Page 101 of Slumming It
Now that I knew her better, the story was sounding a lot more plausible. Even so, I couldn’t resist teasing her. "Sure,Ibelieve you."
"Well, you should," she said. "I wasn't lying, even iftheywere."
I wasn't following. "Who?"
"Morgan and Nikki – that's who supposedly planted the device. But last night at the club, they were bragging that it was all just a big joke – onme, not you, in case you were wondering."
"What kind of joke?"
"Therewasno device." Emily's eyes searched my face. "Is that why you moved out of our hotel?"
"Ididn'tmove out, remember?"
"Okay, you haven't checked out or anything, but you're not staying there anymore. Was it because of that?"
It was because of a lot of reasons, including last night's payback."Well, it didn't help."
Emily gave a weary sigh. "Yeah, I know. I mean, I'm not stupid. Idorealize our place isn't as nice as the Diamond Resort. So isthatwhy you moved?"
"You want the truth?"
Emily nodded.
With a smile, I offered up a couple of truths that I didn't mind sharing. "I'm a spoiled bastard.AndI needed a place with an office."
"So…you'll be checking out ofourplace?"
"Nope. And you wanna know why?"
"Why?"
"Because I never checked in."
When she gave me a puzzled look, I said, "That was Buddy Reed, remember?"
She laughed. "You mean that stupid fake name?"
"Fake or not, Buddy's staying. And trust me, he won't be wanting a refund."
She smiled with obvious relief. "Then I guess we're lucky that Buddy's a nice guy, huh?"
Lucky?That was debatable.
MaybeBuddywas a nice guy, butIwasn't.
Ihadwarned her, right?
I might've warned her again, except Emily's voice interrupted the thought. "Speaking of hotels..." She pointed to the hotel in question, coming up quickly on our right. "There we are."
I was surprised to see it. Yeah, I knew where the hotel was, but thanks to Emily, I had lost track of not only the time, but also of the place. During the past few minutes, I'd been driving on auto-pilot, lost in our conversation.
When was the last timethishad happened?
Oh, yeah.Never.
As I pulled into the parking lot, Emily pointed to a small white pickup parked on the far side of the lot. With a little frown, she said, "That's Vivian's truck, so I guess she's here, not at home."
"And that's a problem?"
