Chapter 9 Dark Clouds Gathering
Dark Clouds Gathering
The sun was clawing its way over the horizon when Lena stepped onto her front porch, a chipped, oversized mug in one hand. Her bare foot hit smooth wood, and she stopped dead.
The railing was empty.
She tilted her head, scratched her cheek, and frowned before wrapping her free hand around her neck.
The little family of seashells she’d arranged there only yesterday—every one meticulously scrubbed, sorted, and grouped like they were about to stage a beachside production of the Little Mermaid—had vanished.
She blinked once, twice. Sipped her coffee, grimaced at the bitterness (forgot to sweeten it again), then bent over and peered under the porch. Sand, some windblown leaves, and a lone flip-flop that wasn’t hers. No shells.
She squinted toward the palms edging the cottage and spotted her prime suspect.
A lime-green iguana viewed the sunrise from a smooth rock next to the deck.
“You,” she muttered, voice rough with sleep and disbelief.
“Don’t play innocent. I bet your little reptile condo looks real cute with my conch shell in the foyer. ”
The iguana, like any decent criminal, didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Probably smug about his interior decor choices.
Still bent over, Lena ran a hand through her sleep-tousled hair and exhaled, long and slow.
Had she brought them inside? No, she distinctly remembered lining them up yesterday afternoon before heading to the front office.
She’d adjusted them three times for color and size coordination.
Her OCD comfort ritual. A little control in a job where “guest satisfaction” hinged on the availability of fluffy towels and whether Brian put too much salt in the pool again.
“Could be the wind,” she told no one but her empty porch.
The wind didn’t unlatch the old screen door and remove seashells from their sunbathing spots. The wind didn’t have opposable thumbs. Or an agenda.
Unease slithered in—a whisper against her spine—but she batted it away. Not today. Not before breakfast, and definitely not before she dealt with Night Audit always running late.
Still barefoot and convinced she must be losing her ever-loving mind, Lena turned back toward the door and mumbled, “I’m not saying it was ghosts, but if they touch my sand dollars, we’re holding a seance.”
Three hours, fourteen towel shortages, and one mysteriously weaponized room service tray later, Lena was wishing she’d called out sick.
The front desk lobby buzzed with a rhythm she knew well—guests swirled in like a polite (mostly) hurricane of pastel linen and oversized sunglasses, beach-chic chaos that smelled of coconut sunscreen and entitlement.
Lena tapped a few keys on the check-in terminal, trying to override a glitch that insisted Cottage Eight had booked three separate yoga gurus, all named Karen. She didn’t have time for metaphysical ghost bookings. She had bigger things to think about.
Like vanishing seashells. Which she’d definitely moved. Probably. She must have.
So why didn’t she remember that?
She sighed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as Megan approached, cheeks pink from a recent battle.
“Mrs. Hargrove says her minibar didn’t have any of the organic rosehip water she requested,” Megan reported. “She would like—and I quote—‘compensation from the soul of whoever failed her.’”
Lena snorted. “Tell her we sacrificed an intern to the spa gods and hope that suffices.”
Megan grinned, biting back laughter. “Already done. I told her Mateo’s chanting in a salt grotto.”
Lena’s screen flickered once. Then again. Not frozen, but twitchy, like it was debating whether it should work or just spiral. Or she could be projecting.
She didn’t get long to dwell on it, because a familiar voice dropped in her ear like warm honey and circuit boards.
“You’re overloading the terminal again,” David murmured, strolling up beside her, his eyes on her flickering and flashing monitor.
Speak of the devil, and he shall tech support.
“I like pushing it to its limits,” she said without looking up. “I should be allowed to live on the edge.”
“Hmm. Living recklessly through software menus. You’re the true wild child of Ivory Sands, Firecracker.” His eyes twinkled behind his glasses, magnetic in a way she refused to spend too much brainpower on before lunch. Or after lunch, for that matter.
“Stop calling me that.”
“Also,” he glanced pointedly over the desktop, ignoring her comment, “someone labeled a file folder ‘Seashell Ledger’? That you?”
Busted.
“What? I’m a woman of order,” Lena said. “Cataloging my finds brings me joy. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I respect obsession. But you are aware they aren’t technically assets, right?”
“Until I start a maritime museum—and don’t think I can’t—that folder is staying where it is.”
David chuckled, brushing an errant lock of hair from his forehead even as Lena’s fingers itched to do it for him. The scent of rain-damp cotton and citrus clung to him, all freshly showered and—dammit—alarmingly attractive in a ‘hacker goes to a TED Talk’ kind of way.
