Chapter 12
Fletcher’s only solace was how painfully clear it was that neither Brian actually knew how to operate a tranquilizer gun. They spent their days neck-deep in Google Analytics and their nights debating the ethics of tracking user data. It wasn’t like they were actually going to—
“No, no, no. Hold on a second.” She thrust her staff toward them. Forcing distance. “Whatever bullshit assignment Bertram gave you, you don’t have to do it.”
The curtain rod épée wasn’t going to cut it. She needed something bigger, sharper.
She needed a…
Machete.
“We aren’t trying to kill you,” Other Brian said.
This was bad. So bad. “Oh yeah? Like you weren’t trying to kill Molly?”
Brian scoffed. “We weren’t. That was all her.”
On the ground between them, Molly was heavy, limp, cold. Fletcher tried not to think about how quickly the air had left her lungs as she wedged her foot underneath Molly’s stiff torso and rolled her onto her side. The blade had inserted itself beneath her sternum in the soft between bones.
Molly’s blouse was ruined, stained the darkest red. Her head lolled, eyes fixed on the Brians, like even dead she could hold a mean grudge.
As Fletcher grabbed the knife’s hilt, the outrageous amount of adrenaline in her body was the only thing that stopped her from truly registering the difficult way the blade slid out, slick with Molly’s blood.
One day, this fucked-up vacation would be a big black blur in her memory.
Like getting a concussion and forgetting the crack of your skull against the pavement. Unreachable in the depths of her mind.
But, for now, it remained all too real.
Wielding the blade with both hands, Fletcher needed to put as much distance as possible between her and the Brians.
“Don’t come near me,” she ordered.
With one eye pinched tight and the other eye staring down the viewfinder of a nose scope, Brian said, “Bertram gave us explicit instructions to bring you to him. Alive.”
They were nothing if not lemmings veering cliffside at Bertram’s command.
In Manhattan, Fletcher would have zipped her lips into a pretty, polished smile and bit her tongue until it bled. Lydell Fletcher didn’t. “Was that before or after he warmed your bottle?”
It almost felt good to say what she was thinking for once. It definitely felt good to see the mix of shock and outrage on the Brians’ faces.
While they were busy snapping their jaws shut, Fletcher tested the weight of the blade in her palms. There was a reason why parents told their kids not to run with knives, and Molly was the evidence. Fletcher, however, didn’t have much of a choice.
She took off sprinting, her bag of produce slamming against her hip with every step. The fruit was about to be bruised all to hell. Skidding around the corner, Fletcher made a fast break down the east wing. All she had to do was make it to the garage in one piece.
Another dart flew in her general direction. It missed—thank god for Brian’s astigmatism and shaky hands—but shattered a hand-painted vase filled with pampas grass. Clay spewed through the hall. How much ammo did that thing have? Fletcher didn’t want to stick around to find out.
The first door on the right opened up into a theater.
Rows of red leather chairs descended toward a silver screen, and ruched velvet lined the walls.
It even smelled like movie theater popcorn.
Dim light from the wall sconces might be enough to conceal her from the Brians. She was willing to take the chance.
Fletcher leaped down the stairs and threw herself on the ground in the fifth row. Army crawling, she wiggled toward the middle seats. Arguably the best seats in the house. As a plus, the sconces barely touched this section, so she clung to the shadows.
“I told you she wouldn’t come peacefully,” Brian snarked under his breath as the theater door nudged open.
Their footsteps were dull, padded against the plush carpet. Without peeking her head over the recliners, it was nearly impossible for Fletcher to tell where exactly they were.
Other Brian’s voice sounded closer when he said, “I still think the gun’s a bit much. Bertram said she knows everything about everyone. She’s an asset, not a threat.”
Fletcher slithered forward, far too aware of the swish of acrylic-rayon fabric against the carpet. If she died because of this hot-pink dress, she’d haunt the clearance aisle for the rest of eternity.
“That’s what makes her a threat, moron,” Brian said. “Just help me look for her. There’s, like, a thirty-six-point-eight percent chance she’s in here. Choosing door number one is like pissing in the first urinal. Everyone thinks no one will use it, so they all use it.”
“Whoa, reverse psychology,” Other Brian said.
Fletcher had to get out of there before the boy math melted her brain and it started dripping down her earlobes. Braving a glance up, she caught a flash of Brian’s dark hair as he crouched down to check the aisle a few rows up. Other Brian ran recon, pacing along the doorway.
