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“What was that?” she heard from the room down the hall.
She panicked, looking around her frantically, for a way to get away. A place to hide. She was too far from the door that led to the lobby to make it down the hallway safely. She ducked into another open doorway. An office.
There was nowhere to hide in the room she’d entered. The desk was open at the bottom on both sides, so she couldn’t crouch down there. The door opened out into the hallway so there was no way hide behind it. She was trapped.
Jennie looked down and saw her hands were shaking. She focused on slowing her breathing, listening for any sound from the hallway. She didn’t have her cell phone with her and she couldn’t remember Chad’s number to use the office phone on the desk to call him.
The hallway was quiet and still for a minute but then the telltale cadence of shoes sounded on the tile floor. Jennie knew they’d find her any second.
With a small curse, she pulled off her favorite sandals. She quickly snapped the heel off one of them. In reality, they only had a one-and-a-half-inch heel so a heel would be unlikely to snap as she was walking in them, but she was banking on the brothers not knowing that.
She braced herself with one hand on the wall in the small office and waited.
“Oh, help. Can you guys help me?” She took a couple of little hopping steps toward them. Not the direction she really wanted to go, but at this point, she needed to go toward them before she could get away from them.
“What are you doing back here? This area is off limits,” barked Alan.
“It is?” Jennie batted her eyelashes. “I’m sorry. I twisted my ankle and I thought the infirmary was back here. Can you guys help me?” She held up the broken sandal as evidence of her plight and held her breath.
The men walked toward her slowly and she couldn’t tell if they were buying her story or not. Nerves settled firmly in her stomach as she began to wish she hadn’t tried to dig so deep for information this time.
She’d give anything to be back at the villa with Chad right now. She watched the two men approach and remembered how empty and abandoned this hallway was.
They’re not buying this.
Alan reached out and grabbed her arm. Hard.
Jennie swallowed and her voice sounded small, almost foreign to her ears. “I’m looking for the infirmary. My ankle—”
“Calm down, Alan,” Matt said, placing a hand on his brother’s arm.
Alan dropped Jennie’s arm, but before she could try to get away, Matt had an arm around her shoulder. He was being gentler than his brother, but there was no mistaking the firm pressure guiding her back down the hall toward their office.
“We’ll help you in our office,” he said.
Her mind was scrambled as she ran through possible ways to get out of this. Should she scream and run down the hall? If she did that, they’d definitely know she overheard them.
If she didn’t make it to the lobby in time, she’d be trapped. And, she wasn’t completely sure any of the employees would be willing to risk their jobs and take on the brothers even if she did get their attention.
Should she go with them to their office and hope she could talk her way out of this? She was a master at playing dumb, but the thought of going even further away from the populated spots on the resort with these guys made her feel sick.
Unfortunately, she didn’t think she had a choice. She took a deep breath and started to let Matt walk her toward his office. A tight knot of nerves settled in the pit of her stomach.
She was in trouble.
Chapter 19
Chad made himself slow to a walk when he entered the lobby. Jennie had a habit of poking and prodding for answers. If she asked the wrong question here, she might put herself in danger, but he didn’t want to let on that anything was wrong.
He scanned the front desk, but she wasn’t there. One of the women he’d seen Jennie chat up a number of times stood behind the desk.
He approached and nodded a greeting to the woman, putting on his meathead facade. “Hey,” he grunted. “You seen Jennie?”
“Oh, you just missed her! She was here, but she went out the east stairwell. If you hurry, you might catch her.” The woman gestured to the stairwell with a smile and Chad nodded.
He pulled some cash from his pocket put it on the counter. Hopefully, it was enough.
“We’re heading out with some friends to spend the last few days on a boat. I need our bags and a car out front right away.” Chad knew most people did what they were told when he gave them an order.
