Chapter 54
The texts began landing in Olivia’s inbox at eight on Saturday morning. A series of dings alerted her. She rolled over in bed and grabbed her phone. Six photos in all, from an unfamiliar phone number. She sat up in bed and squinted at the photos, which were fuzzy, but apparently some kind of label, a yellow diagonal slash on a shiny white background.
Suprema Comfort Rest 2000.
“Ahh.” They were photos of the mattress labels from the new wing in the Saint. Sonja was an excellent housekeeper, but she was a lousy photographer.
Now what? She pulled Parrish’s bitch book from its hiding place and flipped pages until she reached the one with the cryptic entry that she assumed was about the mattresses.
??? why beds bad, just bought all new? Ck w/ pch. Ask CB?
At least, that’s how she translated the scribble. There was another line beneath that.
CB sez will tk w/ TE. Something not rite
Parrish’s shorthand was a mystery. But she’d definitely been interested in the mattresses. Maybe it was time for Livvy to revisit the warehouse.
She scrolled through the Saint’s phone directory until she found the name of the engineering guy who’d met her in the warehouse after her encounter with Colonel McBee, tapped the number, and was relieved when he picked up immediately.
“This is Ronnie. What do you need?”
“Hi, Ronnie. It’s Olivia in guest relations. Are you working today?”
“According to my timesheet, yeah.”
She laughed at his lame joke. “Is there any chance you could meet me at the warehouse this morning?”
“What’s guest relations want in the warehouse?”
He had her stumped, but why did he care? “Something I need to check on.”
“Whatever you need, I can check that for you,” he said.
“Uh, is there a reason I can’t go down to the warehouse like I did last time?”
“New rules. Mr. Burroughs thinks people have been pilfering. Anybody goes in there has to be supervised and sign in and out.”
“Huh. Thanks anyway.” She didn’t want anyone to know what she was looking for.
Charlie Burroughs had instituted new rules. He’d tried to get her fired. Felice too. Could all of this have something to do with the bitch book?
She opened her door. The dorm was quiet, but predictably, the lounge area was a mess, littered with empty beer cans and a pizza box, not to mention the lingering scent of weed. The television was on, but muted.
“Typical,” Livvy muttered as she paused outside Felice’s bedroom door.
She knocked softly. “Felice?” she whispered. “You up?” She knocked again. “Felice!”
“Hell nah. Go away. It’s my day to sleep in.”
Livvy jiggled the door handle. Knocked again. “Let me in, Felice. This is important.”
The door opened suddenly, and Livvy tumbled inside.
Felice stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at her. She was dressed in gym shorts and an oversized Miami Dolphins jersey.
“What’s so important you had to wake me up on my one day to sleep in?”
“I think I might have an idea about what Parrish was writing about in the bitch book.”
“That couldn’t wait ’til later?”
Livvy showed Felice the page in the bitch book with the note about the beds. “These little chicken scratches? The common denominator is ‘CB.’”
“And you think that’s Burroughs?”
“Maybe. Here’s the other thing. I wanted to get into the warehouse to compare the mattress labels on the beds in the new wing to the ones in storage. Because, maybe, they’re not the same beds. I don’t know. Maybe I’m grabbing at straws. But the guy I called in engineering says there’s a new policy—instituted by Burroughs—that anybody who wants into the warehouse has to sign in and out, and be supervised.”
Felice perched on the side of her bed, her pillow clutched across her abdomen.
“I don’t like the guy, but why would he want to kill Parrish? Over some mattresses?”
Livvy tapped the bitch book with her fingertip. “What if he was ripping off the hotel? I don’t know—substituting cheap mattresses for expensive ones? Parrish figured it out, after she saw the McBees’ mattress, and what if she threatened to tell her aunt? Like, maybe this first line is questioning why the beds are bad, and she’s making a note to check with purchasing? That’s what ‘pch’ could be? And the second note, she’s thinking she’ll check with her aunt—‘TE’?”
“Uh-huhhh,” Felice said, leaning forward. “You’re saying—maybe it wasn’t just mattresses? Maybe there was other stuff going on?”
“Yeah. He could be skimming all kinds of ways. Kickbacks for vendors, bribes, embezzlement. Maybe he’s cooking the books, ordering mattresses and TVs and stuff—there’s a note in the bitch book about TVs, with just a question mark,” Livvy said. “And submitting fake invoices or something? I don’t know, I got a D in my only accounting class in college.”
