I straighten. Chalet three—that was the guy who was throwing a fit about Margie not putting his towels in his room. “Is one of the other guests being inappropriate toward you, ma’am?”
Both of the women look at me, then at each other.
“Well, if he’s saving his words for sentences like that, you might want to look into the loan-to-own program,” Mrs. Pinsley says.
Margie-Margot smiles at her. “You should use that phrase in your book. Did one of the other guests make you uncomfortable?”
“No, no, all’s fine. I just see things, you know? It’s easy to notice things when no one notices you.”
My heart tugs.
My mom used to say the same thing, first about how not being noticed was an asset when it came to private security, but later about how my stepfather took her for granted.
I didn’t realize her meaning had shifted until she was gone.
That he didn’t really notice her.
That he didn’t pay attention.
That he just wanted to take over the business she started with her father while getting a mother for his two sons, and she did a kick-ass job.
The younger of my two stepbrothers graduated high school a few months after she passed.
It sometimes feels like they got her longer than I did, even if I had her first. I was seven when she married Xavier, so a lot of those years are years I don’t have clear memories of her.
“If you do see anything, or if anyone makes you uncomfortable, please tell me,” Margot-Margie says. “Or you can tell Rhys. As you can see, he’s a vault. But he’s also obligated to keep things safe here. That’s what he’s paid for.”
“There’s alotof security here,” Mrs. Pinsley says, dropping her voice. “Are they doing mobster stuff? Is that why?”
There’s not alotof security here.
Just the right amount. Possibly a man or two more than necessary, in fact.
For this week.
Next week’s another story.
I watch Margie-Margot closer as she answers because I suspect she knows it too.
“No, ma’am,” she says. “Apparently this much security is normal at luxury resorts and retreat centers.”
“Do celebrities come here?”
“I have no idea, ma’am. I just started.”
“I’ll keep watching even more then. Just in case.”
“Don’t neglect your book though. And you should take advantage of the spa while you’re here too. Anything else I can get for you today, Mrs. Pinsley? Coffee or tea supplies? Would you like your trash taken out?”
“No, no, dear. I don’t need to hold you up.”
“If you need anything, you know the number for housekeeping.”
Margot-Margie steps back off the porch and joins me again at her cart, where she dumps the dirty towels into a bin. “Either someone’s bothering her or she saw someone bothering someone else,” she murmurs.
“Picked up on that.”
She pinches her lips together and doesn’t say anything else as she unlocks her cart wheels and continues down the sidewalk.
