Sunset Beach(102)
Now or never, she told herself. She placed her left foot on the bottom rail of the gate and swung her right leg up and over in the most awkward vault attempt ever, catching the hem of her top on a gate finial. As she tumbled forward onto the sand on the resort side of the fence, she felt a searing jolt of pain in her bad knee and heard the fabric of her top rip.
Drue sat up, moaning quietly, her leg extended straight out as she kneaded the knee with her fingertips. After a moment, the pain subsided. Maybe, she thought, maybe she hadn’t ruptured the joint again.
She stood up slowly, panting from the effort, and brushed the sand from her butt. She gingerly put her right foot down. There was soreness, yes, but nothing like what she’d experienced with her original injury. There was also a jagged rip along the hem of her top, but there was no blood and she could walk, which she did, as quickly as possible, toward the pool and tiki bar area, congratulating herself on her first solo breaking-and-entering effort.
She heard the high-pitched cacophony of women’s laughter as she approached the tiki bar. Sure enough, at least two dozen young women, all dressed in matching pink T-shirts and tiaras, were clustered around the periphery of the bar, drunkenly twerking and bellowing along to the version of “Bootylicious” blaring from a cell phone speaker balanced on a nearby chaise lounge.
Drue edged as close as she could get to the bar, finally managing to edge in between two middle-aged men who were watching the revelry with undisguised appreciation. There had been a time, Drue reflected, when one or both of those men would have struck up a conversation and offered to buy her a drink, but tonight, she was just another face in a crowd of younger talent. It took another ten minutes for the bartender, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, to work down the bar to her.
“Do you happen to have any bar munchies?” she asked him. He turned, wordlessly, and handed her a bowl of popcorn.
“Great. I’ll have a Tito’s and tonic, double lime,” she said, sliding a ten-dollar bill onto the bar.
He fixed the drink and when he delivered it, added a bowl of mixed nuts to her dinner.
“Thanks!” He nodded and moved away.
She sipped her drink and emptied the popcorn bowl and half the bowl of nuts as conversation swirled around her. After another ten minutes, the balding guy on her left signaled for the bartender to close out his tab, the move she’d been waiting for.
“Put it on my room, please,” he told the bartender, signing the bill. “It’s Gazaway, Room 325.”
“Got it,” the bartender replied.
Got it, Drue thought, gulping down the rest of her drink. She skirted the pool area and moved off to the right, looking for the entrance to the north building. She found the door easily, but once again, her key card failed. She tossed it into the nearest trash bin, then hung around for five minutes, planning to slip inside in the wake of a legit guest, but nobody approached the building.
Drue drifted into the hotel lobby and planted herself in front of the reception desk.
The clerk, dressed in the official Gulf Vista Royal Bahamian uniform, looked up as she approached.
“How can I help?” He looked to be around twenty, with a sunburn and a peeling nose.
She patted the pockets of her cover-up. “You’re not gonna believe this. I think I misplaced my key.”
“No problem,” he said gallantly. “What’s the name and room number?”
“Gazaway, Room 325.”
He turned to his computer monitor, tapped some keys and nodded. “Okay, Ms. Gazaway. Now, do you have some ID?”
She laughed. “That’s the problem. I’ve been down at the tiki bar, and I didn’t take my billfold with me, because we were charging our drinks to the room.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, nodding. “I just need the address listed on the credit card on your account.”
“Oh.” She made a pouting face. “The thing is, my cousin booked the room. And I don’t actually know her new address, since she got married.”
Drue was shocked how easily the lies rolled off her lips.
But the desk clerk was not impressed. “Can you call her?” he asked. “If she comes down to the desk, I can easily get another key made for you.”
“Ugh!” Drue exclaimed. “She wandered away with her husband, and she left her phone in the room. Can’t you just make me another key without all that rigamarole?”
“Can’t,” he said, shrugging. “Against hotel policy. Wish I could help.”
Drue tried to look helpless. It wasn’t working. “Okay,” she said, sighing deeply. “Do you have a map of the property?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
Since helpless wasn’t working she held out her hand and tried haughty. “May I have one, please?”
* * *
She could sense the clerk watching as she strolled out of the lobby in the direction of the pool. Once outside, she studied the map, trying to get her bearings again.
According to what Hernandez told her, the last room Jazmin cleaned on the night she was murdered was Room 133. Which probably meant the room was on the first floor of the north building.
She followed the stone-paved walkway through the lush junglelike landscaping, flinching once when a tiny green tree frog dropped off an overhanging basket, brushing her arm. The east end of the north building loomed ahead of her. Consulting the map, she was surprised to note that there was a second pool on the property, and that the back of the north building faced it. There was a door here into what looked like the building’s elevator tower, but it too was locked. She kept following the path until she could see the shimmering reflection of the pool water bouncing on the back of the building. The sidewalk ended abruptly at a gate in a six-foot-high wooden stockade fence.