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Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t hard to sneak below deck. There was surprisingly very little security around, which confirmed to Cammie that she’d been right about how busy the night was for staff and crew. When she’d checked the itinerary, she’d seen a packed schedule and had known it would come with a lot of chaos to manage.
The halls were narrower in the crew quarters, which made Cammie want to move quickly to get to cabin ten. Being in the cramped space had her nerves all jittery and she expected to run into someone who would question why they were there. But after a couple of wrong turns, they ended up at Ben’s cabin door without being stopped by anyone. Cammie tested the knob, twisting it to the right, only to find that the door was locked.
Because of course it was.
“You don’t happen to know how to pick locks, do you?” She flashed a quirked eyebrow Zane’s way.
“I do, but that’s not going to work here.” He motioned toward the knob. “There’s no visible locking mechanism.”
She looked again and swore. “Right, so what do we do?”
“If I had something to leverage, I could knock out the pins in the hinges and we could get in that way.” Zane inspected the door. “But that would make some noise.”
The door swung open, and Cammie jumped, hand to mouth, holding back a scream.
“Can I help you?” A young man with white bleached hair, dark roots and deep circles under his eyes stood in front of them. “You’re not supposed to be down here.”
“Yes, we know,” Cammie said as she fought to regain her composure. Her mind spun through the excuses she could make in the moment, but they all sounded ridiculous. “We were just…”
Zane picked up what she started. “Ben sent us down here to grab his—”
“Spirit gum!” Cammie finished. “For his falsies.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “They’re not staying put with all the sweat.”
The guy blocking the door took a few seconds to consider the excuse then shrugged. “It’s probably in his closet. He keeps all his makeup in there.”
Cammie let her breath out slowly as she stepped into the cramped cabin. Zane held the door open and stayed put in the doorway, which was for the best since there didn’t seem to be enough space for three adult bodies moving around. “Are you Frankie?”
She knew the guy who flopped himself on the bottom bunk of one of four beds wasn’t Frankie, but out of all the names Ben had thrown out earlier, she could only remember the one she was looking for.
“Nah, I’m Clem.” He knocked on the roof of his bunk. “Frankie’s bed is here, not that he uses it very much.”
Ben’s closet had his name on it and Cammie found the spirit gum pretty quickly but she pretended to be searching so she could keep Clem talking.
“Oh, Frankie’s not much of a sleeper?” Cammie said as she parted a couple of hangers so she could peek deeper into the closet. Ben had a pink sequined dress hanging at the back that would look killer on him.
“Not in this room, anyway.” Clem grunted as he lay back on some propped-up pillows. “He’s usually partying with the girls.”
“The crew?” Zane asked. “Definitely can’t blame him there. Lots of reason to party with those beauties.”
Clem made a disgusting noise of agreement with Zane. “Damn straight.”
“Ben said that you guys like to party in here.” Cammie held the spirit gum bottle up to show Clem before closing the closet door.
“That’s more Frankie’s thing. When he’s around, we do party, otherwise it’s pretty boring.” Clem yawned. “Better for me that Frankie isn’t around, though. I only get six hours off to sleep and eat tonight before my next shift.”
“Ben said he was covering Frankie’s shift at the Whips and Chains Party.” Zane leaned against the door, holding it open with his body. “Seems like the guy does too much partying, not enough working.”
Chem snorted. “Yeah, right? Probably off with Sherri or something.”
“Sherri the event director?” Cammie’s mouth dropped open. It was top-tier inappropriate for an event manager to fool around with the staff.
“Yeah, they have a thing—or did on the last trip anyway. He spent a lot of time in her cabin. She’s got a private one because she’s so important.” Chem spat the last words out like they tasted awful. “Too stupid to realize that Frankie’s only using her for the luxury.”
“Sorry for barging in on you,” Cammie said as she moved the short distance to the door. “The way Ben made it sound, we were expecting a raging party down here. Didn’t think we’d be interrupting anyone’s sleep.”
“No problem.” Clem waved them off. “I wasn’t asleep. Just enjoying the quiet.”
