“What all is in it?” she asked.
He held the jug out. “Just the usual. Protein powder, electrolytes, powdered kelp, vitamins, apple cider vinegar…”
She made a gagging sound and pushed the jug away.
“How was your week?” he asked, sliding back into the pool and doing scissor kicks.
“Boring. Frustrating.”
“How so?”
“I feel like I’m doing what you’re doing. Treading water. I’m useless at this job. I mean, I suck, big-time. And I can’t quit because I need the money.”
“It’ll get better,” he said.
“No, so far it’s only gotten worse. I’ve got some weird oppositional thing going on with my father. I’m thirty-six years old, and as soon as he tells me I shouldn’t do something—I go right out and do it anyway. It’s nuts!”
“What? You drove without a seatbelt? Had unprotected sex?”
“She blushed, thinking about her one-night-stand with Jonah. “Worse. There’s a case the firm handled. It involved the murder of this young girl—she was only twenty-four, a single mom with a little kid. She was murdered two years ago, right down the street here, at Gulf Vista.”
“A maid, right? I remember hearing about it on the news.”
“Right. Her mother hired the firm to sue the hotel for criminal negligence.”
“Did they ever catch the killer?”
“No. The hotel management said Jazmin was at work when she was killed, which meant they could settle it as a workman’s comp case. And the state of Florida limits worker’s comp claims to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Even if you’re murdered! By the time our firm took its cut of the payout, Jazmin’s mom, who, by the way, is only forty-eight, and is raising her granddaughter by herself, came away with peanuts.”
“That’s terrible,” Corey said.
“I think so too. I was working the reception desk when Yvonne Howington, that’s the mother’s name, came in with the little girl. Aliyah. Yvonne was raising hell about the settlement, and finally, after our bitchy office manager, who happens to be married to my father, instructed me to tell her to scram, my dad showed up. He told her he’d done all the firm could. So, see ya, bye.”
“Sounds like he did do all he could for her,” Corey said.
“No.” Drue shook her head adamantly. “Yvonne swears Jazmin wasn’t working when she was killed. And she was being sexually harassed by a manager, which the hotel denies.”
Drue went on to describe the time line of Jazmin Mayes’s murder and what she’d learned from her visit with the grandmother the previous day.
“I think it’s great that you care so much about this case,” Corey said. “But I have to ask, what is it you think you can do? You’re an intake worker, as you said, not a detective.”
“I have to do something,” Drue said. “Ever since I moved back here I’ve felt so hollow inside, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lost kiteboarding—probably for good—or my mom, or what. And oh man, can you believe I just mentioned losing her and a damn sport in the same breath?”
“Yeah, I can. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t run or swim, all the things that are such a huge part of my life.” He reached out and touched her arm. “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“When I went to see Yvonne Howington? Really listened to her as she talked about her daughter? It’s the first time I’ve really felt excited about something in, like, forever. I want to help her. And Aliyah.”
“How?” Corey lifted himself out of the pool and began toweling off.
“To start, I need to check out Gulf Vista, walk around, see the layout, including the laundry room where she was killed, and the back service areas.”
“Isn’t it a gated resort?” Corey asked. “I know you can’t access the pool and patio areas from the beach, unless you have a key card.”
“I think I have a plan.” She glanced over at him. “Want to run a mission with me?”
He looked alarmed. “Is it something illegal?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s illegal. Per se.” She shrugged. “Never mind. I’ll go by myself.” She slid her feet into her flip-flops and began gathering her belongings.
He swatted her with the end of his towel. “Now you’ve got me hooked.”
* * *
The germ of the idea was planted in her mind as she rode past Gulf Vista the night she’d visited Yvonne Howington. She’d spotted the resort’s marquee. WELCOME PHELAN-KSIONSYK WEDDING. HAPPY EVER AFTER!
“How are you at lying?” she asked Corey.
“Terrible. I’m basically an honest person.”
“Okay. Let me put it this way. How good of an actor are you?”
