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She nodded. “I promise.”
“I’m also not going to do this without telling you that I love you, Verity,” I finally told her.
“Prove it by not getting lost out there,” she replied, and that was good enough for me.
Chapter 22
Verity~
An hour later, Marilyn still hadn’t shown up, nor had the police or anyone else for that matter. Lulee had gone back to her cabin to lick her wounds, but I hadn’t been all that surprised by it. Lulee hated being wrong, and she especially hated being put in her place. Still, as long as she was safely tucked away in her room, she could be mad all that she wanted. This shit was serious, and I just didn’t have the time or desire to babysit her. It was clear that she and Cree still needed to work through whatever they’d done last night, but now was not the time.
For lack of something better to do, I headed into the kitchenette to grab a bag of beef jerky. Just as I was about to open the bag, I heard that buzzing sound again. Frozen, my mind couldn’t help but wander to a dark place. Maybe Sarah missing was adding to my paranoia, but that buzzing wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
Setting the bag back down, I started looking around, not even sure of what I was looking for. My hope was to find a fly or bee, but my gut started screaming at me to open my eyes. I shook my head, reminding myself that I watched entirely too many scary movies. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Granted, with as high-tech as these cabins were, that buzzing could simply be something fancy, but I’d rather know for sure. Especially, since I’d heard the buzzing in the bathroom and near the bed, too.
So, pulling out my phone, I turned on the light since it was pretty bright, then started to look for the source of the sound. A few minutes later, I heard it again, quickly rushing to where I thought I’d heard it come from. However, the more that I searched for it, the less I saw. The tile pattern in the kitchen was complicated enough that it could make your eyes cross if you stared at it too long. Though beautiful when pulling the room together, the design was busy as hell.
Closing my eyes to refocus, I heard the buzzing again, and it sounded louder than before. Popping my eyes open, I started running my hand over the tile that decorated one side of the partition, and my heart skipped a beat when I felt a little bump against my palm.
I could feel blood rushing in my ears, the panic beginning to set in, even though I had no idea if I’d found anything or not. I was not a contractor, engineer, or decorator. There could be a million reasons for that little bump, but my active imagination was telling me that it wasn’t a decorative mishap.
Running my hand over the bump again, there was no mistaking that it was there anymore. I raised my phone to bathe it in the bright light of my flashlight app, and the circular accent definitely didn’t look like the others that made up the mosaic pattern.
With my mind running wild, I raced towards the bathroom, grabbed my makeup bag, then pulled out my metal nail file. While I might get arrested and sued for destroying private property, I still had to know what in the hell that thing was and why it kept randomly buzzing.
No longer needing the flashlight app, I slid my phone back in my pocket as I did my best to pop the…button?...from the wall. As the nail file kept bending, I started to lose hope. However, I still had a pair of tweezers in my bag that I could use in case the file broke completely.
A full ten minutes later, I finally popped the orb free, my fingers even bleeding a bit. As I took hold of it, a wire followed it as I pulled it out towards me.
A fucking camera.
As I kept pulling it free, what else could it be? Not only had it been camouflaged, but I could see the swivel as I examined it. The buzzing sound made a lot more sense now. The buzzing was probably the camera adjusting angles.
My other hand pressed against my stomach when I thought of the other possible cameras. Saint and I hadn’t had polite sex underneath the covers last night. He had taken me everywhere in this damn cabin, and a lot of it had been dark and dirty. Oh, God, what if they’d heard us, too?
Racing back towards the bathroom, I pulled my phone out again, then began searching the wall, absolutely dreading what I might find. Five minutes later, I found another bump, and I almost threw up everywhere. Unconcerned by my shredded fingers, I chipped away at the glassy orb, and when it popped free, my entire body started trembling.
We were being watched.
Panic quickly began to set in when I realized that whoever was watching us was probably watching me right now. They’d know that I found the cameras, and they’d know that they’d been caught. I closed my eyes, not even caring about the one near the bed. I didn’t need to pull that one out for more proof. These two cameras were proof enough.
I quickly pulled up my camera app to take a picture of the cameras. I was not going to be called a liar or paranoid. I took two pictures, one of the camera up-close and one of the entire bathroom, so that I could prove where I was. I did the same with the one in the kitchenette before racing out of the room to go check Lulee’s cabin.
Knowing that I wouldn’t be interrupting anything, I didn’t bother knocking on the door. I swung it wide open. Glancing around, I didn’t see her anywhere, but I did see that the bathroom door was closed. Racing over, I started banging on the door. “Lulee! Open up!” I yelled.
When she didn’t reply, I tried the doorknob. Finding it unlocked, I opened it, but she wasn’t in the bathroom, either. Closing my eyes, I prayed that she hadn’t gone looking for Sarah on her own. Cree would kill her, and while she might deserve it, we had bigger issues at the moment.
Visualizing the layout of our cabin, I pulled out my phone, turned the flashlight on again, then searched for a camera, hoping that they’d all be in the same place in each cabin. When I found nothing, I wondered if only some of the cabins had been rigged.
Heading towards the bed area, I started running my hand over every inch of the wall, and when I found a bump, I felt equal parts horrified and relieved. This wasn’t just my imagination, and the guests here really were being watched. I snapped a quick picture before trying to dial Lulee.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered. “Answer your phone, Lulee.”
When it cut out, I left her cabin to see if I could find her. Racing back to the dining room, I looked to see if anything had looked disturbed, but it looked fine, so I headed back past the lobby building. Maybe she had taken the car to search for help.
Because she’d really not tell you that she was taking the car, Verity?
As soon as I reached the parking area, I saw our car and a second parked next to it. My guess was that it must have been Richard Clark’s car, because who’s else could it be? However, as I approached the vehicles, I saw that something was off about our car.
