Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Trixie tried to appear as casual as possible as she walked through the lobby doors, past the open bar, and toward the check-in counter to speak with a hotel employee.
“Good morning. May I help you?” the friendly young man asked.
“Hi. I’m locked out of my room. It seems I left my room key at a friend’s house.”
“Of course. It happens all the time. What room are you staying in?”
Trixie told him as he typed on the keyboard and stared at the computer in front of him.
“And may I see your ID, please?”
As she retrieved it, she fought hard not to appear nervous or rushed. But every minute that she was in that lobby was another opportunity for her old employers—or whoever they’d hired to search for her—go get her.
She wanted to just slip in and out as quickly as possible.
Her mind went back to the conversation she’d had with John on the phone. The room was clean. Didn’t seem to be anyone watching it. At least that’s what she thought he’d said. Her memory could get a little fuzzy sometimes with all the stuff floating around in it.
“Now, we can reissue this one for free, but there is a small fee if we have to do it again.”
“That’s fine!” Trixie said a tad too loudly.
The employee looked up, smiled pleasantly, and kept his eyes on her for a moment.
Come on, come on! Just get with it already!
Trixie would never be rude to anyone. But her nerves were frayed. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Had Auntie Atehna or Trevon realized she was missing yet?
Were her friends in trouble?
The man finally returned his eyes to his computer monitor, typed something else, and then reached down behind the counter and came back up with a keycard. He put it in some kind of device that was connected to his computer, hit another button, then took it out to slide across to Trixie.
“Please let us know if we can be of any further—”
“Assistance! I will.” Trixie took the card and hurried away, leaving the employee to mutter to himself.
She really hoped she wasn’t too rude. There was no time to explain to the guy that it wasn’t him who was annoying her.
It was the idea that armed goons were positioned around the lobby, watching and waiting!
Thankfully no one else was in the elevator.
She rode up in silence, got out of the car, and then hurried down the hall. She nearly made a wrong turn. The hotel was vast and everything looked the same. It was a damn maze up there!
But she remembered the right path and arrived at her room quickly.
Holding the newly minted card to the black rectangle on her door, she was rewarded by an instant chirp and small green light. Once inside, she hurried to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and reached up to feel the underside of the furniture’s top.
Her fingers scraped tape and then brass.
The key was still there.
She ripped it off, shoved it in her jeans pocket, and then hurried back to the door. But as soon as she opened it, she saw two men emerging from the room directly across the hall.
And she recognized them.
“Mother fudgesicles!” She followed up the exclamation by raising her right knee and crashing her foot into the first man’s groin.
“Oomph!” He turned green and doubled over before falling to his knees and grabbing himself.
Trixie didn’t bother to fight off the second guy. She was already down the hall, running toward the elevators. A loud retching sound behind her told her that first guy was throwing up.
Good, she thought with a triumphant grin. That’ll slow him down. Never breaking stride, she yelled over her shoulder, “I hope you trip on your friend’s barf!”
That would teach that second guy a thing or two.
Skidding to a stop at the elevator banks, she punched the down button frantically several times but didn’t wait around to board a car. Instead, she hit the nearby stairs.
They were probably watching the first floor, but most likely weren’t thinking about the fifth-floor pool and exit that led to the mall.
That would be her escape route.
She quickly discovered she was wrong. They must have anticipated her move, because three guys were waiting when she burst through the door from the stairwell.
Only they were watching the elevators instead.
So, Trixie was able to zoom past them, beyond the fitness center, and toward the double glass doors at the end of the corridor.
Eerie déjà vu swept over her. Hadn’t she just done this?
Only this time the guys chasing her were wise to her plan. There were probably more of them all around the Ovation Mall, just waiting for her.
Someone else anticipated her moves, too.
Daddy.
She saw John right as she barreled outside onto the rooftop pool deck.
It wasn’t even noon yet, so the pool wasn’t busy. There was just one old man sitting on a chaise lounge, talking to someone on his phone with the speaker on and volume off. Trixie couldn’t hear what he was saying and didn’t really care.
She just needed to get out of there with John!
The three men chasing her charged outside, too.
“Oh boy,” she said.
“Stay.” John pointed to a chair.
Everything in her said to run. But she realized John was right. She was safer with him. There were probably more guys outside the hotel’s property, positioned all around the mall.
Though it was tough, she sat down.
What happened next was like an action movie playing out right before her eyes. The three men spread out, clearly trying to intimidate John. It didn’t appear to be working.
“Who’s first?” he asked.
“We just want the girl.”
“What a coincidence,” John said. “So do I. But not in the way I’m sure you do.”
