Chapter 15
The woman at the front desk had a nametag that said Francisca. She had dark hair that fell to her waist, a knockout smile, and the brains to notice—after about five seconds of talking to Jem—that this was the kind of man she didn’t need to use the smile on.
“It’s her car,” Jem said. “Blond? Some pink in it?” A beat. “I just want to call and make sure she’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Francisca said. “I can’t give out room numbers.”
“No, I know her room number. I need to use your phone.”
“There’s a guest phone in the lobby.”
“It doesn’t work.” Jem grinned and said, “Even my husband couldn’t get it to work, and he’s the one in charge of all the remote controls in our house. Right, babe?”
Tean blinked behind his glasses. “Uh, right—”
“So, if I could use your phone?”
Francisca hesitated. On the one hand, she probably wasn’t supposed to let them use the phone at the front desk. On the other, she was tired and frustrated and didn’t want to be here, and—not that Jem wanted to give himself a big head—she was also seriously outclassed.
“Step over here,” she said.
At one of the check-in stations near the end of the desk, she turned a phone around to face them. “You dial the room directly,” she said. And with a smile for Tean, she added, “I’m sure your husband can help you if you have any trouble.”
“What’s all this about that woman’s car?” Tean asked as Francisca walked away.
“Oh, that was bullshit. Did you notice how she smiled at you?” Jem asked. “Maybe this vibe of yours doesn’t only work on vulnerable young gay men.”
“Excuse me?”
“She might have wanted a little spanking herself.”
“I don’t— She doesn’t—” And then, in a burst: “I don’t even know what half our remotes do!”
“I know, babe. That’s my job.” He lifted the receiver from the phone and said, “Here we go.”
The first call went to the chalet, and it rang several times before a nerdy voice said, “Hello?” And then, immediately after, “This isn’t my chalet.”
“Let me think,” Jem said. Mop Top. “Aiden, right?”
Silence. And then, “Who is this?”
“This is Vaughan Larsen with hotel security. I was wondering if you could provide a description of the two men from your party who are missing. Uh, let me see here. Quinn—hold on, I know I wrote it down here.”
“Quinn Parry and Beckett Wooley. Why?”
“Well, we’re looking for them,” Jem said. “Unless you know where they are.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Maybe you don’t want me to find them, then.”
“No! I mean, I don’t care. I mean I want you to find them because they probably did this!”
“Did what?” Jem asked, and he lowered his voice in his best attempt at how cops did it.
Aiden made a noise like a terrified sheep.
“Enough,” Tean whispered.
With a grin for the doc, Jem said, “The descriptions?”
“Quinn is a White male in his late twenties. Beckett is a White male in his mid-twenties.”
Jem waited. “Anything else?”
Someone said something on the other end of the line, and there came the sound of the phone being transferred, and then in the distance Aiden said, “He was trying to intimidate me!”
Mckell’s voice came on the call a moment later. “Mr. Larsen? You’re looking for Quinn and Beckett?”
“That’s right,” Jem said. “Go ahead.”
There was a pause. Maybe she’d recognized his voice. Maybe she wondered why he was lying. But then she said, “Quinn has brown hair and brown eyes. He’s about six feet tall. He’s athletic. Beckett has blond hair and blue eyes. He’s short. Not very short, I guess, but not tall. And he’s thin.”
“All right,” Jem said. “If you hear from them, call my office immediately.”
He ended the call before she could respond.
“What?” Tean asked. “Something wrong?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. I just—” But Jem shrugged and picked up the phone again.
Instead of dialing a room, though, he studied the buttons.
There were lots of them, and they all had a little label next to them telling you what they were for.
One said THEATER. One said THE FJALL CLUB. One said AFTERSKI. On and on like that.
He started at the top. On the other end of the call, a young man said, “Einherjar, this is Robby.”
“Robby, this is Vaughan Larsen,” Jem said. “I’m looking for two young men. I’m going to describe them to you, and I’d like you to let me know if you’ve seen them last night or today.” He repeated the descriptions of Quinn and Beckett and then waited.
