You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard

Author:Wendy Heard [Heard, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

SUMMER

SATURDAY, JUNE 10

The corridors are empty as I hurry barefoot through them, shoes in hand. I’m going to search every single inch of this stupid mansion until I am sure Leo isn’t here. After all this, if I find her sipping daiquiris in some hidden hot tub, I may actually murder her.

Out of breath, I arrive at the far end of the west wing, where the exterior door leads out to the pool. I glance around, searching for surveillance cameras. I don’t see any.

The first door belongs to Alan’s suite. I quickly confirm it’s empty, let myself out, and beep into the room across the hall. It proves to be a storage closet full of sheets, cleaning supplies, and toiletries. Next is my room, which I ignore, and then, around a corner, another set of doors leads into a suite I’m pretty sure is Julie and Steve’s. I pause in the bathroom by a huge setup of makeup and lotion, imagining how long Julie must take to get ready. The rooms are all decorated in the same minimalist, white-and-wood theme, all of them with the same bed frames and windows looking out into the darkness.

I beep into another set of suites and check every inch, tempted to steal designer purses and expensive watches. Hand hovering over a jewelry box, I consider my options, think about my plans for Ashley, and decide the diamond bracelet I stole off Julie’s wrist will suffice.

I work my way through the rest of the west wing, through a kitchen and a laundry room with four industrial washers and dryers, and then I’m in the hallway that connects to the central wing of the structure that houses the great room. There are two stories here, and I decide to start with the second floor, since the party is happening on the ground level. I find a high-ceilinged library, a computer room that looks like an Apple store, a number of guest rooms, and utilitarian spaces that are clearly for staff use: a commercial kitchen, a second identical laundry room, a few storage closets filled with linens, cleaning supplies, and household goods. I find a lounge room with a pool and poker tables and a movie theater that seats twenty. This house is absurd, and I’m getting frustrated. I was hoping Michael’s private quarters would be up here, but I still haven’t discovered where the boss sleeps.

I stand in a suite that smells like a woman’s expensive perfume and look out the window at the darkness. The central wing has a view out onto the ocean, and I imagine what it looks like during the day, an endless blue carpet, sparkling in the sun. Now, it’s dark-on-dark, its presence only hinted at by the faint reflection of the moon glimmering gray on its surface.

I’ve been counting the bedrooms. So far I’ve found twenty-eight. The bottom floor of this wing may have some other bedrooms, but judging from the layout, I believe it’s mostly dedicated to common spaces: the stadium-size great room, the kitchen, the indoor-outdoor covered patio in between.

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