by Logan Fox
God, she was starting to sound like Tina. She’d start thinking there were treasures in the attic next.
Pearl stifled a snort, aware of Gia just a few feet away. Who knew how light a sleeper the girl was?
Luckily, Seth had decided to dress her in slacks and a jumper instead of pajamas. Maybe because this getup had more padding in the pants-region. She smiled at that, winced as a hesitant hand drew a line of fire from her backside, and then straightened her shoulders.
Fuck it, she was going.
She slid her hand under the mattress. Her heart did a back flip in her chest when her fingers didn’t encounter that square of plastic.
“No,” Pearl whispered.
Her fingers became frantic, sliding from left to right in a furious swipe, going deeper and deeper—
She drew out the keycard, exhaled slowly, and pressed it to her chest.
Thank God.
Pearl glanced over her shoulder at Gia’s sleeping form. The girl’s breathing hadn’t changed, so she could only assume she was still asleep.
Get on with it, Pearl.
She went to the door, silently turned the handle, and sidled out of the room into the empty fox den.
The lights had been dimmed, providing just enough illumination for Pearl to avoid the furniture as she crept through the lounge and up the stairs. The cherry tree’s scent met her halfway up the stairs.
Tina met her on the landing.
“There you are,” Tina whispered. “I’ve been waiting forever out here.”
Pearl swallowed a shocked curse and stood, rigid and barely breathing, two steps from the landing.
“What are you doing here?” she managed.
“Waiting for you, duh.” Tina shrugged her shoulders — she wore the same outfit as Pearl, her feet bare, her hair tamed into a ponytail. “You have it right? The card? Ethan gave me a world of shit about losing it, but I think he blames himself more than anything. Kept going on about how he couldn’t get fired, how he had to stay here.” Tina shrugged at Pearl’s wide-eyed expression. “So, where do you want to go first? I was thinking—”
“Follow me,” Pearl cut in, striding past the girl while she was still gesticulating excitedly, no doubt about to suggest climbing the stairs and hunting for an attic.
“Ooh, goodie!”
Pearl spun around. “And keep it down, for fuck’s sake.”
Tina’s eyes flashed wide, and she held up her palms, nodding furiously. Pearl sighed and started forward again, straining to see if anyone lurked ahead.
What time was it? Would they run into servants? A wolf? Ethan on another of his nightly excursions to report back to his captain?
“God, but that spanking hurt like hell, am I right?” Tina was right behind her, and she whispered this into Pearl’s ear while Pearl was peering around the corner to check if the library was clear.
She jolted, squeezed her lips closed, and glared at Tina over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Tina hissed.
Pearl beckoned the girl to follow and hurried through the library, heading for the small door where a phone and a computer waited for her.
She slipped the keycard from the pocket of her sweatpants and gripped it in a white-knuckled fist as she stared at the door.
She was going to call Cheryl, obviously. Who else? But what would she say? That there was an undercover cop here, to come and get her, to try and find out where the hell the Fox Pit was so she could send reinforcements?
Her shoulders drooped.
Maybe it wasn’t Cheryl she should be phoning.
Pearl stepped forward and swiped the keycard across the panel set beside the door. There was a faint noise from the door, and she pushed her way inside.
It was crowded with her and Tina both in the room. Tina made a disappointed sound in the back of her throat, no doubt at the lack of old treasure chests the stuffy room contained.
Pearl grabbed up the phone’s receiver and stabbed out Greg’s number.
In the darkness, the steady red eye of a light caught her eye. Her finger paused above the last digit of Greg’s cellphone number.
Were they tracking this phone?
That’s what she’d thought, that first day when Seth had brought her in here to call Cheryl.
So if she phoned Greg now… if she told him about Ethan and the dead bodies…
Pearl set the phone back on its cradle and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
Fuck.
“Ah, don’t chicken out,” Tina said, crowding in beside her. “Do it!”
“Tina, you don’t—” Pearl began, shaking her head.
