As weeks passed and the tabloids went to press, the headlines boasted news of Waylon crashing the party (literally), dumping his fiancée, and a slew of subsequent scandals, each further solidifying that he was exactly as scumbaggy as Fletcher expected. Waylon didn’t come into the office, and she didn’t go looking for him. As faras she was concerned, running into him again in this life or the next would be too soon.
None of that changed the fact that on that December night, Waylon had seen her for exactly who she was when it felt like no one saw Fletcher at all.
16
Waylon snored. Loudly enough Fletcher worried it would give their campsite away. Fletcher seriously considered jotting a note to herself to contact a specialist to prescribe him a CPAP machine.
She had been wide-awake since her watch shift started an hour ago. Then, it had still been night black, but now the day’s first golden rays speared through the blue dawn. In the early-morning quiet, she did what she did best: prepared.
With the map from the cigar lounge spread out in front of her and the lantern turned to its lowest setting, she traced a path from the river’s banks through the jungle.
The staff building had been buried so deep in the trees no guest would ever accidentally spot it. It wasn’t enough to be waited on hand and foot. The Cartwrights wanted to believe help appeared out of thin air and vanished all the same.
Although…
Her gaze lingered on Waylon’s sleeping form, the way his sleepingbag balled up with knees pulled toward his chest. Gut twisting, she’d really have to reckon with the knowledge that it hadn’t just been her scarred by their first meeting. They’d both hurt each other.
Maybe not all Cartwrights were cut from the same cloth.
His apology cycled through her head, genuine-sounding enough. Would it be so bad to forgive him? Ithadall worked out, hadn’t it?
She hadn’t kissed him.
She hadn’t been fired.
She…was stranded on a private island and being drained of her life force by mutant mosquitoes while keeping watch at four a.m. because their coworkers might pop out of the woodwork to prison-shank her with an elephant tusk.
On second thought, she could stay mad.
Something rustled in the grass a few yards down. Frankly, Fletcher was surprised she heard it at all with Waylon snoozing nearby. At the very least, she’d sign him up for a Breathe Right Subscribe & Save. No other woman should ever have to listen to this.
Folding up the map, Fletcher tucked it back into her backpack and looped her fingers around the lantern’s handle. What kind of animal was on the prowl at this time? It was too late for nocturnal creatures but too early for daylight predators, a liminal space where nothing bad could happen to her.
Was what she told herself to keep her heart from anxiously palpitating.
The noise grew closer, standing the hair on the back of Fletcher’s neck upright. She waited, crouched behind the brush, her flats sinking into the wet banks. Sticking. The patent leather was better suited for Manhattan sidewalks than muddy savannas. She nearly lost a slingback, grabbing both sides of her leg to give a good tug, and barely recovered before face-planting into the damp earth.
“I hate you, business casual dress code,” Fletcher grumbled.
Then she saw the culprit. A tire track through the mud. Two jagged lines carved across the river’s wide banks. A few feet over, the grasses bent at odd angles.
Or, rather, something bentthem.
Fletcher brought the lantern up by her face, seriously regretting not grabbing something stabbier before venturing off to confront the noise. The reeds swayed, whatever it was gaining ground and fast.
Two blinking eyes reflected the lantern light. A scream speared out of Fletcher before she could swallow it down.
But it wasn’t an unknown predator. Fletcher came face-to-face with Jackie.
And she looked…like hell.
The editor in chief Fletcher knew was gone, replaced by a woman mad.
Mud caked her face, nearly masking the dark wells beneath her eyes and the way her lipstick smudged like a Batman villain. Yesterday’s mascara left freckles on her cheeks. Her silk blouse had been positively shredded, sleeves reduced to ribbons. A familiar striped tie wrapped around her forehead, a blood-splotched tail draping over her shoulder.
Melv may have made sure the others escaped the estate before smoke inhalation killed them, but Jackie had clearly made sure Bertram didn’t make it any farther.
“What are you doing?” Fletcher asked. It came out harsher than she’d truly intended, but in her defense she’d slept on the ground for a few measly hours; yesterday was objectively the worst day of her life; and clearly Jackie intended to make today just as bad, because she aimed the barrel of her pistol at Fletcher’s forehead.