Guarding the only way out.
Brian lurked down the staircase, only three rows up from Fletcher. The invisibility of women in the workplace unfortunately didn’t make a difference here. Especially not wearing fuchsia. But she couldn’t just lie there and wait for Brian to shoot her.
Contorting her body to reach into her tote bag asked a lot of Fletcher’s elbows, but she managed to wrangle a handful of grapes into her fist and lobbed them toward the screen. They scattered, splatting.
A surprised noise came from the doorway. Other Brian asked, “What was that?”
“Don’t just stand there,” Brian barked. “Come help me look.”
Fletcher waited until the Brians sped past her.
Then, thrusting herself upright, Fletcher made a break for the doorway. One of the Brians shouted after her, and their footsteps followed. As a decoy, she opened three doors in a row before backtracking to the second, barely squeezing behind it before the Paid Ads specialists appeared in the hall.
She pressed against the wall behind the door, willing herself invisible. Grooves met her fingertips. Where was she? The room was so dark, it was impossible to tell where she’d landed, but it smelled distinctly like cedar and lavender.
Laundry room? Sleep-study chamber? A portal to another dimension? Maybe one where her coworkers hadn’t turned into sociopaths?
Through the crevice of the doorjamb, there was just enough space to see the Brians stalking in her direction.
On tiptoes, they crept forward, and it occurred to Fletcher that no grown man should be reduced to tiptoeing unless under very specific circumstances, like avoiding lasers mid-heist or preserving the magic of Christmas for a small child.
The Brians’ shadows loomed in the doorway, blocking some of the light from the hall. Fletcher sank deeper into the shadows. Behind her, a switch plate stabbed into her spine. Her elbow knocked against it, and the overhead lights flickered on.
“In here,” Other Brian said.
Damn it.
They wedged the door wider, Fletcher caught behind it. Amber bulbs illuminated a sauna. The walls were ribbed with wooden paneling, and the air tinged with spruce and sweat. The sauna!
Contorting her body, Fletcher flipped another switch. A robotic voice chimed, “Sauna activated. Adding humidity.” Steam swirled down from the ceiling, turning the air soupy and fogging up Brian’s glasses. The perfect distraction.
Fletcher skirted around the door while their backs were turned and made it halfway into the hallway before a hand clamped around her arm. Other Brian reeled her toward him, the tiles beneath their feet slippery with condensation.
“Tell Bertram he’s never receiving an Edible Arrangement ever again.” Fletcher stretched her free arm to its full wingspan, and with the tips of her fingers, she dragged open a towel warmer. Snagging the top washcloth, she rubbed it against Other Brian’s arm.
He yelped, trying to bat it away. Failing.
“What’s going on over there?” Brian wiped the steam off his glasses lenses, just for them to fog up again. “I can’t see anything.”
Other Brian grunted, but Fletcher replied, “A little good old-fashioned team building.”
She dug her elbow into his side, and when that wasn’t enough, she flung the hot washcloth toward his face. His hands flew toward the towel, and Fletcher took that as her cue to escape.
Garage. She needed to get to the garage. Her timer was definitely running out. It was all too easy to think of Waylon in the front seat of a Land Rover, ringed fingers drumming against the steering wheel, biding his time until he could leave Fletcher for good. She couldn’t let that happen.
The Brians were coming, their shouts echoing in the sauna, mad now. Fletcher looped back to the theater (How’s that for your 36.8 percent?) and watched as the Brians spun circles in the hall before creeping into door number three.
Fletcher bolted. Rooms bled together as she raced through the halls.
When they arrived at the manor, Fletcher had glimpsed the garage on the far end of the complex, doors facing the open wild.
All she had to do was get there. The food bag thumped against her back with every step, and the hand that wasn’t holding the machete’s hilt kept the pith helmet attached to her head.
Behind her, the Brians wised up and sprinted after her, yelling, “This way!”
Desperate to throw them off her trail while avoiding any other close encounters, Fletcher envisioned each person’s daily routines and mapped them to the estate.
Deepti could be counted on for partaking in any wellness fad promising to get rid of hip dips or buccal fat or whatever other ordinary bodily occurrence women were being shamed for these days. Without Raul, she’d be on the hunt for someone else to form a symbiotic relationship with.