes he wore.
And the ski mask.
I tried to scream but couldn’t. Instead, I ran the other way.
CHAPTER 15
My fingers fumbled with the elevator button. “Hurry!”
I pounded the buttons. On second thought, knowing my luck, the man would get in the elevator with me. I looked back. He slowly walked toward me, like one of those people from a horror movie. Only in those movies, the bad guy always ended up catching up with you when you least expected it, even though they were moving at a snail’s pace.
I jerked the door beside me open and saw a staircase. I jetted up the steps, taking them by two.
Was the man following me? How close was he?
I couldn’t afford to look back.
Finally, I reached the next floor. My hands trembled as I pushed the door open and practically fell into the hallway.
Behind me, I heard nothing.
Had I imagined the man? No, I knew that I hadn’t.
Someone had been there.
And he still could be coming.
I dragged myself back to my feet and began running again. The farther away I could get, the better.
Just then, a janitorial cart wheeled out in front of me. Before I could put on my brakes, my waist hit the edge. My speed propelled my upper body to keep going, even though the cart stopped my lower extremities. My head flipped downward, into a sea of old sheets and towels. All the breath left my lungs in a whoosh.
I kicked my legs as I tried to right myself, but I couldn’t move. The narrow confines of the cart trapped me.
Something wet rubbed against my cheek.
Dirty towels, I realized.
Ew …
I fought against them, punching, flailing, clawing as I tried to get away. Panic nearly seized me. Was the man still chasing me? Had he almost caught me? What would he do when he did?
“Oh, my goodness. Are you okay? I didn’t see you coming,” a voice muttered above me.
“Help me! Please. Someone’s chasing me.” I swatted away a washcloth.
“Chasing you? Oh, my.”
Suddenly, the cart jostled. We were moving, I realized. Kind of fast, for that matter.
One of my flip-flops slipped off as my legs dangled in the air.
This would only happen to me. Seriously.
Two hands gripped my ankles. “Let me get you out.” The woman pulled, tugged, squeezed.
My legs throbbed, ached, pinched.
“This is hard. The cart is so high, and you’re wedged in so well.”
I braced my hands on the bottom. “Try once more. I’ll help this time.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry about this. I hope I don’t get in trouble.”
I froze. “Deanna?”
“Do I know you?”
“It’s Gabby.”
“Gabby!” Her voice warmed. “How did you end up in my cart?”
“It’s a long story. I’d love to tell you about it … after I’m out of here and my face isn’t pressed into someone else’s filth.” Death by airborne pathogen. Was this how it would happen?
“Point taken. Here goes.” She pulled again with enough force to pull my ankles out of socket. But I didn’t move.
“Can you tilt the cart over, and I’ll crawl out?”
“Oh, no. I can’t do that. The base is too wide, designed that way so the cart won’t tip over. Let me grab Shirley. She can help.”
Awesome. Before I could argue, the door opened and shut. I was left doing my handstand and breathing in germs in my contamination chamber. I thought of the figure I’d seen at the end of the hallway, and my pulse quickened. I was in a room now. He couldn’t find me here. He probably wasn’t even looking anymore, for that matter.
My heart rate didn’t slow, though.
The door slowly creaked open. I wanted to hear a familiar voice letting me know Shirley was here with her. Silence crawled by without another sound.
“Deanna?” I finally asked.
Silence.
My breath caught. “Deanna, is that you? Did you find someone?”
Nothing.
Alarms were sounding at a furious rate in my head. I wished I’d stayed quiet. I should have simply pulled my feet into the cart and pretended not to be here. Now I was a sitting duck—or maybe more like a cow waiting to be butchered. I was destined to disappear like Jackie … or worse.
How was I going to get out of this one?
I listened for the sound of footsteps or a gun cocking. I waited to feel the undeniable feeling of someone’s eyes on me. I braced myself for the rip of a knife blade or the sting of a bullet.
Oh, Lord. Here I am again. A screw up. I don’t even deserve to ask You for help. But I’m asking anyway.
I could hardly breathe, and my heart beat so fast that I felt like a locomotive rushed through me.
That’s when I heard the first footfall. Someone had opened the door. They’d walked in the room. Coming toward me.
I was helpless to do anything about it.
CHAPTER 16
“Gabby, I’m coming!”
Deanna’s voice sounded down the hallway.
I held my breath, unsure whether to tell her to run or to help. The footsteps in the room quickened. But they were going … the opposite way? Another door clicked, just as I heard Deanna again. “Shirley is here with me. We’ll get you out of there. Strange, I don’t remember leaving this door open.”
“There’s someone in the room, Deanna,” I whispered. The laundry around me muted my voice.
“What?”
My muscles tightened. I didn’t want to speak louder and trigger the intruder. “Deanna, can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Miss Gabby. What did you say?” Her voice sounded closer to my head now, like she’d bent down so she could hear better.
“Someone else is in the room,” I muttered.
