CHAPTER 4
CHLOE
Chloe tugged on the hem of her dress. She’d raced back to her room for a lightning-fast shower, replacing her housekeeping outfit with a plain black dress. Her straight black hair was swept back off her face, which she’d made up in tasteful nude shades.
In short, she looked like any of the half-a-dozen waitresses employed at the resort. Now she just had to…
To do what? Lurk around dark corners, hoping Nora doesn’t notice you and send you packing back to the mainland for stepping out of line?
Chloe shook herself. Okay, so she didn’t have a plan, but she could make it up as she went along. She was good at that. Look like you belong here, and most people won’t even question it.
And if they did, she could always baffle them into letting her run away. Her friends called it her “Jedi mind trick”, which made it sound a lot fancier than what it was: babble at people to distract and annoy them, and then scram.
For something so stupid, it worked better than it should.
And even if it was all she had going for her, she had to do this. The need to act was a driving force inside her. She needed to do something.
It had always been like this. Like something inside her was fighting to get out. It made her heart pump and her muscles twitch, and once it started, she needed to direct it somewhere or she’d end up going stir-crazy.
Exercise helped. Playing sports helped. But nothing helped as much as setting her mind on one project and seeing it through. And the best projects were the ones that helped other people. Fundraising drives, coaching kids’ teams… or investigating claims of animal cruelty.
Chloe had long ago given up trying to figure out what it was that made her fixate on things like this. One of her therapists had told her it was probably because of her parents dying, but the restless energy had been inside Chloe ever since she could remember. Long before she lost her family.
She clenched her fists, the need to do something thrumming inside her. Patience. I’ll get there. Just have to figure out the lay of the land first.
She walked slowly down the hallway, trying to look as though wasn’t meant to be hiding herself away in the staff quarters. Her heels clacked on the polished marble floor. She knew exactly where she was going: the tower at the far end of the building.
The resort had two towers, one on either end of the manor-house-like main building. Until now, they’d both been mysteries to Chloe. Like the “entertainers’” block, they’d been off-limits during her training. Tonight, though, she was determined to explore at least one of them.
The doors into the northernmost tower on every level had been locked firmly ever since Chloe arrived on the island but tonight they were open, welcoming in Gerald Harper’s guests.
An itchy, prickling excitement made all the hairs on Chloe’s arms stand on end. If Gerald Harper was hosting some sort of sick dogfighting ring for the wealthy, this must be where the fights were held.
A small group of people came into view as Chloe rounded a corner and she caught her breath, springing back out of sight. Scraps of conversation reached her and she froze, straining her ears to hear more. What she did hear was almost painfully bland. Compliments on the dinner and wine. Compliments on the décor. Quiet excitement for the entertainment ahead.
Thandie was flitting around the group like a little bird, offering flutes of champagne. Chloe crept up as the group moved through the tower door, trying to catch a glimpse of the room beyond.
The doors swung shut. Damn it.
Chloe lingered where she was for a few moments, then gathered her nerves and darted forward. The doors were heavy, solid wood, and although she could tell people were talking on the other side she couldn’t make out any words.
She knelt in front of the door, pressing her ear to the keyhole. A deep male voice cut through the others, who fell silent. Chloe cursed under her breath. She still couldn’t tell what anyone was saying.
She pressed one hand to the bodice of her dress, where she’d hidden a tiny micro-recorder. She’d felt stupid when she ordered it online, but if there was anything dodgy going on behind those doors, she needed to record it to have proof.
Unfortunately, it seemed like she’d lost her chance.
I could record this door, she thought glumly. Real damning footage that would be.
Irritation made her throat scratchy. Something was happening on the other side of the door. And not just canapés and champagne. Chloe was sure of it.
She just couldn’t get to it.
She stood up. Kneeling with her ear against the door wasn’t achieving anything. All she would gain by staying there was increasing the chance someone would walk by and see her. She sighed. Maybe if she checked out some of the entrances to the tower on other levels, she might have more luck finding an unlocked door…
She had only taken a handful of steps when the huge doors swung open again. Chloe spun around and saw Thandie sprinting out of the room, her eyes wide. She crashed into Chloe, sending them both to the floor.
Chloe rolled onto her knees and grabbed Thandie by the shoulders, steadying her. Thandie grabbed back, clinging to Chloe and almost pulling her over again. Her eyes were huge, the whites visible all the way around her dark irises. A hubbub of voices—and laughter—tumbled after her out of the room.
“Are you okay?” Chloe stammered, shocked.
Thandie caught her breath. “I—” She froze. Chloe looked up over her shoulder to see Julian stalking towards them, his expression severe.
“What are you doing out here?” he snapped, eyes flashing. Then he turned on Thandie. “Get up, and stop being so melodramatic. You’re embarrassing yourself and your employer.”