Now he grinned, his white teeth flashing against his model-perfect tan. “I’m a normal gay man. Of course I’m a great actor.”
Drue fell silent.
“Hey,” Corey said. “You knew I was gay, right?”
“No,” she said, trying to cover her mortification. “Which makes you an even more terrific actor. And you’re just right for the role I have in mind.”
* * *
They pulled up to the gate at the Gulf Vista in Corey’s gleaming black BMW convertible. A security guard approached the car, dressed in a close imitation of a Royal Bahamian police officer’s uniform, correct down to the white Bermuda shorts, red sash and pith helmet. “Hi,” Corey said, leaning out the window. He pointed to Drue, who was dressed in a striped navy sundress and pearl earrings. “My fiancée and I are getting married this fall, and we’re considering having the wedding here, so we’d like to take a look around, if that’s all right.”
“Have you spoken to Danielle Thompson, in our events office?” the guard asked.
“Oh no, it’s a little early for that,” Corey said. “We thought we’d just have a drink in the bar and walk around and get the feel of the place. I mean, we haven’t even set the date yet.”
“Miss Thompson is the one who speaks to all our brides,” the guard repeated.
“She’s not a bride yet,” Corey said, giving the guard a conspiratorial wink.
A car pulled in behind them and the guard looked over his shoulder. He reached into his pocket and produced a white guest pass. “Name?”
“Sanchez,” Drue said quickly. Just as well she didn’t give her real name here.
He scrawled the name on the pass and handed it to Corey. “Keep that displayed on your dashboard and park in one of the visitor slots near the lobby. That’s only for tonight, though.”
* * *
“You were brilliant,” Drue said, as she stepped out of the BMW. “Understated but persuasive.”
“I played Second Elf from the Left in our kindergarten production of Santa’s Secret Workshop,” Corey said modestly. “My parents said I killed.”
“This is some spread, huh?” Drue said, as they surveyed their surroundings. The low-slung white stucco architecture of the main building was nearly obscured by lush tropical landscaping. Huge tree ferns and palms intertwined above a red tile walkway that led to the glass-enclosed three-story atrium. A white-uniformed doorman silently opened the doors as they approached. “Welcome to Gulf Vista,” he murmured.
The lobby was dominated by a huge marble fountain, where water gurgled softly and bright orange koi flitted among shining copper pennies.
“Very impressive,” Corey said, as they walked through the lobby. “I wouldn’t mind getting married here.”
“Any prospects?” Drue asked.
“Not lately. Where do you want to start our mission?”
“Let’s just walk around, get the lay of the land,” Drue said.
They moved through the lobby and out through another set of large glass doors to a jungle-like garden with more winding red tile walkways. Irregularly spaced uplights cast the area in moody shadows. “They must spend a fortune on all this landscaping,” Corey observed.
“It’s kind of creepy if you ask me,” Drue said. “I keep expecting a coc
onut to fall on my head or a spider monkey to spring out at me from one of those palm trees.”
Eventually the walkway led them to a sprawling patio and pool area.
“That’s more like it,” Drue said. It was dusk now, and the kidney-shaped pool seemed to beckon in the waning light. There was a thatched-roof tiki bar, where a bartender in a Hawaiian shirt with a hibiscus tucked behind her ear wielded a silver cocktail shaker. Strings of café lights crisscrossed above the pool, lending a festive atmosphere. Guests lolled on chaises and chairs around the pool, sipping drinks. Beyond, there was another line of perfectly spaced royal palms, and beyond that, they heard the distant sound of waves washing ashore on the beach.
Drue pointed at a three-story wing to the north. “That’s the wing where Jazmin was working the night she was killed,” she said. “Zee’s report said the hotel’s security cameras showed her rolling her cleaning cart from that wing to the laundry room, which was where her body was found.”
“What now?”
She grabbed his hand. “Let’s take an innocent stroll that way.”
“What if we get stopped?”
“Who’s going to stop us?” she scoffed. “We’re young and beautiful and in love.”
