Page 15 of Slumming It

"Me, too," I repeated.

In the room, Emily called out toward the phone. "I'm fine."

"Hear that?" I said into the receiver. "She's fine, like I said."

"I don't care," the clerk said. "I mean, Idocare.A lot."Her voice rose. "She's my sister, so put her on the phone right now, or I’m coming down there. And just so you know, I'll call the police if I have to."

I didn't hesitate. "Good."

"What do you mean good?"

"I mean," I said, holding Emily's gaze, "the police might be interested to know what's going on here."

The caller asked, "And whatisgoing on?"

Good question."You tellme."

"I can't," she said. "Because I don't know." Again, she hesitated. "I mean, other than the maintenance thing."

Maintenance, my ass.I saw no tools, no supplies, and no evidence that Emily the Housekeeper had invaded my space to do anything productive.

She’d been hiding under my bed, for fuck’s sake.

And for how long?I’d returned to the room maybe twenty minutes ago. But this morning, I’d been in here for much longer after running out for a coffee and donut.

Had she been hidingthen, too?

Fuck.

After the coffee trip, I’d stayed in the room for a couple of hours to make some phone calls and review some paperwork before doing my daily pushups and showering in the small bathroom with its chipped sink and ugly tile.

I'd left the bathroom naked and had taken my sweet time in getting dressed.

If she’d been watching, I’d given her a good, long show – and maybe notonlyher. She'd had her cellphone. The phone surely had a camera, which might've captured video and audio, too.

Shit.

As the clerk rattled on, saying something about this being a family establishment, I mentally backtracked another fifteen hours.

Last night, the space under my bed had been empty. I knew this, because like a paranoid mother-fucker, I’d actually checked.

Turns out, I hadn’t been paranoid enough. From now on, I decided, I would need to check every goddamn time I returned to the room.

Great.

I considered what I knew and what I didn’t. One thing Ididknow was that Emily the Housekeeper had listened to my phone conversation with Slade.

Myprivateconversation.

What else had she done?What else had sheplannedto do?

I was so sick of the bullshit – the graspers, the clingers, the nosy assholes who tried to make my business their own.Fuck that.

The girl in my room had crossed a boundary. And for this, she would need to pay – just not in the way she assumed.

When it came to sex, I hadn't been lying. I never went where I wasn't invited. In my book, this included coercion, blackmail, and the rest of it. But that didn't mean I couldn't make her pay in other ways.

Who knows? This could be fun.