Chapter 9
How Fletcher would get the boat key was a different question altogether.
At this rate, if one of her coworkers didn’t kill her, starvation would.
Her appetite hadn’t reared its head all day, but she was officially running on fumes.
Usually, her stomach could win Olympic gold in pretending iced coffee counted as food, but Lydell wouldn’t go easy on her.
She wouldn’t be able to make it across the island if she didn’t find something to eat.
If she timed it right, she might be able to squeeze into the butler’s pantry for shelf-stable rations while everyone else polished off the caviar and champagne.
Then, there was the unfortunate truth that Fletcher only vaguely knew where the marina was.
Her responsibilities rarely extended to Lydell’s borders.
All the prep work and planning fell to Fletcher, but as groundskeeper, Carlotta executed each assignment and kept the island well-oiled.
Not that she was going to admit that to Jackie.
The last thing Fletcher wanted was to give her a reason to see her as disposable. She barely trusted Jackie as it was.
Plus, the ever-present mental tally of living coworkers was being whittled away.
Theo, Joplin, and Raul—gone. Every semireasonable person who had rightfully protested this madness was getting picked off one by one.
Which left Rick, parading around the savanna. Jackie with her silver pistol. Deepti and Bertram, the remnants of upper management. Sheila, blatantly unaware of her surroundings, and Opal probably not much better. The Brians and Molly and Melv.
Waylon, unfortunately.
Eleven. Twelve, counting herself.
She was so deep in thought she didn’t notice her bedroom door had been flung open until she stood right there in front of it. Which was weird because she hadn’t left it like that.
Her pace slowed to a creep, and Fletcher peeked her head around the jamb, only to rock back on her heels in shock. The door had been forced off its hinges, no finesse about it, and the Brians. Were. In. There.
They’d thrown half her belongings on the floor. What was the point of meticulously folding her clothes into the dresser if they were going to get trampled on by two yahoos who spent company time beefing with Reddit memelords?
As if sensing her proximity, Brian glanced over his shoulder, and Fletcher flattened herself against the wall.
The hallway behind her was bald as a colophon margin.
Nothing to duck behind, nothing to use to defend herself.
If she stayed here, they’d see her, skin her alive, and use her hide as a new rug in the Paid Ads office.
Shit.
Hands smacked across Fletcher’s mouth. The grip was so tight, she staggered backward, hitting something rock-solid.
Abs. Those were abs.
And it didn’t take rocket science to know whose.
Fletcher dug her elbow into the torso, aiming toward a kidney or at least a ticklish spot. Anything to loosen Waylon’s death grip. Nothing worked. He peeled her over the threshold into his bedroom and clicked the door shut behind them.
Blond curlicues dripped over his brow, fresh from his shower. The whole room still smelled like soap. No sooner than he set her down did he mime a zipper over his mouth and hers for good measure.
Fletcher unzipped her mouth with a frown. Hushed, she barked, “What are you doing? Leave me alone.”
Waylon shook his head, his scowl deepening. In a series of poorly communicated charades, he wagged his fingers toward the bathroom, made binoculars of his fists, and then crossed his torso with a dramatic X.
Fletcher stared until she was certain he was finished, and then whisper-shouted, “Spit it out.”
The hard cut of his sapphire eyes could draw blood. Still, he committed to the bit and mimed unzipping his lips before saying, “If you go in there right now, you’re dead. Russo and Dunlap are looking for you.”
The Brians’ government names caught Fletcher off guard, but no more than Waylon saving her from waltzing in on their siege. Acting selflessly wasn’t exactly in his repertoire.
Fletcher migrated toward the conjoined bathroom, nearly tripping over a room service platter with picked-at leftovers from what looked like a late-night snack.
His room was double the size of hers with a duvet spilling over the side of the bed and a pile of dirty clothes in the corner.
If she didn’t know better, she could have believed the Paid Ads knuckleheads had already ransacked his room.
Waylon followed her, and when they reached Fletcher’s door, they stacked over each other, pressing their ears to the seam.
“Are you sure this is the right room?” Other Brian asked.
Something thunked. Her suitcase, maybe? “Gotta be. Bertram said he saw the bitch come this way after talking with Molly last night. If we don’t find out what she knows, we’re next. She’s got to have notes around here somewhere.”
Fletcher bit on her lip to keep from gasping.