Thandie clambered to her feet, holding on to Chloe for balance. Chloe rose with her, wincing as her butt complained about being fallen on.
“You never told me they would all be—” she began, and then her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes swiveled around to Chloe.
The hairs on the back of Chloe’s neck rose. Some understanding seemed to pass between Thandie and Julian, and then Thandie stepped away from Chloe, letting go of her arms.
“I’m not going back in there,” she said sullenly, sticking out her jaw. “I don’t care if you fire me. I’ll do dinner service, sure, but I’m not going in there during the fights.”
The fights? Chloe tried to keep her expression neutral as a thrill of excitement rushed through her. Her source had been right, after all. Harper was running some sort of animal fighting ring here.
“Fine. Go back to your quarters, and we’ll discuss your continued employment in the morning,” Julian snapped. His eyes flashed toward Chloe. “You—do you have any experience with bar work?”
“Sure,” Chloe said quickly. “Three years behind the bar of a cocktail lounge during college.” Or at least, making cocktails in my living room. I’m sure that counts.
Julian sighed. “That will have to do. Tidy yourself up and follow me.”
To Chloe’s surprise, Thandie helped her smooth back her hair and brush herself down.
“Do you… how much do you know about Harper and that lot?” Thandie muttered in an undertone to Chloe.
Chloe raised her eyebrows. “I…” Her mind raced, and the restless energy inside her surged. Bluff. Always bluff. “Like, enough, I’m pretty sure?”
Thandie nodded, but she still looked worried. “All right. I believe you. I’ll stay up until you get off shift, okay? Because I’m guessing we will have a lot to talk about.” She gave Chloe a quick hug and darted off down the corridor.
Chloe looked after her, blinking. What was that all about? she wondered. But she didn’t have long to think. Julian grabbed her by the elbow and stalked back into the room.
Chloe fussed with the neckline of her dress as she scurried to keep up with his pace. The beaded collar was the perfect hiding place for her spy camera and she activated it as they slipped through the door.
“There. Drinks, glasses. Make sure everyone has one of the second, filled with their choice of the first.”
Chloe pulled her elbow free of Julian’s grip and fought the impulse to roll her eyes. “Aye aye, sir,” she said, slapping a customer service smile on her face.
Julian just glared at her. “Don’t mess this up,” he muttered, and strode away.
“I’m not intending to,” Chloe told his back. And she wasn’t. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. There was no way she was going to mess it up.
She busied herself at the bar, her eyes flitting around the room. She didn’t recognize any of Gerald Harper’s guests; hell, she only recognized him because of the research she’d done before applying for the job.
The guests were about evenly split between men and women, none of them under forty and all of them clearly wealthy. Diamonds glittered at the women’s ears and necks, and the men were all wearing tailored suits.
None of them paid her any attention at all.
Armed with a platter of fizzing champagne flutes, Chloe slipped into the crowd. She might as well have been invisible, although the visitors clearly thought her platter of drinks was worthy of attention. She made her way slowly around the room, turning so that her video could take panning shots of the whole space and its occupants.
Not that she knew what she was trying to record, yet. The room was smaller than she had expected given the diameter of the “tower”. It was long and narrow, wrapped around the edge of the hexagonal space. The décor was the same extravagant not-quite-elegance Chloe was familiar with from the rest of the resort.
There were two things that really caught her attention. One was the window that ran the length of the inside wall. The glass was black, whatever it looked out on hidden in darkness.
The other was the smell.
Chloe tried to keep her sniffing discreet. Eventually she had to accept that the smell was coming from Harper’s guests.
What is it? she wondered, half appalled, half intrigued. It was kind of… musty. Almost an animal smell, like a den or—she stopped herself from wrinkling her nose—like an old doghouse that hadn’t been cleaned out in years.
It couldn’t be the room. It had to be them. But… Seriously? Chloe thought. This is the big secret? A weekend getaway for the stinky stinking rich?
The woman next to her held out her empty glass, and Chloe raised her platter to take it. As she did so, a waft of the strange smell hit her nostrils. It’s not that unpleasant, she thought. Just… odd.
The man she’d pegged as Gerald Harper walked to the darkened window and tapped his glass with one finger, calling everyone’s attention. Chloe slipped to the back of the crowd. The hairs on the back of her neck were prickling. Something was going to happen, she knew it. But what?
“Friends old and new, thank you for joining me at my little home this weekend,” he began, smiling beatifically around the room.
One of the other men replied with a joke, and the whole room tittered approvingly. Chloe couldn’t help but notice how the guests’ eyes kept sliding sideways, as though they were sizing each other up.