His tablet vibrated against his hip, and he checked it briefly before glancing back at her.
“You good this morning?” he asked, tone reserved, gaze penetrating.
Lena hesitated.
She should say something—something benign—to relieve the knot tightening under her ribs. But rising heat and a well-practiced aversion to vulnerability caught the words in her throat.
“Fine,” she said with a breezy shrug. “Just preparing myself for the Great Crab Uprising of Cottage Twelve. The guest claims a crab stole her silk hair bonnet with malicious intent.”
David lifted a brow. “I do want to support her delusion, but even hackers have boundaries.”
Before she thought up a response involving crustacean-themed crime syndicates, Megan leaned back in to update them.
“By the way, Lena,” she said, flicking through notifications on her phone. “Facilities guy saw one of the golf carts parked super close to your porch around sunrise. Probably a rogue janitor again.”
“Or stealth yoga Karen,” Lena muttered.
“Could’ve been,” Megan shrugged. “Just weird. Thought I’d mention it.”
David tilted his head toward Lena, eyeing her a little more carefully now—but she plastered on a practiced smile.
“Weird is part of the charm,” she said. “Wouldn’t be resort life without the occasional unmarked surveillance cart.”
He accepted the reply, sort of, but she knew his brain had catalogued the crumbs. He had that subtle stillness—the kind that meant he was running ten silent protocols and one emotional diagnostic beneath the surface.
She knew—later, much later—he’d bring it up again. Probably when it counted.
For now, she reached for a brightly colored resort map, handed it to an arriving guest who didn’t need it, and said, “Welcome to Ivory Sands. Nothing here is haunted. Probably.”
By two-fifteen, Lena had negotiated a truce between two honeymooning couples assigned adjacent rooms (because apparently hearing someone else happily in love while you’re also happily in love is a war crime,) rescheduled three paddle board sessions because of a spontaneously aggressive wind front, and dealt with a guest who claimed the fruit platter in her suite radiated hostile energy.
She was eating a luscious shrimp salad in the break room, balancing it carefully on one thigh because the only open chair squeaked ominously every time she shifted her weight.
Walter sat across from her, nursing something that could legally be called coffee only in countries without strong regulations.
Mateo, poor thing, studied an emergency evacuation manual like it held the secrets to eternal youth.
Lisa wandered in with a new batch of her infamous Key Lime cookies and passed one to Lena, who took a bite and promptly forgot stress existed. She moaned in ecstasy.
“I don’t know how you do this,” Lena mumbled with her mouth full. “Have you made a pact with a baking deity?”
“To be fair, it was butter and spite,” Lisa said. “The secret’s out.”
Lena grinned and reached for another cookie when her phone vibrated on the table beside her half-empty iced tea. UNKNOWN CALLER, the screen declared.
She frowned. Doubtless spam. Or her old cable provider rising from the grave.
She picked up. She didn’t have all the staff numbers programmed in yet, and she was on the clock. “This is Lena.”
Silence.
Not complete—she heard an ambient, crackling hum that her mind instantly categorized as poor reception static. Maybe air conditioning somewhere, or wind. Then breathing. Slow, deliberate breathing.
“Lena…” a voice breathed out. Just her name.
Instant chill. The skin tightened on her arms, the way it did when she stood too close to the back door freezer in the resort kitchen or read a Reddit thread about haunted cruise ships too late at night.
She didn’t recognize the voice—it was too soft for that—but instinct screamed male. Personal. Wrong.
Click. The call cut off before her brain caught up.
She stared at the screen, frowning so hard it might leave a permanent wrinkle.
“Something wrong?” Walter asked. His voice sounded casual enough, but his eyes were locked on her like a hawk stalking a lost mouse.
“Wrong number,” she lied, smoothing her expression out. “Some extra-breath-y telemarketer. I’m sure they wanted to sell me extended protection on my blender.”
Mateo gaped at her. “Is that... an actual scam?”
“Oh yes,” she said, sliding the phone face-down. “Apparently, my toaster’s social security number is also compromised.”
Walter didn’t laugh. He lifted his mug to his lips without drinking and said, “Thought the past can’t find you here, huh?”
Lena went still.
No one else seemed to react—Lisa fired off a text and Mateo asked about post-shift entertainment options—but Lena was aware, in a visceral way, of the call traces still lingering in her mind. That voice. Her name. The very specific creep factor of being known.