“Fine, give it here.” Tina snatched up the phone and began stabbing out a number on the old-school buttons.
“No!” Pearl grabbed hold of the phone, but the girl refused to let go of it. “Stop it, you idiot. They record everything in here.”
Tina stopped struggling and let Pearl peel her fingers from the receiver.
“They do?” she whispered, her wide brown eyes reflecting a pinprick of light. “Why?”
“Because they’re shady motherfuckers,” Pearl muttered, succeeding finally in freeing the receiver. She slammed it back on its cradle, wincing at the loud plastic clang it produced, and exhaled.
“We have to get one of the guys’s phones.”
Tina shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t wanna prank call that bad.”
“It’s not for a—” Pearl cut off with a strangled sound, pressing her fingertips to the patch of skin between her eyebrows.
She was stuck with Tina. And Tina was a complete airhead. But she didn’t have the mental capacity to work out something to tell Tina that would also allow her to snoop around trying to figure out how to escape this hell hole she’d landed herself in.
Her choice was simple: trust Tina with the truth, or lock the chick in a closet and hope she didn’t make enough noise to rouse the entire villa.
Which left her with no choice, really.
Pearl glanced around the small room, threw a distrustful glance toward the phone, and tugged Tina out of the room. The girl followed meekly enough, not saying a thing until Pearl had led her out onto the patio.
“I’m going to tell you something, okay?” Pearl grabbed the girl’s upper arm, squeezing her. “But you have to promise me you won’t say anything to anyone. Got it?”
Tina shrugged, watching Pearl warily from the corner of her eye.
“Say it.”
“Fine, gees: I promise.” Tina yanked her arm free. “What is it?”
Pearl took a step back, pressing the keycard to her lips as she studied Tina.
The lesser of two evils, right? And who knew: maybe by telling Tina, the burden of knowing they were involved in something as terrifying as several dead bodies would lessen. She might be able to start thinking straight.
She might be able to figure out a decent escape plan.
“When I was out here last night, I overheard Ethan talking on his phone,” Pearl said.
Tina shrugged. “So?”
“So… I think he’s an undercover cop.”
Tina let out a snorting giggle, quickly covering her mouth and glancing over her shoulder at the slumbering villa. When she turned back to Pearl, her smile evaporated.
“Sweet Jesus, you’re serious?” Tina gave her head a quick shake. “Why? Why do you think that? Why’s he here? What—”
“He’s investigating a—” Pearl cut off before she could finish. The word ‘murder’ refused to leave her mouth.
Tina leaned forward, lips parting. “A what?” she whispered fiercely.
“A… drug trafficking ring.” Pearl swallowed and began nodding her head. “Drugs. Lots of them. That they’re trafficking. From here.”
She cut off the rest of what was no doubt going to be more babbling with a snap of her teeth.
“Drug trafficking?” Tina whispered. “Like crack?”
“Crack. Weed. Heroine.” Pearl nodded again. “…o
ther drugs.”
“Holy shit,” Tina murmured. “That’s messed up.”
“I know. Which is why I want to get the hell out of here before I become someone’s drug mule, you know?”
Tina was nodding gently, her head bobbing up and down as she turned her eyes to the view past Pearl’s shoulder.
“That shit’s messed up,” she said again.
“Anyway, so I need to make a call to someone I know.”
“The cops?”
“No… a friend. Someone who’ll know how to get me—” she licked her lips “—how to get us out of our contracts.”
“He can do that?” Tina looked uneasy now, her eyes flickering back to Pearl’s face. “Are you sure about the drugs?”
“Yup.”
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Tina muttered. “Fucking money was too good, this place was too nice—” she threw a dismissive wave over her shoulder “—the guys were too hot.” The girl looked utterly disgusted; her bubble had burst, showering her with icky dream-bubble goo.
Pearl leaned forward and rubbed the side of Tina’s arm.
“Don’t stress. We’ll get out of here soon.”
“Too good to be true,” Tina said quietly, turning to follow Pearl back inside the villa.
Pearl halted at a tug on her sleeve.