“I don’t think so,” Robby said. “Let me ask Sariah.” A moment later, he was back. “No, sir. You know we usually get an older crowd—”
“Give me a call if you see them,” Jem said and disconnected.
Tean was staring at him.
“What?” Jem said. “We can’t run around the lodge all day.”
“You’re so smart.”
“I’m using a phone,” Jem said. “They can train monkeys to do it.”
“Jem, you’re brilliant.”
“Let’s wait until we actually find them.”
The next call was to the spa, and then to the ski rental, and then to the observation deck. They hadn’t seen two men like that. Or they had, but did one of them have red hair instead? Or it might have been one of them, but they definitely didn’t see both.
And then the guy in the fitness center said, “That’s who I called about.”
Jem was mostly on autopilot, halfway to saying, Thanks anyway, but he caught himself in time. “What was that?”
“Those two guys. They’re the ones I called about.”
“We’ve got a lot going on today. What’s going on?”
“The tile glazing in shower three.”
Jem opened his mouth to say, What? And then it landed. “Oh. Right.”
“It’s that app.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what someone told me. That’s why it’s always shower three.”
“Got it. Listen, I’m going to send a couple of guys down. If those two try to leave, stop them.”
“But Mr. Larsen—”
Jem disconnected.
“You found them?” Tean asked.
“Yep.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Uh, no reason.” That didn’t sound great, though, so Jem added, “Happy we found them. Come on, I don’t want them to get away.”
The fitness center was a floor down, but because the lodge was built on a slope, it featured a wall of windows that looked out on the swirling storm of white and gray.
They passed an indoor pool, where a girl screamed as she went down a water slide, the sound echoing off the tile.
The windows were steamed with humidity, and the smell of bleach hung in the air.
Another section of the facility was devoted to exercise equipment: free weights, machines, treadmills.
A couple of grim-looking women in spandex were grunting and swinging kettlebell weights.
There was a yoga studio, a sauna, and signs for the spa.
Jem followed the signs for the locker rooms.
A kid who might have barely been twenty, scrawny inside his Kolen Lodge polo, was folding towels near the door.
“Good morning,” he said as they approached. “What can I help you with, gentlemen?”
“Mr. Larsen sent us,” Jem said.
The boy considered them.
“The, uh, glazing situation,” Jem said in a lower voice.
The boy’s cheeks colored, and he pointed. “Shower three.”
As Jem started deeper into the locker room, Tean said, “What’s that about glazing?”
“Hm?”
“What you said to the boy, about glazing? What did that mean?”
“Oh, you know, I’m not actually sure.”
He managed two more steps before Tean said in a different voice, “Jem?”
The next corner took them to the showers. It wasn’t what Jem remembered from Decker—no open area that everyone shared. Instead, each shower was its own room, with a louvered door that had—by the look of it—a push-button lock.
“What’s going on—” Tean began.
The slap of flesh on flesh.
Moans.
A man grunting.
Tean’s eyes widened. He grabbed onto his glasses like they might fly off.
“Lots of places have little codes like that,” Jem said. “Remember when I worked at Snow’s? Guys loved getting freaky in the dressing room, and if we caught them—or if we had to clean up after—we were supposed to say ‘White Christmas! White Christmas!’”
“In a dressing room?”
Trying not to laugh, Jem got out his wallet. He chose his Albertson’s savers card, gripped the doorknob, and jimmied the card between the door and the jamb.
One quick jerk.
The lock popped open.
Jem stepped into the shower.
They were mid-fuck: a pretty, pink-cheeked man pressed up against the wall; a bigger, dark-haired man driving into him from behind.
The bottom noticed Jem first and screamed, “What the fuck?”
The top swore, jerked backward, and then tried to cover his dick with a washcloth.
Tean sidled into the shower and shut the door behind him, which was kind of impressive considering he also had a hand over his eyes.
“Hiya, boys,” Jem said. “Any chance either of you killed Gerald Fitzpatrick?”