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If she was going to change her tactics on this trip, so was he. She squealed and took a few running steps to get ahead of him. Shit, he could work with that, too. He hung back and enjoyed the view all the way to breakfast.
Jennie Evans in a skirt and sandals was a sight to behold.
Chapter 11
Four days into their trip, Jennie and Chad had a good sense of the layout of the resort and it was already clear the nephews did little to run the place. So far, they’d seen them flirting with guests, drinking all day, and playing golf.
They schmoozed with some of the guests, but that was about the extent of it. They didn’t even seem to engage with the managers much. From everything Chad had seen, they let the managers run the show.
It took everything Chad had in him not to go caveman when Jennie was talking to the Masters brothers. In classic Jennie style, she simply swam over to them at the swim up bar and started flirting.
They were buying her drinks in no time and she was doing her airhead routine. By the time she signaled Chad to come break up the party and get her out of there—which he gladly did, playing the role of the jealous meathead husband—she’d found out a lot about the brothers.
They didn’t lift a damn finger. They liked to play the big shots, even going so far as to refer to the resort as ‘their’ resort. They soaked up the sun and played and took credit for the resort’s success, but that was it.
When Jennie put on those big doe eyes and twirled a finger through her hair, saying how hard it must be to run the place, they laughed. They looked around and shrugged their shoulders and said, “This is it. We’re free to play with you all day.”
Today, she and Chad were trying to figure out more about the marina. There were a lot of extra activities guests could purchase at the resort. Everything from swimming with dolphins, to a trip to a national park or a four-day fishing trip, and more.
Every afternoon, the representatives from the different tour agencies were in the lobby, signing people up for excursions. You signed up with the tour company of your choice, paid the representative directly, and booked a date for your activity.
For everything except the marina. For the marina, you spoke to the tour representative to choose an activity and book a date, but then they gave you a slip to take to the front desk where you paid for your tour.
So far, Jennie and Chad hadn’t been able to pick up on a reason for that additional step. If need be, Jack would flat out ask the owner why things were done this way, but they liked to try to get a sense of things on their own sometimes first.
It was amazing the things they found out when Jennie and Chad went into some of the companies they looked at.
Just three weeks before, Jennie had gone into a company and in less than a week discovered that the medical research the company promised was about to revolutionize diabetes treatment had already been proven to be a bust, internally.
The owners thought they could get funding from Jack based on the outdated early findings and use that funding to buy more time to make new discoveries and hopefully come out on top.
The sad thing was, if they’d been up front with Jack, he might have given them money anyway. Their ideas were promising and they had a few things in the early stages that people in the medical field Jack consulted with thought were promising. But the fact that they were trying to pull one over on Sutton Capital, instead of being upfront, killed their chances for good.
With any luck, Jennie would work her magic here and figure out if the resort owner or its management had anything to hide.
The resort had two docks. One where the fishing boats and the boats taking guests scuba diving docked. The other was in a small bay where guests could snorkel and go out in kayaks.
Chad and Jennie were over in the bay, sitting on the edge of the dock as they put on snorkels and masks. They’d decided to skip the flippered feet and just swim around leisurely close to the beach.
“Twenty-seven kayaks,” Jennie said absently as she fidgeted with her mask.
“What?” Chad asked.
Jennie shrugged a shoulder. “I was counting the slots for kayaks,” she said, pointing to the racks that held the kayaks on the side of the bay. “Looks like all but five are out right now, assuming they actually fill all of the slots. I suppose they may have fewer kayaks than the number of slots for kayaks, though.”
Chad let her talk. He was used to this. She just catalogued sometimes. They were both observant, which made them really good at their jobs. But they each observed different things.
Chad watched people. Their movements and body language. Facial expressions, ticks, and tells. He watched their surroundings, always knowing how to get them out of a situation if he needed to.
Not that they needed that in the work they did now. They didn’t do anything dangerous for Sutton. In fact, their version of ‘undercover’ was using their real names, and pretending to be less intelligent than they were.
Chad’s situational awareness was a habit left over from his military tours. He doubted it was something he would ever have to use again. It was something that was so ingrained at this point, it was simply a part of who he was. He had noted the small motor boat tied to the dock because it was a means to escape the area.
Jennie was different. She counted things and noticed details he didn’t. She could tell you if someone wore fake designer clothes or if they were the real deal. She could tell you who designed a person’s shoes and, sometimes, whether their jewelry was real or paste. And, for some unknown reason, things like the number of kayaks caught her eye.
Actually, if he thought about it, he could guess why she’d noticed the kayaks. Their bright colors. Jennie surrounded herself with bright, happy colors.
The outside of her house was a light cheerful yellow. He hadn’t been inside her house, though he’d dropped her off or picked her up a few times. But he would guess the inside would be filled with color as well.