They approached a set of double glass doors leading to a small lobby in the north wing, and Drue’s hopes were dashed.
“Damn,” she said, pointing at the key card slot. She tried the doors, but as expected, they were locked. Drue looked around, hoping a guest would appear with a key, allowing them to tag right along, but nobody was around. She glanced upward and saw a small video camera pointed in their direction.
“The laundry room should be around here somewhere,” she mused, moving away from the doors and out of camera range. She pointed at a narrower, concrete walkway that led toward the back of the wing. A discreet sign tucked into a mass of ferns proclaimed: SERVICE AREA. TEAM MEMBERS ONLY.
“I love a company that refers to employees as ‘team members,’” Drue said, following the walkway toward the rear of the building. When Corey didn’t reply, she turned to see him still standing in front of the guest wing.
“Come on,” she called. “Let’s check it out.”
“Is that wise?” he asked, joining her reluctantly.
“If one of the ‘team members’ comes along, they’re not going to shoot us,” Drue said impatiently. “We’ll say we got lost. It’s not like it’s the hotel vault we’re trying to break into. It’s only a laundry room.”
“I bet they have some really high-thread-count sheets and towels here, though. Probably Egyptian cotton,” Corey said.
As they progressed around the building the impressive landscaping gave way to cracked concrete and weedy-looking pine straw. The sidewalk ended abruptly in front of a set of solid-looking steel doors with a key card reader.
“Damn it,” Drue fumed. She looked up at the security camera pointed toward them, and pivoted quickly in the opposite direction with Corey following closely this time. A few yards away, she stopped and peered around the branches of a bedraggled-looking hibiscus. The grass beneath it was beaten down and littered with cigarette butts.
“Looks like we found the team’s smoking lounge,” she told Corey.
“But did you find any clues to who could have killed the girl?” he asked.
Her shoulders slumped. “No. If I could just get inside…”
“Forget it,” he advised. “I want to buy my fiancée a drink at the tiki bar.”
21
“Hi, handsome. What’ll you have?” The bartender batted her eyelashes at Corey and completely ignored Drue.
“Just an unsweet iced tea,” Corey said.
“Got it.” She turned to go.
“And I’ll have a margarita, no salt,” Drue called after her.
She studied Corey. “So you really don’t drink at all?”
“No. I figured out not long ago that I make poor choices when I do, so now I don’t.”
“Um, yeah,” she muttered. “Poor choices. Big-time.”
The server brought their drinks and set a bowl of popcorn in front of them. Drue noticed that she had a lanyard around her neck with a key card dangling from it.
“That’s what I need, damn it,” she whispered to Corey.
“What? Fake eyelashes?”
“No,” she said, nodding at the server, who was now measuring rum into a blender. “One of those lanyards. With the keys to the kingdom.”
The bartender scooped ice into the blender and added chunks of pineapple. As she did so, Drue noticed a server at the far end of the bar move behind the first woman. “Okay, bye,” their bartender said. “Are you working tomorrow?”
“No,” the other woman said. “I’m off ’til Tuesday.” She lifted a hatch in the bar top, and just before exiting, hung her own lanyard on a nearby peg.
“I need to get my hands on that key card,” Drue said.
Corey gave her the side-eye. “And just how do you propose to get it?”
She crammed a handful of popcorn in her mouth and eyed the lanyard, so temptingly near but just out of arm’s reach.
“Steal it.”
He pushed his bar stool away and stared at her in mock horror. “Who are you?”
“Just a girl with a shady past,” Drue said. “But don’t worry, I haven’t stolen anything in years and years.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “The thrill is gone, I guess. My shrink, at the time, said I was only doing it to get my father’s attention. And to further alienate my stepmother.”
Corey drained half his iced-tea glass. He propped his elbow on the bar and rested his chin on his knuckles. “And was his theory correct?”
“She, not he. Yeah, she was partly right.”
“Dare I ask what kinds of things you stole?”