For starters, she was not a bitch, thank you very much.
Secondly, whatever information they thought they’d find here, they wouldn’t.
During her first year at Cartwright Media, Fletcher had relied heavily on a chunky white binder—five inches, three-ringed, and tabbed to her heart’s content.
Eventually, as she committed everything to memory, she stopped lugging it around.
And thirdly, it was obvious Bertram didn’t think she belonged here.
That much he’d made readily apparent. Sending his goons after her was a new low.
The shuffling on the other side grew increasingly closer. Fletcher moved on instinct, shoving her hands against Waylon’s chest and pushing him into the shower. The tiles were still slick from his last rinse, and their entry was, to put it politely, indelicate.
Her hands grappled for purchase, finding only fistfuls of him.
Waylon caught her by the hip. When she looked up, they were entirely too close and her robe entirely too thin.
The curve of her breasts pressed against his shirt, and underneath, he was all sinewed muscles and veins.
His grip on her waist stiffened almost reflexively. A wet heat palmed at her belly.
They’d been like this once before. Close enough to kiss.
The door flung open, and whatever passed between them evaporated like steam from a sauna. Fletcher blinked her libido back into her body. Their proximity was for survival. Nothing more, nothing less.
Neither of them breathed as the Brians marched into the bathroom. It wasn’t the world’s most original hiding spot—or even a good one, considering the drawn curtain would do little to protect them. All either Brian had to do was so much as glance in their general direction, and they’d be found.
Waylon seemed to know it, too. His entire body tensed, muscles contracting. A predator ready to pounce.
Before anyone could make a move, footsteps sounded in the hallway. Distant, but closing in. Fletcher didn’t need to see the Brians to know the glance they exchanged. The silent way they communicated. It wasn’t until they’d left her room that Fletcher inhaled again. Even then, it was shallow.
Waylon extricated himself from the shower without another word, and Fletcher could hardly blame him. That wasn’t the team-building exercise she thought she’d be joining this week. But as he wandered back toward his bedroom, her gaze wandered after him.
“There’s one other thing,” she said carefully. “Joplin’s gone.”
He backtracked, framed by his door to the bathroom. “Gone?”
“Dead.”
Waylon didn’t exactly move, but something shifted. Like his gravitational force changed, his knees shuddering against the weight. “Dead. How.”
It was supposed to be a question, Fletcher wagered.
“Hypothermia.”
“In this heat?” His grip on the doorframe tightened. Trying to hold himself up.
“Also, she said she never liked Eliza.”
“She told you that?” Hoarse grief coated his words.
“I’m just the messenger. Don’t—” Fletcher tried to say, but Waylon caught her by the arm and dragged her back into his room.
He hauled Fletcher toward the plush edge of his unmade bed, and she thumped down onto the memory foam mattress.
“Don’t kill me,” she said.
“What part of this makes you think I’m the one trying to kill you?”
Waylon now stood approximately four feet away. Brows knitted together, hands empty by his sides. Somehow, being alone with him felt more dangerous than both Brians and Bertram combined.
“The part where people keep dying in gruesome manners.”
“Is there an ungruesome way to die?” he asked. “Who did it?”
“Killed Joplin?” Fletcher asked.
She swallowed Jackie’s name. The editor in chief offered her safe passage—or, at least, safer passage. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan B.
A new idea percolated at the back of Fletcher’s mind. Even if Dyer was crazy enough to strand the rest of them here, he wouldn’t sacrifice his only son. He’d give Waylon an exit plan, an escape route.
One Fletcher desperately needed right now.
As much as she hated to admit it, she could use Waylon’s help.
She could handle a map herself, but if she was honest, she’d grown reliant on Manhattan’s gridded streets.
The Lydell wild wouldn’t be so simple. Waylon would know where to look for the boat keys and how to navigate the island without getting eaten by animals.
Telling Waylon that Jackie flash froze the only person on the face of the planet who could call him Bubbles and live to see another day wouldn’t win Fletcher any brownie points.
For this to work, Fletcher needed to go all in.
An alliance with Waylon. Fake, of course.
Normally, the thought of coexisting with him was enough to break Fletcher out in hives.
This, obviously, didn’t qualify as normal.
She’d never actually work with the likes of him.
A womanizing know-it-all with a secret agenda Fletcher was certain existed?
No way. At least with Jackie, she knew exactly who she was dealing with.