“That’s right. Shirley’s here.”
“No, someone else. He’s either in the closet or the bathroom. He’s somewhere!” I said it in the loudest whisper possible.
“You mean—?” Her voice caught.
“I mean, get out of here!”
The cart jostled again before taking off at a breakneck speed out of the room. We turned with enough force that my neck ached in protest, and I nearly lost my other flip-flop. My stomach dropped as we went down a little hill—most likely the handicap ramp, I realized—and finally we stopped and another door slammed.
Two sets of hands grabbed my ankles. It wasn’t pretty, but they managed to manhandle me until I sprawled on the floor.
I just laid there, in the middle of a fancy hotel room, trying to catch my breath while two maids stared at me like I was a lunatic.
“Are you okay?” Deanna finally asked.
“I’ve never been so glad to see you,” I mumbled. I rolled over and laid like a dead fish for a moment before finally sitting up.
I felt like an idiot, but I was alive.
“What were you doing down there?” Deanna asked. “Was there a fire somewhere?”
I looked at the door to the room, which was closed, hopefully locked. There was no one else in this room. Just the three of us.
“I thought … ” I realized the absurdity of my words and stopped. “Never mind. I just got spooked, I supposed.”
Deanna patted my shoulder. “This p
lace can get creepy at night, especially the areas where there are no guests. Some people say it’s haunted.”
“I don’t know about that, but someone was in that room with me.”
That had been no ghost. I was sure of that. What I wasn’t sure of was exactly who it had been.
“Why would someone have snuck into the room?” Deanna sat down across from me with her legs crossed. Shirley, a larger woman with short red hair, leaned against the bed.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Tell me, what’s beyond that breezeway a couple floors down? I think it’s under construction.”
“They’re updating that entire section down there and putting in a new indoor pool and a spa just for children. Like children need spa treatments.” Deanna snorted.
“What about outside? Is there anything near that area?”
Deanna and Shirley glanced at each other a moment. Deanna finally shook her head. “Woods. Lots of woods. The maintenance shed used to be out on a service road back there, but it caught fire last year and it hasn’t been used since. As soon as they finish renovating this wing, they’re going to tear it down. So, in short, there’s nothing back there. What’s with all the questions?”
“Did you guys hear about the girl who’s missing?”
“She’s been the talk of the staff. You knew her?” Deanna asked.
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know her, but my fiancé does. They went to law school together.”
Shirley shook her head. “That’s terrible.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ve been asking around, and I’m afraid the wrong person found out about her disappearance.”
“Is that why you wanted to see the video feed?” Deanna asked.
I nodded before glancing back and forth from the two women. “You don’t know anything about her disappearance, do you?”
They glanced at each other and shrugged. “I see so many people, I wouldn’t remember,” Deanna said.
I pulled out my phone, brought up a social media site using Wi-fi, and found her picture on Riley’s friends list. “This is what she looked like. Her name is Jackie.”
Shirley got up to look first. She shook her head.
I held the phone up in front of Deanna. She gasped. “I do remember her.”
Finally! Maybe the answers were in my reach. “What do you remember?”
She shook her head and looked into the distance. “She was wandering down the hallway in my wing. It was late, like two a.m. or something. I don’t see that many people at that time of the night. And I thought it was weird because she was walking with three guys, and none of them looked like they should be guests here.”
Clint’s friends! Except … there were only two of them that I’d seen. I pulled my phone back toward me and pulled up another picture. “Was this one of the men?”
Deanna stared at the picture a moment before nodding. “I’m pretty sure he was. I remember that beard and flannel shirt.”
I closed my eyes. Was Clint involved in Jackie’s disappearance? I didn’t want to believe it, but I was starting to suspect he knew more than he was letting on.
I looked up at my new friends, an idea forming in my mind. “I have one more favor. I need to borrow something.”
***
I walked back to my room an hour later wearing only one flip-flop and desperately needing to decontaminate my face.
I tried to sneak back inside, praying that Veronica was still asleep and that I could avoid her. I closed the door behind me, ready to tiptoe to my bedroom and pretend like I’d been there all night. The light in the room was still dim, and all was quiet.
Relief filled me. Veronica was still asleep. I kept my steps soft against the carpet as I tiptoed toward my room. I needed some time by myself to decompress and chew on everything I’d learned.
Plus, I was still thinking about the man in black. Who was he? Where was he now? Why did I have the feeling that I hadn’t seen the last of him?
My hand gripped the doorknob when I heard someone behind me.
I readied myself to fight for my life … with only my fists as weapons.
This wouldn’t turn out well.
CHAPTER 17
“You don’t have to sneak off to be with your boyfriend, you know. We’re all adults here.”
I twirled around and saw Veronica there, a smirk on her face. Her bedroom door was right behind the main door to the room, I reminded myself. It wasn’t as if she’d been hiding, waiting to scare the snot out of me just for humiliation purposes.