Drue thought back. “Let’s see. There was my stepbrother’s weed. Money out of my dad’s wallet. My stepmother’s pearl earrings. Her sterling silver Tiffany cigarette lighter. And her cigarettes. My dad’s booze. And my stepmother’s birth control pills. Also her sleeping pills. But not all at the same time. Sometime I’d go weeks and months without stealing anything.”
Corey gave an uneasy chuckle. “If you had authority issues I get why you’d steal liquor and drugs and money and jewelry. But why take the poor woman’s birth control?”
“The therapist said I was trying to gaslight her. Make her think she was losing her mind. Which I one hundred percent was doing. Like, the jewelry, after she’d searched the house and my dad yelled at her for losing it, I’d put it back, weeks later.”
He shuddered. “Jesus. What a horrible, demented kid you must have been.”
“Agreed,” Drue said. “But Joan and her kids treated me much, much worse. They made my life a living hell, so I lashed out. In the end, she won. And I lost.”
The bartender came by with a pitcher of iced tea and refilled Corey’s empty glass. “How’s my margarita coming?” Drue asked.
“Oh yeah. I’ll get right on that,” the bartender said.
“What was the deciding battle in your family feud?” Corey asked.
“Halloween, when I was fifteen. This one Friday night, my best friend was spending the night, as usual, and Joan and Dad were away for the weekend. We decided we really, really wanted to go to Fright Fest, at Disney World. And I knew where Joan hid the keys to her Cadillac. So we went.”
“You’re telling me that two fifteen-year-old girls loaded up in a stolen Caddy and drove two and a half hours to Orlando?”
“At night. And we’d been drinking. And we would have gotten away with it, if some asshole hadn’t sideswiped the Caddy in the parking lot and ripped the right rearview mirror completely off the car.”
“Ouch.” Corey winced. “So you got caught and, what, put in permanent time-out?”
Drue’s smile was brittle. “Something like that. My friend’s father was this uptight, asshole preacher who made a big stink when my father called to tell him what we’d do
ne. She told her father that I’d forced her to go with me. Which was a lie. She drove because my feet couldn’t even reach the gas pedal. Annnnnd, after that, she never spoke to me again. Totally ghosted me. When the school year was up, my dad put me on a Greyhound bus and shipped me back to Fort Lauderdale to live with my mom.”
“That’s some story,” he said.
“It gets worse,” Drue said. “Dad and Joan divorced, but now Dad is married to my former friend—who is my boss at the law firm and who’s made it her mission to make my life a living hell.”
“And I thought my family was screwed up.” Corey hopped off the bar stool. “Hey, I’ve had about a gallon of iced tea. I’m gonna go find the men’s room.”
“Okay. I’ll be right here.”
* * *
“Let’s go,” Drue said, when Corey returned to the bar. “I’ve already settled the tab.”
She walked briskly away from the pool area. “Where to now?” he asked, glancing at his watch. “Hate to say it, but I can’t hang out here much longer. I’ve got a five-mile bike ride to get in tonight.”
“Laundry room,” she said.
“How are you going to get in?”
She turned and dangled the key-card lanyard before his eyes.
“Do I want to know how you managed to snag that?”
“I accidentally spilled that whole big bowl of popcorn on the floor. The bartender was super annoyed that she had to come around from behind the bar and sweep it all up. While she was tidying, the lanyard somehow fell off that hook and into my bag.”
“You’re the kind of girl my mama tried to warn me about,” Corey said, shaking his head.
“She never did bring my drink, so I figured this was a fair trade.”
When they arrived at the service area, Corey grabbed her arm just as she was about to slide the key through the laundry room door’s reader. “What if somebody comes along and catches us?”
“They won’t,” she assured him, pushing the door open.
The room was large, with walls of stainless steel industrial washers and dryers, and intensely hot. A stainless steel folding table ran against one wall, and shelving held jugs of bleach and laundry detergent. A wheeled canvas cart was pulled up in front of one of the machines, and Drue shuddered.
Sunset Beach Page 14