Misfits, Inc.

by Holly Copella

  The intruder darted toward the open balcony door and disappeared through it. Hailey remained motionless a moment, still feeling the sensation of his hard body against hers. She finally came to her senses and frantically struggled to untie the rope on her right wrist with her left hand. She looked at the knot through the near darkness, frowned, and pulled the loose end, releasing the slipknot. He was an intruder with a sense of humor--and one hell of a great kisser. Hailey jumped from the bed and immediately regretted the sudden movement. She clutched her head until the dizziness passed. She then ran to the balcony and looked out, but he was gone.

  †

  Only ten minutes had passed before Marcus and Delaney stormed the penthouse suite. Lucinda arrived only moments after her two security officers. The master bedroom light brightened the entire room to reveal its grandeur and expensive furniture. The wall safe, once hidden behind a painting, now stood open. Hailey sat on the large bed and subconsciously ran her fingers through her hair. She couldn’t get the last few minutes out of her head, and it wasn’t because she was thrown to a bed and tied up by a strange man. It was his kiss she couldn’t shake. It had to be because she was drunk. She’d gone too long without male company, and being drunk didn’t help her reaction to the intruder’s charm. Lucinda frantically paced before the open wall safe while wrenching her fingers together. It appeared unclear if she was frightened or angry. Marcus returned to the bedroom from the balcony and shook his head with disgust. Lucinda turned toward him with a wild look. She wasn’t frightened; she was angry and hateful.

  “You said no one could break into the penthouse,” Lucinda launched at Marcus, her eyes digging into him like daggers. “You said no one could crack that safe! Poor Hailey was nearly killed tonight! What are you going to do about it?”

  “I wasn’t nearly killed,” Hailey replied softly, although she wasn’t sure why she felt the need to say anything as she subconsciously touched her lips. She swore she still felt his mouth on hers.

  Delaney hastily made his getaway, possibly to avoid the wrath of the barracuda. Hailey glanced at the safe in the wall not far from the bed, which contained many jewelry boxes and several bundles of cash. She found it odd that he left all the valuables behind. What surprised her more was what he actually did take.

  “He left all that cash,” Hailey marveled aloud then glanced at Lucinda. “Why did he only steal that old, emerald necklace of yours?”

  Lucinda spun on her heels and looked at Hailey with rage on her face. “Because he obviously knew his jewelry,” she exploded then turned to Marcus with equal hostility toward him. “Find my necklace! I don’t care if you have to tear apart every room in the hotel!”

  Lucinda snatched the contract from the nightstand and stormed from the room. The penthouse door was heard slamming as she left. Marcus and Hailey exchanged puzzled looks. She somehow knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

  “That went surprisingly well,” he announced then closed the safe and gave the dial a quick spin. Marcus looked back at Hailey, who still hadn’t moved from the bed. He revealed the same sympathetic look she’d seen in the lounge then sat on the bed alongside her. As he stared into her eyes, she saw a genuine kindness he probably shared with few. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “No, it was too dark,” she replied and gently rubbed her hands over her arms, feeling a slight chill.

  Marcus stared at her a moment longer, making her slightly uncomfortable. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him that the intruder kissed her or that she sort of enjoyed it. As he stared at her, she could smell faint traces of his cologne. Hailey suddenly felt compelled to lean closer and investigate the scent. She was almost afraid to learn the truth, so she maintained her distance. She shifted uncomfortably and looked away to avoid him possibly reading her eyes.

  “If we’re done, I’d really like to go to my room,” she announced gently.

  Marcus smiled gently and nodded while standing. “Yes, of course,” he announced and extended his hand to her. “I’ll escort you to your room.”

  She stared at his hand a moment and hesitantly accepted it while wondering what it was about him that peaked her curiosity. She brushed those feelings aside as he helped her to her feet.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  He offered a polite smile and guided her toward the bedroom door. “It’s my job to protect you.”

  Hailey gave him a strange look as they walked out the door. She couldn’t believe Skyler’s story was actually getting to her!

  †

  Hailey soaked beneath the hot stream of water in the large, elegant standing shower encased in stone and frosted glass doors. She’d considered soaking in the jetted tub after her ordeal, but she was exhausted and feared falling asleep, drowning herself. Her thoughts were scattered, yet they kept returning to the scene in Lucinda’s bedroom. She could still feel the intruder’s mouth on hers and could almost taste the expensive alcohol. The man broke into her boss’s safe, tied her to a bed, and practically assaulted her, yet she couldn’t get his kiss off her mind. It concerned her that she wasn’t scared. She should have been frightened to death, especially with his untold arousal against her hip. There was something familiar about the man, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. She wasn’t going to rest until she smelled every man at the resort. She desperately wanted to know who he was, and it had nothing to do with getting Lucinda’s necklace back.

  Through the frosted doors, she saw a dark object move across the bathroom. A clunk followed. Hailey strained to look through the shower doors and saw the dark mass beyond the glass standing at waist level. Hailey gasped with horror, snatched her towel from over the shower door, and wrapped it around her. The dark mass moved, indicating whatever it was, it was alive. She quickly opened the shower door. A large black cat sat on the sink playing with her toothbrush. Hailey groaned, stepped out of the shower, and petted the cat. It seemed friendly enough.

