They’re tiny and hidden within the wood trim, so unless you’re looking for them, you’ll never see them. This guy certainly hadn’t.
“Simon, you copy?”
There’s a brief crackle through my earpiece before he replies. “You get them.”
“Yeah, I did. Something’s off. Keep track of him.”
It might be the guy was simply visiting someone he shouldn’t, but my gut says otherwise. Better we monitor him, if only to get a clearer mugshot.
For now, though, I want to check if Phoebe Jackson is okay. I don’t know whether the guy was on his way into, or out of, her room when I disturbed him.
This has me shoving my phone back in my pocket and knocking briskly on 320’s door. A strangled cry comes from inside. It’s one that twists my gut.
When there’s no answer to my second knock, rather than shout through the door and disturb other guests, I grab my keycard.
Sometimes protocol has to go out of the window.
PHOEBE
After speaking to the hotel’s manager to tell him of my concerns, I’m at a loss about what to do. Even though the door to my room is good and sturdy, I don’t feel safe, anything but.
Instead, I feel trapped. I can’t even climb out of my window. Funny—not really—when I’d booked a room on the third floor so no-one could climb IN.
I hate that a stranger—I call him Ralph, because he’s wrecking my life—has me scared of my shadow. I should be out celebrating making the cover of Sports Fan Magazine, not locked away.
There’s no socializing for me these days, other than at work-related events I can’t get out of. If not for another photo shoot tomorrow, I’d be back to the safety of my apartment in LA.
I’m always ready to leave at a moment’s notice these days, my suitcase never fully unpacked.He’s close. I just know it.
The manager said he’d send someone from security up to speak to me as soon as he could.Did he not get that it was urgent?
And just like that, my ability to pace deserts me and I stand frozen, my breathing shallow. The room is silent, eerily so, with me having turned off the room’s air conditioning on arrival.
It would be all too easy for someone to hide their movements under the hum of one of those things. Well, that’s not happening today with me able to hear him moving around outside in the hallway.
I don’t want to move, and yet I’m drawn to the peephole in the door. If it is him out there, much as I don’twantto know, Ineedto know.
I inch my way over, grabbing my newly purchased can of mace off the console table next to the door. I’m about to put my eye to the peephole when there’s a loud knocking right next to me.
There’s nothing I can do to stop my cry of alarm, although I keep hold of the mace. When there’s another knock on the door, I step away from the door, ready to defend myself.
I’m sick of this man ruling my life.
My newfound bravado is out the door when I hear a keycard being inserted in the lock, and it releasing. I watch in horrified fascination as the handle turns, and the door opens, although not so wide that it reveals my stalker.
“Miss Jackson? Wyatt Cassidy, Hotel Security. Are you okay?” comes through the gap.
My relief it’s not Ralph is enough to have tears running down my face and me hugging the can like it’s a teddy bear.
What the heck was he doing hanging around out there? Why didn’t he knock in the first place?
I’ve not moved when the door slowly opens. I’m not sure what I’ve been expecting, but this isn’t it. Not by a long shot.
Despite him wearing a sharp suit, there’s nothing civilized about Wyatt Cassidy. The tattoos visible at collar and cuffs speak to this. The brutal haircut gives the impression of someone who’s on the wrong side of the law.
He’s nothing like the men I’d dated before my self-imposed exile and yet he does it for me as none of them ever did.
It’s then I see the concern in his dark blue eyes.