Or had she?
I straightened as her words sunk in. “It’s not like that.”
“Whatever,” she muttered. She stood in her doorway, wearing some kind of fancy silk robe that reached to the floor. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail that somehow still looked like a million bucks. Veronica was just that kind of woman.
I wasn’t even going to bother explaining myself to the woman. In fact, I wasn’t going to bother speaking with her at all. Her smirk told me that she wouldn’t believe anything I had to say anyway. Instead, I went to my room, shut the door, and hopped in the shower.
It was only after that I remembered my clean clothes were in my old room.
No way was I asking Veronica if I could borrow hers. Not that I could fit into them. I might be skinny, but I wasn’t that skinny.
I glanced at the clock beside my bed. I had an hour before I met Riley.
I went through the dance of putting dirty clothes on my clean body. Gross, but I had little choice. It was only then that I noticed I had some kind of mustard stain on the front of my shirt. Great.
I quickly dried my hair. I desperately wished I had some gel to keep it from frizzing. It would look okay for the first thirty minutes, but after that I’d look like Ronald McDonald after he stuck his hand in a light socket.
I used the little bit of makeup I kept in my purse to cover the circles under my eyes. I almost slipped on my one flip-flop, but I realized I’d be better off going barefoot.
I glanced in the mirror.
It wasn’t a great look, but it would have to do for now.
Why here at Allendale, of all places, did I have to do without my suitcase?
I went downstairs. Thankfully, the shops opened at eight. I wandered around looking for something—anything—that I could wear and that was in my price range. Certainly the police would release the room soon, and I could get my clothes back.
In the meantime, I bought some navy blue shorts, a stripped blue and white top, and white loafers. This was so not my style. But it would have to do.
I changed and was ready just in time to meet Riley.
When I saw him, my face heated as I remembered his goodnight kiss. I still had no idea what exactly that was about, but I hoped he might open up about it soon.
“That’s a new look,” he said, after giving me a kiss on the forehead. Sometimes it was the sweet, most innocent kisses that really warmed my heart the most. There was so much tenderness in kissing someone’s forehead; it was such a small but thoughtful way to show you cared.
“I had to run down to the gift shop.”
“That’s right. I forgot about your clothes.” We walked side by side. “What are you planning for today?”
“I think I might go hang out by the pool for a little while.”
“They’re heated by natural springs, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” I glanced up at him. I couldn’t tell him about last night. He’d ask me what I was doing out at that hour, or why in the world someone might want to chase me. I just couldn’t answer those questions right now. Instead, I decided to keep the subject safe and non-controversial. “So, is this the kind of place you see us vacationing at after we’re married? Are you an upscale resort kind of guy?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I’d be happier in a little cabin nestled in the mountains with no one else around. Or maybe in a beach house, but not one in a resort city, maybe on the Outer Banks of North Carolina or something.”
I nodded. “I like that idea. I can’t say I’m much of a fancy resort girl, although this place is awesome.”
“Fit for royalty.”
We sat down at a table for breakfast. A moment later, Derek and Lillian joined us. Derek offered a smile as he glanced my way, but there was something in his gaze that I didn’t like.
Derek whipped his napkin in the air before placing it on his lap. “I ran into Clint a few minutes ago. He didn’t look very happy.”
“What did he say?” Riley asked. He held up his coffee mug, and a waitress filled it with warm liquid.
Just hold it up, and they fill it. Nice. I raised mine, but the waitress scurried away before she saw it. I scowled and set it back on the saucer.
“He said that he wanted us to stay out of it. He made that abundantly clear, didn’t he?” Derek glanced at Lillian, who nodded.
“Abundantly.”
“The police are involved now. This is all out of his hands,” I added.
Derek shrugged. “I’m just telling you what he told us. He looked ticked. Wouldn’t surprise me if he still tried to take this all into his own hands.”
It wouldn’t surprise me either if he tried to take things into his own hands. Maybe I’d revise my swimming plans for the day. Maybe I’d tail Clint instead.
I put in my breakfast order. From across the room, I saw Ajay sitting by himself again. He looked regal and cultured, almost exotic. What was behind the hurt in his eyes? Why had he traveled here alone and stayed for a month? He had no entourage, no family, no friends. Every time I saw him, he was alone.
I knew he had a story. I just didn’t know what it was.
The waitress came back to refill Riley’s coffee. I raised my cup again, determined to get some also. I’d hardly gotten any sleep over the past two nights. I needed something to keep me awake.
She stepped away.
“Excuse me! Miss—” It was too late. She was gone.
I sighed and put my cup back down. Not even fancy new clothes could make me look at home here.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled.
I stood, grabbed my cup, and walked over to the little station where the coffee was set up. I pushed past my waitress and grabbed the pot, poured myself a cup, and slammed the carafe back down.
Christy Barritt - Squeaky Clean 04 - Dirty Deeds Page 10