“Hey, so what now? Where are we going?”
Right. Of course, Tina would have to know the next stage of their Fox Pit adventure. Pearl shrugged.
“We have to find a phone. Maybe Seth’s or Caden’s. We use it to phone Greg — he’s my friend — and Greg can arrange something to spring us.”
“Seth?” Tina’s eyes became round, blue little saucers. “Oh my God, he scares the living shit out of me.”
“Seth? He’s a sweetheart.” Pearl dropped her eyes, shuddering at how she’d nearly mimicked Gia telling her what a softie Caden was. “You don’t have to worry about him,” she amended, smiling at Tina. “I can handle him.”
“Okay,” Tina said with a shrug. “Seth then.”
Pearl nodded at the girl, and they went back inside the villa — silent as the breeze stirring around them.
Tina kept remarkably quiet as they crept through the villa, en-route to Seth’s room. When they cleared the landing, Pearl holding out a hand so she could make sure the way was clear before they moved ahead, the only sound was the rustle of their clothing.
Pearl beckoned the girl to follow and crept at a crouch down the hallway, her eyes fixed on Seth’s door. They were about five feet away when Caden’s door — much further down the hall — opened.
Tina gasped. Pearl strangled her own surprised breath and slammed her hand against Tina’s chest, pressing the girl into the wall beside her.
Caden stepped from his room, head ducked down. The glare from his phone bathed his face, his glasses reflecting rectangles of white as he typed away on the device in his hand.
The hallway was dark, but not dark enough that he wouldn’t see them if he happened to look up.
Luckily for them, Caden didn’t.
Pearl released her stagnant breath as a soft sigh when the man ascended the distant stairway, his head never once rising. She counted to a slow, heart-jittering ten and started forward again.
Outside Seth’s door, she hesitated again. She cast Tina a furtive glance, which the girl responded to with a quick, assertive nod.
Tina probably dressed up as Xena for Halloween, didn’t she?
Pearl pushed back her shoulders, let out a last breath, and swiped her keycard against Seth’s door lock.
Snick.
Half-crouching, Pearl pushed open the door a crack, ducking her head to glance inside. Darkness. Thick, impenetrable darkness.
She sidled inside, urgently waving at Tina when the girl hesitated. Tina squeezed her lips into a thin line and followed, pressing her hands to the wall to steady herself.
There was utter quiet in the room. Pearl tried to remember the layout of Seth’s apartment: living area to the left, kitchenette to the right. Straight ahead, the passage with two doors. Door on the left: massage room. Door on the right… his bedroom? Where, hopefully, he was fast asleep.
Tina followed as Pearl straightened and moved forward. She kept her back to the wall, using it to guide her feet as she ventured into the hallway.
The right-hand door was firmly closed. Faint rasping sounds came from behind it.
Good, he was asleep.
She glanced behind her at the darkness-enshrouded Tina and cocked her head toward the closed door. Tina nodded.
Pearl closed her hand around the handle and slowly pulled it down.
Thank God for rich people and their complete lack of squeaky hinges.
The door opened silently. The rasping, it turned out, was a woman’s gentle snore. Pearl stepped into the room, her feet falling on thick carpeting instead of tiles. There was no moon tonight, so the room was a Mariana Trench shade of black.
Pearl fumbled behind her and found Tina’s sweater. She grabbed hold of it and stepped forward.
After a few seconds, she realized that she should have told the girl to wait outside. Trying to move yourself blindly through a strange room: difficult. Doing it while having an airhead bimbo less than a foot behind you: impossible.
Tina walked into her back, sending Pearl stumbling forward. Her palm slapped loudly against the wooden railing at the foot of the bed as her hand reached instinctively for something to halt her fall.
The woman stopped snoring, made a snuffling sound, and turned over in the bed. Sheets rustled. There was a low murmur from Seth, his baritone incomprehensible at such a low volume, and then a happy sigh. More rustles. Another murmur.
Silence.