  “Where did you come from, little kitty?” she asked then laughed at her earlier overreaction. “Did Skyler put you up to this?”

  The cat purred as she stroked its fur and then turned serious as it pounced on her toothbrush in the sink. The little kitty was determined to save the world one toothbrush at a time. She laughed at the playful kitty.

  “Okay, you can stay; but just for tonight.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Well-dressed men and women danced to the pulsating club music in the dim lighting within the lounge. It was a little after one o’clock in the morning and the dance floor was again crowded to maximum capacity. Mel and Desi danced with several young men, although it seemed as if Vance was mysteriously absent. Judging by the way both women scanned the crowded dance floor, each was secretly hoping he’d show up. Penny was sitting at the bar and appeared disinterested in the fun time being had by others. Tam refilled her drink and studied her mood.

  “Don’t you know you’re supposed to be having fun,” Tam informed her.

  “How can I?” Penny asked while returning the look. “No one’s seen Amy since she left with that guy last night.”

  Tam easily shrugged it off. “It wouldn’t be the first time a girl ran off with some stud for a weekend in the sack,” she announced. “Another girl took off just a few days ago. I’d heard she’d called her friends from some rich guy’s yacht.” Tam groaned lustfully while sinking into her own fantasies. “Lucky girl. Why is it I never meet the rich studs?”

  “I’m sure that sort of thing happens a lot around here, but it’s not like Amy,” Penny insisted. “She wouldn’t even have gone back to his room with him let alone run away with some guy she barely knows. She doesn’t do that sort of thing, and she certainly wouldn’t run off without telling us where she was going.”

  “They always turn up,” Tam announced while attempting to remain cheerful.

  Penny sharply eyed the bartender. “I’d heard rumor someone found a body in the woods,” she remarked. “Did you hear
anything about that?”

  Tam gave a disinterested wave. “That was just a cry for attention from a desperate guy with too much time on his hands,” she remarked. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’d heard wild rantings from that one.”

  “That’s a relief,” Penny said with a sigh.

  Penny looked into the mirror behind Tam and saw Daniel making his way through the crowd. She turned on her stool and saw the familiar man leaving the lounge. Penny’s expression dropped as she sprang to her feet.

  “My God, that’s him. I have to go,” Penny cried out and weaved through the crowd after the man.

  Penny hurried from the lounge and into the main hallway. Daniel walked along the nearly empty corridor toward the lobby and paused before the elevators. Oddly enough, he pressed the down button. Penny maintained her distance and watched him enter the elevator. Once the doors closed, she hurried to the elevators, noted it went down, and pressed the down button as well. It seemed odd that he’d be going down, since it only went to the basement. When the doors opened, Penny stepped inside and pressed the down button. She looked around the elevator and seemed to consider her actions with insecurity. She rubbed her arms and waited for the doors to open.

  The basement corridor was well-lit with a massive laundry room just ahead and the maintenance department off to the right. The basement was nearly as large as the hotel itself. Daniel walked along the basement corridor with purpose. It seemed unusual that one of the guests would be familiar with the hotel’s basement. Penny followed from a safe distance and appeared curious to his actions. She turned a corner, and he was gone. The door to the laundry room was locked. Not far from the laundry room was an old freight elevator. She paused before the old elevator and studied it while considering her next move. It was possible he entered the elevator, since it seemed improbable that he had a key to the laundry room door. There was a down button, indicating there was a floor beneath the basement. She hesitated only a moment before pressing the down button.

  The elevator arrived and the old, creaking doors slid open. Penny nervously stepped into the elevator, stared at the button labeled ‘one’ below the basement button, and anxiously pressed it. The old elevator jolted with a strange grinding sound and headed down to the floor below. Penny clung to the side of the elevator with concern to her ride. If the elevator would become stuck, it would be hours or longer before anyone ever found her trapped inside the dank dirty monstrosity. The elevator finally jolted to a stop. Nothing happened. For a moment, she appeared to panic. The door finally opened with a hideous grinding sound. As the door slid open, Penny stared at the dingy and dimly lit sub-basement corridor. She slowly stepped out of the old elevator and looked both directions. Both were equally creepy and lined with cobwebs. She walked several feet along the dingy hallway.

  There were odd archways leading into dark rooms scattered randomly along the corridor. At the far end of the main corridor, the hallway continued both right and left with even less light. It was a chilling, dismal area that left a lot to be desired. Penny stared down the corridor a moment, conveyed her fright, and shook her head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She quickly turned and hurried back toward the elevator. She was nearly to the open elevator when she heard a low snarl behind her. Penny abruptly stopped, looked behind her, and saw glowing eyes in one of the rooms off to the side. She now hurried for the open elevator and looked back while passing another darkened archway. Penny was suddenly knocked off her feet. She barely had time to scream as she was dragged into the dark room. Her startled scream trailed off into the darkness.

