Page 70 of Vacation Friends

Maddie rolled onto her back and kept her eyes open, watching the interaction, wanting to know the answers to those questions herself.

“I don’t know.” Josh rocked back, resting on his palms as he took in shallow breaths. “She leaned against the railing, and the next thing I knew, she was falling.”

Brody stood. Hands on his hips, he paced the balcony.

Maddie watched him from her position on the floor.

Brody paused from his pacing and peered at the wall where the railing had been bolted to it. “I don’t see any signs of damage.”

“Is it rusty or something?” Josh asked.

Brody continued to examine the wall, his gaze darkening. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“I need to call the manager,” Josh muttered. “He needs to know what happened.”

“I’d say so, especially if this might be a risk for other people as well,” Brody agreed.

Maddie listened to the two men talk. But deep inside, she knew this wasn’t a maintenance problem.

Someone had done this on purpose.

For the sole purpose of hurting someone . . . either her or Josh.

Five minutes later, the hotel manager was in the room, along with the head of maintenance and Adrienne, who’d run from her room and had been let inside Josh’s suite. She hadn’t tried to scale the wall between their balconies like Brody had.

Josh put a blanket around Maddie’s shoulders as she sat on the bed. Even though Maddie wasn’t cold, she couldn’t stop shaking.

Adrienne sat beside her with an arm around Maddie’s shoulders.

Maddie watched as the manager—a balding, fifty-something Kauai native named Harris Toler—examined the balcony along with the head of maintenance. Josh stood close by observing everything, as did Brody.

“I can’t believe this happened,” Maddie quietly told Adrienne. She wanted to keep her voice low in case someone on the balcony said something she needed to hear.

“Me either.” Adrienne shook her head. “How horrific.”

“I’m glad you guys were close,” Maddie whispered. “I’m not sure if Josh could have pulled me up on his own.”

“I had no idea we were neighbors. I guess we’ve been coming and going from our rooms at different times.”

Maddie nodded, exhaustion overtaking her as her adrenaline faded. “I guess so.”

“It looks like the bolts have been loosened,” the head of maintenance said.

She pulled herself upright.

The bolts had been loosened? Then Maddie’s theory was probably right. Someone had done this on purpose.

Except this wasn’t her room. So had someone done this in hopes of hurting Josh?

“I was out on the balcony earlier, and the railing seemed fine,” Josh muttered. “I didn’t lean against it or anything, but it seems like I would have noticed if it was loose.”

Maddie hardly heard him.

Instead, her thoughts churned. Maybe Josh was the target all along—except she wasn’t sure how much sense that made. In fact, maybe she was reading entirely too much into this. Maybe these were all accidents, crazy coincidences.

Deep inside, she knew that wasn’t true, however.

Detective Kalani had said that Josh left his room on the night of Jared’s murder.

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