“But how do we connect all this to Parrish? Burroughs wasn’t at the afterparty, right?”
“Maybe he had an accomplice,” Livvy said.
“Or two?” Felice gestured toward the doorway.
“Remember, those guys were the ones who volunteered to go out looking for Parrish the morning after the party. And then they decided to clean up the mess. When have you ever known those two slackers to clean up after themselves?”
Livvy sank down onto the floor. “But why? Parrish was their friend. I know Garrett tried hitting on her, but he tried hitting on every woman with a pulse.”
“Except me,” Felice said drily. “Guess I give off a certain vibe to a certain type guy.”
“And KJ? He’s so sweet. I just can’t picture him doing something like that.”
“What if he didn’t have a choice?” Felice asked. “What if Burroughs put him up to it? Like, maybe he threatened to fire KJ if he didn’t play along.”
“But KJ’s family is loaded. His granddad’s house is that gigantic white one with the columns on Ocean Drive. He doesn’t really need to work here. It’s just a summer job for him.”
“I know that house,” Felice said. “It looks just like the plantation house from Gone with the Wind. And not in a good way. What if Burroughs threatened to out KJ?”
Livvy stared, with her mouth open. “You really think he’s gay?”
“Girl, my gaydar started blipping the minute he moved in here. But he’s so deep in the closet, he probably found his grandma’s Christmas presents.”
Livvy shook her head slowly. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Does he ever leer at you when you’re running around here in your little booty shorts and crop top with your titties hanging out?”
“Well… no…”
Livvy went to her room and came back with her phone. “Let’s check KJ’s social media.”
She went to Instagram and typed in his name. “It’s private,” she reported.
“Uh-huh. Now check Garrett’s,” Felice said.
Garrett’s account was public. He had 364 followers and it seemed that most of them were attractive women in their late teens through midthirties. His feed was a kaleidoscope of images of Garrett, surrounded with girls on the beach, surrounded with girls at a bar, at parties in the middle of a knot of girls.
“God, he’s a total man-whore,” Felice said.
Livvy was studying the photos. She enlarged one of Garrett, soul-kissing a girl with long, dark hair wearing a Saint T-shirt, ripped and altered to display a generous amount of cleavage.
“Hey, this is Chelsea. We worked together. She’s a server at the Verandah.”
“Not anymore,” Felice said. “She’s gone. As of last week.”
“Did she quit, or get fired?”
“Fired, with a capital F. After lunch service, Garrett called security and they came and walked her ass off the property.”
“Huh. Do you know Chelsea’s last name?”
Felice scrunched up her face as she tried to recall the server’s name. “Something with an S-H. Or maybe an S-C-H. Or S-W?”
Livvy was typing in the Instagram search bar. “Here we go. Chelsea Shalanian?”
“That’s her,” Felice confirmed.
Livvy pored over Chelsea Shalanian’s Instagram feed. “Lot of pictures of her and Garrett for the last two months, but she hasn’t posted about anything for the last ten days.”
“Check her TikTok account. That girl Chelsea is not the type who goes away quietly.”
A few seconds later the two of them were staring in wide-eyed wonderment at an elaborately choreographed TikTok video starring Chelsea and three of her friends, prancing around in their underwear, jumping on beds and screaming, “Fuck you, Garrett!” to a rap beat.
“Day-yummm,” Felice murmured.
There were lyrics to the song, so obscene that they made both Livvy and Felice blush, but the repeating chorus was a toe-tapping “F-you, Garrett, you cheating piece of shit.”
“There’s dragging on the internet, and then there’s dragging,” Livvy observed. “I’d say the G-man has been well and truly dragged. I’ll slide into her DMs and see if she’ll talk to us.”
“Go ahead,” Felice said, yawning. “I’m going back to sleep.”
Livvy barged back into Felice’s room an hour later, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. She shook her friend’s shoulder, then pulled the covers from her head.
“Let’s go. Chelsea’s fired up and ready to spill her guts about Garrett, but she’s gotta get to work by eleven, so we need to hurry.”
Felice turned her back to Livvy. “I don’t need to talk to that girl.”
“I need backup on this,” Livvy insisted. “Are you my wingman or not?”
“All right,” Felice grumbled, crawling out from under the covers. “But why don’t you just admit it. You’re scared of the chick.”
“Damn straight. I saw that video.”