  †

  Hailey slept restlessly in her short, satin nightgown beneath the sheets on her massive, king-sized bed. The little black cat remained curled at her feet despite her random thrashing. In her dreams, she ran through a dimly lit tunnel in a tattered nightgown. She could feel the cold, damp stone floor beneath her bare feet. Old lights exploded as she ran past them, leaving complete darkness behind her. She heard a strange sound and immediately stopped. She listened to the sound then felt something brushing along her feet. She looked down and saw hundreds of snakes surrounding her. They slithered across her feet and wrapped around her ankles. Hailey thrashed in her sleep, screamed aloud, and shot up in bed. One of the glass balcony doors shattered, terrifying both her and the cat. The cat jumped straight up from a dead sleep, puffed twice its size, hissed, and leaped from the bed.

  “Skyler!”

  After her panic-filled scream, the room was completely silent. Hailey’s heart pounded so hard, she had a difficult time catching her breath. She placed a trembling hand to her head then looked at the broken glass door. There was an urgent pounding from the main suite door, startling her. Hailey leaped from her bed, hurried across the suite, and approached the living room door. She opened the door without even looking through the peek hole. Rafe stood before the door wearing only a pair of shorts and clutched a 26” rattan escrima stick used for self-defense in martial arts. He quickly scanned the room.

  “I heard a scream.”

  As she stared at Rafe in her doorway, she couldn’t believe her nightmare was still continuing. She fumbled for something to say and conceal her body beneath her thin nightgown.

  “It’s nothing,” she announced, finally catching her breath from the shock of her nightmare. “I just had a bad dream.”

  Rafe bolted past her, apparently not caring what she said, and stormed across the room. He entered the darkened bedroom with a mission. She placed her hand to her head and groaned softly, wanting to crawl into a hole right about then. Rafe was obviously itching to kill something and was hoping he’d find it in her bedroom. Hailey often wondered what it was about testosterone that possessed men to run blindly into darkened rooms.

  “It was just a nightmare, Rafe,” she called after him while looking for something with which to cover herself. Before she could reach the nearby throw blanket, he was already returning from the bedroom.

  Rafe stood in the bedroom doorway with an odd look on his face while indicating her room. “The glass on the balcony door is broken.”

  He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, and she was quickly losing patience.

  “Yeah, I guess a bird must have hit it.” At least she hoped that was all it was.

  “It’s broken from the inside,” he remarked firmly.

  She stared at him with a strange look and squinted to the comment. “What?”

  That didn’t make any sense. How could the glass be broken leading outside to the balcony? Had someone been in her room and broke the door while attempting to flee? She couldn’t help think about the man who broke into Lucinda’s suite. Thundering footfalls were heard in the hallway, interrupting her thoughts and startling her. Hailey turned as Skyler appeared in the doorway in a pair of satin pajamas and clearly out of breath.

  “Are you okay?” Skyler gasped. He then saw Rafe with his rattan stick and jumped in front of Hailey with his arms stretched out. “Run, Hailey!”

  Rafe rolled his eyes then groaned and muttered, “Give me a break.”

  Hailey turned Skyler around to face her and attempted to keep him calm. “I appreciate you becoming a human shield to protect me, but Rafe just got here.”

  “What are you doing here?” Rafe demanded while scanning the satin pajamas he wore.

  “Hailey called for me,” he replied while panting heavily.

  Hailey cast a strange look at Skyler. She knew she didn’t call him. She would have remembered that. Was he hanging outside her room in his pajamas? If that were the case, it would be taking stalking to a new level. Rafe groaned with annoyance, walked past them, and headed from the room.

  “Why am I always next to the crazies?” he muttered as he entered the hall and disappeared.

  Hailey looked back at Skyler and slowly shook her head while folding her arms across her chest. “I never called you, Skyler.”

  “You did. I was in my room reading Logan’s manuscript
when I heard you call me,” he insisted. “I thought you were in trouble, so I ran up here as fast as I could.”

  His words almost made no sense to her.

  “As in telepathy?” she suddenly asked with surprise then another more concerning thought occurred to her. “Did you say you were in your room?” Her arms fell to her sides. “Are you telling me you actually ran from the employee’s wing to the nineteenth floor in less than a minute?”

  Skyler casually shrugged with little forethought. “I got picked on a lot when I was a kid. I learned to run fast,” he replied. “So what happened?”

  Hailey inhaled deeply while running her fingers through her hair then sighed.

  “The usual--snakes and tidal waves.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was late the following morning and yet another sunny, warm day in paradise. They were all pretty much the same, but that was what the guests were hoping for on their expensive vacation. Rather than enjoying the sun, surf, and beach like a normal guest, Hailey stood with Skyler on the path just inside the woods by the clearing. Both watched as Logan wandered through the tall grass where the beast and panther had gotten into their altercation close to where she had seen the dead woman’s body. Hailey hated to admit that she didn’t want to explore the clearing after what they’d witnessed yesterday, but she was quite rattled just thinking about it. Thankfully, Skyler was less inclined to hide his feelings about venturing into the clearing, giving her just cause not to join Logan in his search. Logan finally straightened, looked back at them, and shook his head.