Chapter 19 #2
Adrenaline lanced through Fletcher, hot and sharp.
Fun over. Waylon’s arm soccer-mommed against her middle and dragged her against the wall behind the crates of drupes and bromeliads.
Fletcher was almost preoccupied enough by trying not to die that she barely registered this was technically the first time he’d ever touched her breasts. Almost.
Above Fletcher and Waylon, Opal’s head jutted through the open second-floor window, surveying the clearing and the gnarled greenery beyond.
Fletcher had never wished to be smaller.
Not when the Fi-Douches manspread on the 6 train and invaded her personal space.
Or that time Ford had been so enraptured with the ass of a biker with a bottom-lip tattoo that he’d forgotten they’d split the Uber.
Or even July Fourth as Kent bent to one knee in front of the entire Spence clan, a horde of barefoot redheads about to fight their new brother-in-law with bottle rockets.
All it would take was one look down, and they’d be finished.
Or one look at the chimpanzee delightfully waving a banana peel in their direction, the insides shoved messily into its mouth. Whichever came first.
Waylon side-eyed her hard. I told you not to trust it. Or its thumbs.
Fletcher’s narrowed eyes didn’t have time to form a silent rebuttal because Opal did glance in their direction. Waylon and Fletcher shrank behind the crates. His arms crossed over her stomach, pulling her into his lap.
Opal looked, unseeing. Squinted. A million years later, she shook her head and any thought of intruders away, returning her attention to the chimp—now juggling papayas. Only then did Fletcher let her shoulders lower with relief.
“Get out of here,” Opal called, annoyance threading her words.
The monkey barked back, equally annoyed.
And then, it lobbed a papaya straight toward Opal’s head. The ripened fruit splattered against the side of the building in a pulpy explosion. Papaya gunk dripped toward Fletcher and Waylon, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the goop clinging to Opal’s cheek.
Opal swiped it off with a finger, disgust on her face. “Ohhhhh. You. Are. So. Dead.”
Her head vanished from the windowpane. Faint footsteps thundered through the house, growing louder and closer as Opal ran.
Thankfully, Fletcher’s crisis response kicked into gear. Instead of obstacles, she saw only solutions.
First, she rolled a handful of kiwi far enough past the chimpanzee that it turned, abandoning them to hunt seemingly sentient fruit. Hopefully, it would dart off into the jungle and never look back.
Waylon moved toward the cracked kitchen door, but Fletcher stopped him with a hand to his bicep. The back door would inevitably be Opal’s first destination on her manhunt. (Well, chimp-hunt.)
Windows, on the other hand…
Fletcher shimmied down the length of the building to the farthest window.
A cursory glance inside proved it was the laundry room like Waylon said—and empty, except for a few stacked washer-dryer combos and an ironing board.
No one was waiting to decapitate them, so Fletcher flung herself into the laundry room headfirst. It was less secret-agent-tuck-and-roll and more trying-not-to-flash-her-coochie.
Waylon, on the other hand, clearly led a second life as a spy. His entry was graceful, soundless. He whipped a hand through his goldenrod curls, brushing them out of his face. A hell of a lot of confidence for a guy who quaked in the presence of a monkey ten short minutes ago.
When Fletcher eased the laundry room door open, she could hear Sheila babbling a couple floors up and the remnants of Opal’s clipped responses, shouting as she slammed the back door shut.
The ceilings stretched ten, maybe twelve feet, making everything echo.
A hallway with alabaster walls and dotted with woven-cane chandeliers stretched out in front of them, a few doors on either side and a staircase in the center.
A flustered, slimy Opal stomped across the hallway and up the stairs. “Don’t you dare hog all the hot water.”
“No promises,” Sheila said. “There’s dirt everywhere.”
“I’m serious, Sheila.”
Fletcher plodded toward the staircase on quiet feet.
Part home, part office, the rooms were a mix of comfort and utility: supply closets, bedrooms, a living room with rattan furniture.
Nice, but not nice nice. A far cry from the manor’s top-of-the-line furnishings.
Frames with faded black-and-white photos lined the walls, vintage snapshots of the island. Less polished, more wild.
“Yuck. This terry cloth is so scratchy,” Sheila bitched. She flitted across the second-floor landing, adjusting the shoulders of a robe the color of a prickly pear—and apparently the texture of one, too.
Waylon hovered at Fletcher’s back as they crowded near the banister.
A protective hand snaked around her waist, like he was ready to fling her behind him if one of the Sales girls decided to attack.
The other pointed a finger upward. The stairs stacked on top of each other, wrapping around to the third floor.