“I’m pleased to announce we have a new contender tonight, whom some of you met on the way over. I found Matt Dell in a little club outside of Los Angeles—far below his particular talents, of course.” More tittering. This time, Chloe didn’t get the joke.
Harper clapped his hands together. “Well, enough from me! You’ve all made your bets with Julian already? Excellent. Then, with no further ado…”
He motioned towards the darkened window. Lights flared on behind it, illuminating an open space that extended down below the floor of the room they were standing in.
Chloe craned her neck. She couldn’t step forward without attracting attention, unless—yes, that woman was eyeing her up for a refill. Chloe swooped in, dutifully replacing the woman’s empty glass and getting a glimpse at the room behind the window as she did so.
What she saw confirmed all her darkest suspicions. The floor, ten feet below the viewing room, was polished concrete to match the walls. There was a barred door on either side of the space, like the doors to a cage. Bright spotlights burned down on the arena.
Chloe’s stomach twisted. She knew what she was getting herself into, following a tipoff about animal cruelty. But could she stand to watch it?
She had to. Or at least, she had to stand here, facing it. Her little spy-cam wouldn’t be any good if she was bent over in the back corner, spewing her guts out.
Julian was watching her. She smiled blandly at him, and then retreated to the edge of the crowd, where she would be out of the way but still able to see down into the fighting arena. The guests were settling into plush white leather sofas arranged around the window. Some of them lolled back, feigning boredom, but most of them didn’t bother hiding their excitement. The air was electric with anticipation.
Suddenly, the cage doors swung open. Chloe’s eyes widened as she saw two men walk into the arena. She looked past them into the shadows beyond the open doors, wondering if they were leading the animals out to fight, but the doors swung shut, leaving only the two men in the ring.
Is all this just some actual Fight Club bullshit? she wondered, disgusted and disappointed.
The men looked like fighters, heavily muscled and with their hair clipped short. One of them had darker hair and three fierce scars running down his face like claw-marks. The other looked younger, maybe in his late twenties, and his close-cropped hair was blond. Even from this distance Chloe could see his eyes flash as he sized up his opponent. His irises were a strange, pale tawny color that intrigued her. Almost gold.
Something fluttered inside her that had nothing to do with nerves.
Harper spoke into a microphone at the side of the window, and both men looked up at their audience. The dark-haired one saluted; the blond one covered his eyes, staring up through the bright glare from the spotlights.
An alarm sounded, and the dark-haired man threw himself toward the blond. Halfway through the leap his body twisted, and changed.
Chloe blinked. Was she seeing what she thought she was seeing? The man wasn’t just contorting his body—he was transforming.
Chloe didn’t dare to even blink. This can’t be real.
But she had to believe the evidence of her eyes. By the time the dark-haired fighter struck the other man, he had transformed into a giant grey wolf.
Chloe couldn’t keep a gasp from escaping her lips. The blond man buckled under the weight of the wolf. The creature’s fangs were white and sharp, and she wished she could tear her eyes away before the inevitable slaughter. She whimpered in empathy as the wolf tore a strip from the man’s shoulder.
Then her eyes widened further as the blond man, too, began to transform. It happened in the space between one heartbeat and the next: one moment he was a man, falling to his knees and bleeding from his wound, and the next he was an enormous lion, flinging the wolf against the wall with one stroke of his massive paw.
Chloe became aware of a jingling, tinkling sound. She was shaking—and the trembling extended to the hand she was holding the drinks tray with. She took a deep breath and tried to still herself, but not before the noise had attracted attention from within the viewing room.
Gerald Harper spoke suddenly from just behind her shoulder and Chloe almost dropped the tray completely. She hadn’t even seen him get out of his seat.
“You’re one of the new girls, aren’t you? Not what you were expecting?”
Chloe mind stuttered as her heart hammered in her chest. Lie. Make something up. For God’s sake don’t let them know you had no idea what you were getting into.
She started to speak, choked, and gulped. “I, er. I wasn’t expecting it to be so—” Her brain stalled. What the hell, Jedi mind trick? Don’t fail me now! “So… fast?”
Harper chuckled, a noise that sent shivers down Chloe’s spine. “They have to be fast, sweetheart. I’m not paying them to make daisy-chains.” His voice changed. “And I’m not paying you to stand around gawking.”
Chloe flushed and returned to the bar. Harper ignored her, but she felt Julian’s eyes on her as she pulled another bottle of champagne from the ice bucket. She moved as though she was in a dream. But, even dreaming, she made sure to direct her spy-cam at the action below when she returned to refresh the audience’s drinks.
She’d come here expecting to find an illegal animal fighting ring. Instead, she’d stumbled on—what? The existence of magic? Werewolves? A whole hidden society of people who could turn into animals?
This was the scoop of a lifetime. And with no connection to the outside world, she had no way of getting it off the island.