Page 118 of Sunset Beach
Drue considered calling Jonah, but discarded the idea almost immediately. Things were still at the awkward stage between them. That might change after their date Saturday night, but for now, she decided against roping him into her scheme.
She pulled the white Bronco up to the security gate at the Gulf Vista resort. Two cars were in front of her, and she inched forward, slowly, until she reached the security gate. The guard, a wiry, twenty-something white woman with a clipboard clamped under her arm, greeted her with a businesslike nod. “Welcome to the Gulf Vista. Name and room number?”
“Oh, I’m not a guest,” Drue said, offering her a sweet smile. “Just joining friends.”
“Did your friends call the gate to get a pass left for you?”
“Well, um, I’m not sure,” Drue said.
The guard consulted her clipboard. “Name?”
“Drue. Campbell, like the soup.”
“Nope.”
“They probably forgot,” Drue confided. “It’s a bachelorette party, and the maid of honor is atotalspace cadet.”
“Not my problem,” the guard said. She looked past Drue at a car that had just pulled in behind the Bronco. “Gonna ask you to move along, ma’am.”
She drove home to Coquina Cottage and paced around the compact living room. Still no callbacks, either from Rae Hernandez or Ben. Drue could hear Sherri’s voice in her head, repeating one of her favorite sayings: “If you want something done, do it yourself.”
“I will, by God,” Drue muttered. “And if I can’t get in the front door, Mom, I’ll go in the back.”
She changed out of her work clothes and into her best beach cover-up, a loud pink and lime green floral Lily Pulitzer number she’d picked up at her favorite thrift store back in Fort Lauderdale. She’d never cared for the pom-pom trim, but the top did have deep in-seam pockets, perfect to stash her cell phone, house keys and some folded-up cash money.
Her stomach rumbled as she passed through the kitchen and she realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since that slice of pizza earlier. She grabbed a protein bar from her grandmother’s cookie jar on the counter and slipped out the sliding-glass doors and onto the deck. The locking mechanism on the doors had rusted in the salt air, and when she was inside, she simply jammed a sawed-off broomstick into the track. Every time she walked out onto the deck she vowed that her next paycheck would go toward installing a new lock. Right after a laptop, but before the new roof.
She was halfway down the beach when she remembered the key card she’d lifted on her last visit to the hotel. She turned around, found the key on top of her dresser and doubled back, headed for the bright lights of the Gulf Vista. Walking on the uneven sand, her knee twinged, but she kept going until she reached the gate that separated the back of the resort from the public beach.
She looked around, swiped the card and tugged at the gate. It didn’t budge. She tried again, then gave up. Maybe the hotel locks had been re-programmed.She didn’t have time to wonder. Drue glanced up at the deep blue sky. There was a new moon tonight, mostly obscured by heavy cloud cover. The beach was deserted and cast in darkness, but music wafted from the resort’s pool area.
Now or never, she told herself. She placed her left foot on the bottom rail of the gate and swung her right leg up and over in the most awkward vault attempt ever, catching the hem of her top on a gate finial. As she tumbled forward onto the sand on the resort side of the fence, she felt a searing jolt of pain in her bad knee and heard the fabric of her top rip.
Drue sat up, moaning quietly, her leg extended straight out as she kneaded the knee with her fingertips. After a moment, the pain subsided. Maybe, she thought, maybe she hadn’t ruptured the joint again.
She stood up slowly, panting from the effort, and brushed the sand from her butt. She gingerly put her right foot down. There was soreness, yes, but nothing like what she’d experienced with her original injury. There was also a jagged rip along the hem of her top, but there was no blood and she could walk, which she did, as quickly as possible, toward the pool and tiki bar area, congratulating herself on her first solo breaking-and-entering effort.
She heard the high-pitched cacophony of women’s laughter as she approached the tiki bar. Sure enough, at least two dozen young women, all dressed in matching pink T-shirts and tiaras, were clustered around the periphery of the bar, drunkenly twerking and bellowing along to the version of “Bootylicious” blaring from a cell phone speaker balanced on a nearby chaise lounge.
Drue edged as close as she could get to the bar, finally managing to edge in between two middle-aged men who were watching the revelry with undisguised appreciation. There had been a time, Drue reflected, when one or both of those men would have struck up a conversation and offered to buy her a drink, but tonight, she was just another face in a crowd of younger talent. It took another ten minutes for the bartender, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, to work down the bar to her.
“Do you happen to have any bar munchies?” she asked him. He turned, wordlessly, and handed her a bowl of popcorn.
“Great. I’ll have a Tito’s and tonic, double lime,” she said, sliding a ten-dollar bill onto the bar.
He fixed the drink and when he delivered it, added a bowl of mixed nuts to her dinner.
“Thanks!” He nodded and moved away.
She sipped her drink and emptied the popcorn bowl and half the bowl of nuts as conversation swirled around her. After another ten minutes, the balding guy on her left signaled for the bartender to close out his tab, the move she’d been waiting for.
“Put it on my room, please,” he told the bartender, signing the bill. “It’s Gazaway, Room 325.”
“Got it,” the bartender replied.
Got it, Drue thought, gulping down the rest of her drink. She skirted the pool area and moved off to the right, looking for the entrance to the north building. She found the door easily, but once again, her key card failed. She tossed it into the nearest trash bin, then hung around for five minutes, planning to slip inside in the wake of a legit guest, but nobody approached the building.
Drue drifted into the hotel lobby and planted herself in front of the reception desk.
