Jem disconnected.
“You found them?”Tean asked.
“Yep.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Uh, no reason.”That didn’t sound great, though, so Jem added, “Happy we found them.Come on, I don’t want them to get away.”
The fitness center was a floor down, but because the lodge was built on a slope, it featured a wall of windows that looked out on the swirling storm of white and gray.They passed an indoor pool, where a girl screamed as she went down a water slide, the sound echoing off the tile.The windows were steamed with humidity, and the smell of bleach hung in the air.Another section of the facility was devoted to exercise equipment: free weights, machines, treadmills.A couple of grim-looking women in spandex were grunting and swinging kettlebell weights.There was a yoga studio, a sauna, and signs for the spa.
Jem followed the signs for the locker rooms.
A kid who might have barely been twenty, scrawny inside his Kolen Lodge polo, was folding towels near the door.
“Good morning,” he said as they approached.“What can I help you with, gentlemen?”
“Mr.Larsen sent us,” Jem said.
The boy considered them.
“The, uh, glazing situation,” Jem said in a lower voice.
The boy’s cheeks colored, and he pointed.“Shower three.”
As Jem started deeper into the locker room, Tean said, “What’s that about glazing?”
“Hm?”
“What you said to the boy, about glazing?What did that mean?”
“Oh, you know, I’m not actually sure.”
He managed two more steps before Tean said in a different voice, “Jem?”
The next corner took them to the showers.It wasn’t what Jem remembered from Decker—no open area that everyone shared.Instead, each shower was its own room, with a louvered door that had—by the look of it—a push-button lock.
“What’s going on—” Tean began.
The slap of flesh on flesh.
Moans.
A man grunting.
Tean’s eyes widened.He grabbed onto his glasses like they might fly off.
“Lots of places have little codes like that,” Jem said.“Remember when I worked at Snow’s?Guys loved getting freaky in the dressing room, and if we caught them—or if we had to clean up after—we were supposed to say ‘White Christmas!White Christmas!’”
“In a dressing room?”
Trying not to laugh, Jem got out his wallet.He chose his Albertson’s savers card, gripped the doorknob, and jimmied the card between the door and the jamb.
One quick jerk.
The lock popped open.
Jem stepped into the shower.
