Page 62 of The Hacker
“Hey, I don’t blame you. He’s a long, tall drink of water.” Vicky was trying the girlfriends-exchanging-confidences-about-men tack now. Except they weren’t girlfriends. “I’d be interested in getting hot and heavy with him too, if I wasn’t in love with Ray.”
A sense of unease nagged at the back of Dawn’s mind. “It didn’t work out any way.”
“Yeah? Men are shits. Except Ray.” Vicky flicked at the air with her fingers and Dawn couldn’t stop herself from staring at the glittering leopard-spotted manicure. A tremor of fear ran through her.
“So are you still going to train him?” Vicky asked. “Or should I assign him someone new? Chad has some openings.”
“It, um, wasn’t exactly amicable, so I don’t think he’s coming back to the gym.”
“Shit! That’s why I don’t like trainers and clients socializing.”
Dawn gave Vicky an apologetic grimace. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.” She decided to go with Vicky’s pretense that they were friends and gave her a knife-edged smile. “Do me a favor ... don’t give him a refund if he asks. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Sure thing, hon.” Of course that would suit Vicky’s profit-driven little soul. “It sucks that you got burned.”
More than she had any idea of. “You said it. Men are shits.”
The other woman turned and swayed away on her silver heels. Vicky would have reprimanded anyone else who dared walk on the gym’s pristine wood floor in stilettos, but the owner’s wife had special privileges.
Dawn slumped onto the cushioned weight bench, elbows braced on her knees. She mentally reviewed her date with Leland at Carmella’s. There’d been a hell of a lot of sexual tension and she’d fed him one bite of antipasto from her fingers, but no one could call that hot and heavy.
Cold shivers walked down her spine as she realized that there must be a security camera somewhere in the gym’s basement. That’s how Vicky knew they’d been sexually involved. She’d seen them down there.
A hot flush of embarrassment rose in her cheeks. God, she hoped the camera was in the hallway and not in the storage room itself. She sure didn’t want that video posted on Twitter.
However, there was nothing suspicious about having sex with your client in the basement storeroom. In fact, it might have worked in their favor, since it gave them a valid reason to be spending extra time together.
But why would there be security cameras in the basement hallway? There hadn’t been in the past. That’s why the trainers used it for the occasional tryst. The two basement exit doors were alarmed, but those were the only security measures known to the staff.
There was no reason for subterranean cameras because there was nothing of value down there. Just some basic storage for cleaning supplies, cases of water, and worthless old athletic fixtures. Plus all the systems that ran the gym: HVAC, the pool’s filtering equipment, electric panels, and plumbing. Given the dimensions of the gym above it, Dawn figured the basement encompassed a lot of space that she’d had no desire to explore, since it seemed exactly the kind of creepy place that might trigger her.
All that space that no one ever went into.
The perfect place to store lots and lots of guns.
She stared down at the wood floor between her feet, as though she would be able to see what lay underneath it. Had Tully, with his FBI training, already thought of this possibility? Is that why he had wanted a layout of the gym?
Another chill shuddered through her as she pictured crates filled with pistols, rifles, and submachine guns piled below the soles of her sneakers, waiting to be sold into the hands of drug dealers and other bad guys who wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
Whether Tully had thought of it or not, she should tell him about the security camera. Although explaining why she knew about it would be embarrassing.
Except he’d told her not to contact KRG, Leland, or him unless it was an emergency. She had a suspicion that he’d said that to keep her from trying to participate in the investigation. For her own safety. She got that.
She stood up and paced across the weight room to see if the fridge was fully loaded with water bottles. It was and she muttered a curse word. No excuse to go down to the basement to bring up a case to restock it. She just wanted to see if she could find the security camera that had caught Leland’s and her visit belowground. Nothing more.
She was definitelynotgoing to look for clues that would show recent illegal activity. That would be stupid.
But she would check back on the fridge later in the day.
At two o’clock, Dawn shrugged into a sweatshirt and headed for the front door. She needed to get away from the cloud of malevolence that now seemed to permeate the gym, at least in her imagination. As she passed the front desk, she said to the daytime receptionist, “I’m going to grab a salad at Eat Healthy. You want anything?”
“No, I’m good, but I’ve got a package for you.” The young woman disappeared below the desk and came up with a medium-size cardboard carton, which she set on the glass top.
“For me?” Dawn frowned in perplexity. Sure enough, the carton had her name and the gym’s address on it but no return address and no visible postage. “How did it get here?”
“Some guy from a delivery service brought it in. Said to make sure you got it as soon as possible.” The receptionist shrugged apologetically. “You were with clients all morning and I know I’m not supposed to interrupt.”
“That’s fine. You did the right thing.” Dawn decided to take the box back to her apartment to open it since she didn’t know what it contained. A crazy thought struck her.It couldn’t be a bomb, could it?