Pearl exhaled slowly, hearing a soft sigh behind her as Tina did the same.
There was a tug on her sleeve. Pearl turned around, bumping noses with Tina who’d leaned up against her to whisper in her ear.
They both made a small, surprised sound. Pearl’s heart thundered away in her chest as she waited for a cry of “Aha!” from the bed. Nothing came. Seth and his wife were still fast asleep.
“Nightstand,” Tina whispered in her ear.
Pearl wanted to say “Duh,” but decided not to risk it. She crept forward, Tina now holding onto her sleeve. Her fingertips brushed the sheet dangling over the side of the bed as a way to keep her parallel with the bed in the dark room while her other hand reached blindly forward for a nightstand she could only hope lay somewhere ahead of her.
Her hand touched wood.
Her fingers touched flesh.
Pearl started. Seth’s hand twitched, and then he caught hold of her fingers, trapping them against his palm. He made a soft, sleepy sound. His breathing grew slow and regular.
Shit.
Tina was pressing fingertips into Pearl’s upper arm, trying to urge her forward. Pearl dipped her shoulder, trying to indicate that she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Tina didn’t get the message.
“Nightstand!” came the urgent whisper in her ear.
Pearl turned her head and whispered, “He’s got my hand.”
Tina let out a low, soft giggle. Pearl rolled her eyes in the dark, squeezing her lips closed in case she yelled at the girl. It was a close call.
With another amused huff, Tina shuffled past Pearl. She could hear the girl investigating Seth’s nightstand, her fingers brushing over the wood, nails tapping against the side of a water glass. Then the girl was moving past her again, giving Pearl a triumphant pat on her shoulder.
Good, she had it.
Now all she had to do was extricate her fingers from Seth’s massive hand without waking him.
Luckily, her palms were clammy with nerves. And, equally lucky, some of the lotion she’d put on her hands after she’d last washed them still clung to her skin. After a few quick wiggles, her fingers slipped free.
“No, Joy,” Seth murmured. “Stay… kitten. Stay with me.”
Pearl a
lmost cried out in surprise. The man’s mouth was less than a foot away from her ear.
She backed out of the room, eyes straining to make out the shape of the bed in the dark room. Tina waited for her in the hall, the phone’s screen glaring brightly on her face. She wiggled it at Pearl, in case she’d been struck blind in the last ten minutes.
Pearl nodded and beckoned her to follow as she left the apartment. She opened the door again, stuck her head out, and hurried into the hall. At the top of the stairs, she stopped to press her shoulders into the wall, letting her head fall back against the smooth clay surface.
“I wasn’t cut out for this,” she murmured to herself.
“What? You were great!” Tina pushed the phone into her chest. “Go on, call him.”
Pearl let out a long breath, took the phone from Tina and typed out Greg’s number. Her thumb hesitated over the call button.
“Go on,” Tina whispered.
“It’s late,” Pearl said. Three in the morning late. “What if he doesn’t—”
“Then you leave him a voice mail, silly.” Tina made encouraging shooing motions with her hand until Pearl put the phone to her ear.
Greg’s phone rang and rang and rang. Eventually, it went to voicemail.
“Hi, Greg?” Because who else would be answering his phone? Pearl shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to get rid of the image of Tina’s irritatingly sincere expression. “It’s Pearl. Listen, I need your help. It’s… it’s all fucked up. There’s a cop here, undercover. Something’s going on. Something bad. I need to get out of here.” A tug on Pearl’s sleeve. She opened her eyes to Tina’s wide eyes. “Me and Tina. Tina and I.” Yes, because now was the time to be worried about grammar. “Can you get us out? Out of our contracts? I don’t know—”
There was a loud beep in her ear.
Shit. Damn the fact that you could only leave ten-second long voice messages. Who came up with a system like that, anyway?
“Call back,” Tina said. “Leave another. Tell him about the crack.”
For a second, Pearl stared at the girl with a deep frown on her face. Crack? What the fuck was—
Oh yes. The crack. And the weed. And the heroine.