If they skirted past the landing, they could theoretically sneak up to Carlotta’s suite before anyone knew they were there.
Theoretically being the operative word.
Clouds followed Opal as she stormed the hall, blotting out the sun and dimming everything. “God, I need to smoke.”
“Relax,” Sheila said, “there’s, like, four other bathrooms here.”
“Sorry I’m finding it hard to relax with rotted fruit on my face,” Opal seethed.
“I’ll be thirty minutes. Forty-five tops,” Sheila said as she snuck past Opal in the doorway. “You know, this reminds me of the time—”
“I don’t care!” Opal shouted.
Recognition flared at the crack of emotion in Opal’s voice. It was the same Fletcher heard in Jackie’s, in Molly’s. The slide into hysteria. The splash into the deep end.
“I don’t care about your friend Penelope’s clairvoyant Chihuahua or how you almost made out with Timothée Chalamet on a yacht or how the robe is a teensy bit scratchy! I don’t care about any of it! I just got physically assaulted by some idiotic monkey, but do you hear me complaining?”
“Uh, yeah. You’re literally complaining.”
“And you’re an insufferable little brat.”
“I’m just a girl.” Sheila’s nasally voice drifted down the hall, presumably toward the bathtub.
There was the sound of a faucet twisting, water running.
“You know, Stavros—the hairstylist I told you about who does the Reiki sessions—said that stress shrinks your hair follicles, so if you don’t chill out, they could just close up, and then you’d go bald. ”
The bathroom door shut with finality.
Opal huffed so loudly the whole house shook. “I’ll show you bald.”
Opal darted past the landing, holding a hair dryer. She marched inside the bathroom, not bothering to knock.
Completely unfazed by her sudden entry, Sheila’s voice carried on without pause. “Whatever you do, do not try one of these bath bombs. Opposite of relaxing. There’s going to be glitter in my—”
A snap of electricity. A sigh of relief.
Opal exited the bathroom, massaging the tension out of her temples. “There,” she said to only herself, “no more stress.”
Fletcher’s heart sank, squeezed. Beside her, Waylon tensed, bracing. Under his breath, he muttered, “Fuck.”
Fuck, indeed. Sheila was a slacker and a thief and an out-of-touch, privileged nineteen-year-old kid. Was. Now? Her only qualifier was dead. Fletcher didn’t have to see it to know Sheila had been successfully deep-fried. Her nose wrinkled against the scent of burnt hair, charbroiled skin.
Finding Waylon’s hand, she clenched her fingers tighter around his in three simple pulses. I’m right here. He pulsed right back. His presence kept her steady on her feet as they climbed the first set of stairs.
Distracted by the distant sizzling, they’d failed to remember how vulnerable the open stairwell was. Opal paced back out onto the landing, eyes locking onto Fletcher’s. Surprised, then darkening.
At that moment, a white-hot flash burst through the seams of the shutters, followed instantly by whip-crack thunder that buzzed in Fletcher’s teeth. The electricity flickered. Faded. Shadows flooded the staff building as rain hammered down.
For a harrowing second, the three of them stood in a saloon shoot-out. The part before everybody draws their guns, where they’re just mean-mugging one another and wondering which of their life choices landed them in this situation.
Then Opal sprinted toward them, a woman possessed.
“Get upstairs,” Waylon said, voice low. Shielding Fletcher from Opal’s catlike claws, he thrust her toward the next staircase, and Fletcher didn’t have to be told twice.
As she pawed clumsily through the darkness, the third-floor suite revealed itself in bursts and flashes each time lightning struck.
A kitchenette, a bedroom with an en suite, and a final door that opened to an office with a vaguely wilted potted orchid, a few crowded filing cabinets, and a cluttered desk.
Fletcher knew Carlotta only in email chains and long-distance calls. Her habits, her quirks—those were mysteries. Where would the groundskeeper hide the master key?
A crash boomed through the building. Not thunder. More like someone getting body-slammed. Peering through the dark doorway, all Fletcher could make out were Opal’s and Waylon’s sparring silhouettes, but by the sound of it, Opal was winning. She needed to look faster.
Where where where?
Plain sight made sense given their location. But the desk, while tacked with sticky notes and scribbled reminders, was devoid of keys.
Cabinets? Filled with paperwork, a pile of books, a framed photograph of Carlotta and her son. No key.
Drawers? Snacks Fletcher pilfered and swore to repay Carlotta for, a pair of scissors, pens and pencils. Also, no key.
Inside the decorative vases? No. Freaking. Key.