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“Oh?” She shook the water from her hair. “If you want, the next day you’re off—”
“Thursday,” he broke in. “If you have time.”
“I do.” She smiled. “So, what do you do on your time off?” she asked suddenly.
“This and that.” He shrugged. “Sit on the beach and…” He glanced around. “Watch.”
She was quiet for a moment, and he could tell that she realized that even if he wasn’t working behind the bar that he was still technically on duty for his real job.
“Right.” she said softly. “I…” She turned towards him suddenly. “Is it strange?”
“What?” he asked.
“Working in places like this?”
He knew what she meant. “Being in paradise? Looking out for… people?”
She nodded.
“No,” he answered quickly. “It’s amazing how people drop their guard on vacation. It’s as if their brains shut down. They’re ripe for the picking.” He leaned on his arms. “Take that couple,” he said, and she looked in the direction he had motioned with his chin. “They set their things here.” He nodded two chairs over. “Phones, room keys, wallets, and even a very expensive watch. All left right here in the open while they happily splash in the water.”
“We have a lot of security,” Jade started to say, but he stopped her.
“And it’s top notch, but it won’t stop everyone from preying on them.” He glanced around. “Someone like…” He narrowed his eyes until he found someone who fit the profile. “There.” He pointed. “Tan shirt, black shorts, dark sunglasses, and white ball cap.”
“What about him?” she asked.
“Watch.” It took less than two minutes for the man to make his way down several aisles of chairs until he found the expensive items sitting on top of a towel. The guy swooped down and picked up the towel, including every single item the couple had left behind.
The man hadn’t even gone ten feet before a security guard met him and grabbed the guy’s arm.
“See,” Jade said with a smile.
“Yes, all’s well and good, this time.” Wyatt relaxed. He couldn’t afford to break his cover by catching a common thief.
“You should have come on as our head of security instead of as a bartender,” she joked as they watched a security officer haul the man away while the couple rushed from the water to talk to another member of the security team.
“Nope, I need people to not be on guard around me.” He relaxed back into the sand.
“Is that why you look like a beach bum right now?” she joked, leaning back with him.
He chuckled. “I look like a beach bum because I’m trying to be a beach bum. Even I want some downtime.” He closed his eyes.
“Right. I guess I’m not sure how all this… works.”
“Just like anything else.”
“You mentioned you’ve wanted to do this job your entire life…” she started, and he knew where she was heading. He hadn’t meant for that part to slip out earlier in her office. “Why all your life?”
He glanced over at her. “Her name was Kaley. She was my younger sister and will remain forever five. It was my fault that she died,” he said as he watched a cloud drift overhead. “I was tasked with watching her. I failed.”
Jade was silent for a moment. “For years and years, I felt guilty about Amber’s disappearance too. We were supposed to dress in the same swim outfits. I stayed upstairs and changed into something else while she made her way down the back stairs. The police seem to think she was taken just inside the back doorway. If I would have been with her…”
He sat up suddenly, looking down at her.
“Both of you could have been taken,” he said firmly. “I read the file. There was nothing anyone could have done. No one knows what kind of… who took your sister. They could have grabbed both of you,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“There were two of us. I kept telling myself that we could have fought hard enough that our parents would have heard something.” She looked at him. “I no longer blame myself. Neither should you. I don’t know what happened to Kaley, but I do know that kids shouldn’t blame themselves for what madmen do.”
