Page 23 of The Getaway

Suzy turned, stumbling a bit, and followed the golden hair. At least she tried. There were so many people moving in so many different directions, she could barely keep up. And her vision wasn’t exactly focused, per se. Damned Carnival Craze. At one point, the woman turned, and Suzy was sure it was Lily, wearing a white dress and a dark-pink sequined jacket. But then, Lily would never wear that shade of pink. And by the time she’d rectified that thought in her mind, the woman had disappeared again.

There was no way that was her, Suzy told herself. If Lily had left rehab, she would have told them. She would have at least told Marley. They had only spoken yesterday. Of course Lily would have mentioned it if she’d checked herself out. And even if she had stealthily bailed on treatment, she wouldn’t come here. It would be too weird, too awkward, too . . . humiliating. Right?

Shaking her head at her own idiocy—which screwed up her balance for a good ten seconds—Suzy made her way carefully out of the concert tent. A carpeted pathway led away from the concert area / tennis courts to the main tent, where jugglers and stilt walkers maneuvered around tables filled with guests. Suzy grabbed a popcorn shrimp appetizer from a waitress dressed as an acrobat. It was served in a tiny popcorn box to keep with the carnival theme, and it was beyond delicious.

The seafood made her wonder where Marley was and whether she was okay. The last time she’d seen her, she’d looked positively green.

Out the other side of the main tent, Suzy made her way toward the patio and its familiar pergola. It was quieter up here, with people mingling and munching on elevated carnival food around the pool. The music from the concert area played through the tall speakers set up around the patio, but at a low volume. Suzy did a lap but didn’t see Josh—or Sean, Marshall, or Lincoln for that matter. She wondered if they were up on one of the decks, smoking those expensive cigars Lincoln had smuggled in from Cuba. They sometimes did that, not wanting to share with the crowd. She had a feeling it also made them feel above it all, like they had something special going that no one else could participate in. The elite among the elite.

Glancing over her shoulder, Suzy slipped inside the house. The general guest list was not allowed inside, and she always felt a bit naughty breaking the rules, even though they didn’t apply to her.

Inside was like an entirely different world. It was almost silent, only the deepest of the throbbing bass making its way unobtrusively inside. The air-conditioning was aggressive, sending goose bumps all up and down her arms. Suddenly, Suzy noticed she was parched, her throat dry and her mouth gummy. She decided to go to the kitchen for water before continuing her search. She was just outside the open doorway when she heard a single voice loud-whispering.

“No. No! I’m serious. Now is not the time.”

Suzy ducked back behind the wall, recognizing Gemma’s voice. She wasn’t entirely sure if she meant to eavesdrop or give the woman privacy, but she ended up doing the former.

“Well, you didn’t tell me the entire truth, now, did you? You can’t just use me like this.” Gemma took a deep breath and sighed audibly. “Yes, of course I understand. But I—”

There was a long pause.

“No. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not right now. If you come up here now . . . I don’t know what will happen.”

Suzy’s eyes narrowed. Who was Gemma trying to keep away from Lincoln’s party? Who was using her and for what?

“Not now.” Another pause. “Yes. Okay. Fine. Bye.”

Suzy took a deep breath and walked nonchalantly into the kitchen, worried Gemma was going to stride out and find her lurking. “Oh hey!” she said. “Who were you talking to?”

“Hey,” Gemma said. She lifted her phone. “Just the girls. They’re sort of dying to see what’s going on up here.”

“FOMO, huh?” Suzy said. She walked to the cabinet and took out a glass. Clearly, the woman was lying, but she didn’t care enough to call her out. “The struggle is real.”

“Yeah. I feel bad, but this is really not a party for impressionable teens.”

Outside there was a scream and a splash, and Suzy glanced out the window to see a buck-naked couple running toward the pool, laughing.

Suzy met Gemma’s eyes, and they both cracked up. She filled her glass from the filter spout at the sink and took a long slug.

“I would have thought the kitchen would be full of chefs and waiters,” Gemma mentioned.

“They use the catering kitchen,” Suzy said, tilting her head. “It’s over by the garage.”

“I thought that area of the house was closed off for construction.”

“Is it?” Suzy recalled the workers leaving as she arrived earlier. “What are they constructing?”

“Not a clue,” Gemma said, completely uninterested. She gazed around the open kitchen with its gleaming appliances and custom finishes. “Wow. Two kitchens. Lincoln really lives like a king, huh? Who would have thought novelty motels would be such a moneymaker?”

“He started in tech,” Suzy said, loving that she had inside info Gemma didn’t. “He and another friend of theirs from college made this app called Munchies. It was basically a twenty-four-hour food and ‘legal’ pot delivery service based around college campuses. They sold it to the DoorDash people and made, like, a bajillion dollars.”

“Huh.” Gemma looked confused. “So where did Home Team come in?”

“Lincoln and Marshall’s family has been in real estate forever, so his dad convinced him to invest the money in property, but of course Lincoln had to do it his own way.”

She rolled her eyes fondly and took another sip of water. Lincoln’s line of Home Team Hotels was another campus-based business, only this time he’d come up with the idea to build affordable college-themed hotels near college campuses, perfect for prospective student visits, parent weekends, and alumni events. Each hotel was themed to the hilt in the school’s colors, had the school’s mascot available for photo ops at all times, and offered a variety of school swag baskets that could be set up in your room upon arrival. Most of Sean’s job at the beginning had been negotiating licensing deals and guarding against copyright infringement claims. They’d started with five pilot hotels at some of the bigger US campuses, including Wisconsin (his, Sean, and Josh’s alma mater), UCLA, Rutgers, USF, and Alabama. The business had quickly exploded, and they now had over a hundred Home Team Hotels in the US and were looking to expand to Europe.

The deal that was giving Sean such agita.