The men never took their eyes off him. Everyone seemed tense and ready to strike. Coiled energy just waiting to be released.
“The cops have been called,” John tried.
They seemed as unintimidated by that as John seemed of them.
Then one of them moved carefully, just enough to pull back the front of the sports coat he wore to reveal a gun tucked into the waistband of his slacks.
“Oh man. Why’d you have to go and do that? You see,” John said, “I’m just a lowly firefighter. I don’t have experience with big scary guns and stuff. I’m used to ladders and poles and hoses.” He gasped. “Hey, speaking of poles… there’s one now!”
Trixie had been so intent on watching John that she hadn’t even realized Jack had crept up behind the three men until he used the metal pole of a pool net to whack one of the guys upside the head.
The other two lost focus on John, turning to see what was going on, and received kicks and punches from John and Jack.
Pained grunts reached Trixie’s ears. It was hard to see what was going on in great detail as bodies shuffled and thudded against each other. She could make out enough to know that in the three-against-two fight, the two were coming out ahead.
John punched one guy in the jaw, then launched a spinning kick that connected to his chest, sending him into the pool with a loud splash. He wasn’t unconscious and started swimming, so Trixie didn’t bother helping him out. Neither did Jack or John. He wasn’t going to drown.
“Holy shit!” the old man on his phone said. “Loretta, you should see this. It’s like a Grant Baker action movie!”
“Well, stop talking to me and record it, Harold!” a woman’s voice came back.
By the time the guy had his phone extended as if to record, the fight was over.
John and Jack had prevailed.
“Daddy! My hero!” Trixie squealed as she sprang from the chair and jumped into John’s arms.
The victory celebration was short-lived. The two guys she’d seen when coming out of her room burst through the glass doors, looking frantic.
And stained.
John put Trixie’s feet back on the ground.
Next to them, Jack cracked his knuckles, stretched his neck in both directions, and said, “Gross. What happened to you idiots?”
“Shut up!” the one Trixie had kicked growled.
John stepped closer, clearly ready to fight. He reared his head back. “Goodness! No, seriously, what happened? You boys stink.”
The second one looked embarrassed. “She kicked him and he threw up! I… tripped in it.”
Trixie jumped up and down. “It really happened? That’s awesome!”
For a moment, she thought the two guys would put up a fight, but they deflated quickly.
“Look,” the one she kicked said. “I’m off this case.”
“Case?” Jack asked incredulously.
The guy nodded.
“You aren’t cops,” Jack noted. “At least, not now. What are you?”
“Private,” the kicked one said.
“As in detectives?” John asked.
The guy nodded. “Hired to watch a hotel room and try to apprehend her if she returned.”
Trixie was confused. She knew Jack and John would sort through it all though.
Behind them, the water churned and splashed as the guy who’d fallen in scrambled to get out.
“We were told she stole something,” the guy who’d tripped in the vomit said.
“Who hired you?”
“We can’t tell you that! We’ve said too much already.”
“Do you work for Todd Stark?” John asked. “Tell me.”
Something in his eyes must have convinced the guy, because he said, “Know him. And help him. But not for him.”
John looked at Jack. “So Todd hired extra help. Got some PI guys.”
“Be my guess.” Jack looked back at the men again. “Who hired you?”
Trixie figured it was worth a shot.
But all the guys shook their heads. The one who’d fallen into the pool said, “We have rights. Our client has rights.”
John shrugged. “You’ve all but confirmed. Todd Stark. Our question is: who hired him?”
“You can take all that up with him. We’re out,” the guy from the pool said, water dripping loudly on the pavement as he stood there with a soaked sports coat sagging off his muscular shoulders.
“We intend to,” John said. “Just tell your little buddy Stark that if he ever comes at my babygirl again, I’ll bring him up there…” he craned his neck and pointed his gaze at the very top of the towering hotel for a moment before looking back at the men, “and toss him off.”
John gave each one an icy stare before taking Trixie’s hand and leading her away.
As they walked toward the door that led back into the hotel, Trixie couldn’t help but giggle, despite the violent events that had just unfolded.
“I called you Daddy! And you called me babygirl!”
“Yep,” John said. “I guess there’s no beating around the bush. I’m your Daddy.” He stopped, held out his hand for her keycard, and used it to open the door once she’d handed it to him. Before she walked in, he gave her a smile—but it had an edge.
What he said was even sharper.
“Which means, as your Daddy, I will be disciplining you for this little dangerous stunt you pulled, missy.”
Trixie gulped.
It was all fun and games until you poked the bear.
Or, in this case, the Daddy…