Page 10 of Lair

“Y-Yes,” I manage, shrinking into myself.

“Excellent.” Mrs. Colding unclips a crew radio from her hip and simpers into it. “Miss Digby, could you meet us in the library, please?”

“Right away, Mrs. Colding,” a voice crackles back.

Mrs. Colding and I stare at each other, and in what seems like the blink of an eye we’re joined by a fiercely cute girl my age, blonde hair in a ponytail and a bit out of breath. “Yes, Mrs. Colding?”

Mrs. Colding’s eyes never leave me. “Miss Digby. Could you show Miss Strand here the cabin you’ll be sharing so she can change into her new uniform?” And those black eyes crinkle mirthlessly. “Miss Strand is ready to work.”

FIVE

I follow in a daze through a sparkling galley, past rows of meat lockers and down a winding staircase to a tiny, underlit cabin with a bunkbed and a shower that looks smaller than a broom closet. So, this is where the slaves are kept.

The stewardess is eyeing me with a grin. “Got it full-bore from the old witch, huh?”

“Jesus, I thought I was gonna throw up,” I say, and my new bunkmate laughs. “What happened? Someone strangle her lover and dump him overboard?”

“Search me,” says my bunkmate, lips quirked. “The bets are still going. I’ve been first stew on the Lair for three years now and I still don’t have a clue. But don’t worry—you’ll do fine.” She holds out a hand. “I’m Dorothea, by the way. But you can call me Thea.”

“Aurora. But you can call me Arie.”

We grin at each other.

“So. What’d you think of Jason?”

Once in my new black skirt and short-sleeved white dress shirt, a crew radio clipped to my hip, I begin detailing the VIP suites with Thea. We come prepared, bringing cleaning caddies stocked to the brim with glass cleaner, bath cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, Formula 409, diluted Murphy’s Oil Soap, scrub brushes, sponges, leather chamois, feather dusters, Q-tips. I’m wearing yellow latex gloves and scrubbing grout out of floor tiles with a toothbrush when Thea begins laughing. “This what you thought you were getting yourself into?” she snorts.

“Har har,” I say, and we both grin. “So, what’s the deal with Voper and Mrs. Colding? Only her cleaning his cabin...?”

Thea shrugs. “It’s always been like that.”

“She in love with him or something?”

Thea barks a laugh. “Now that’s an idea.”

“Old spinster.”

Thea makes an equivocating noise. “Think what you want, but Mrs. Colding is unmarried because nobody is good enough for Mrs. Colding. She’ll probably live happily ever after by herself.”

I think on that one. “And where’s Mr. Voper hiding? He only come out at night or something?”

Thea scrubs with her own toothbrush around the toilet. “Oh, he’s not here yet. Picking up some playthings on the mainland. He’ll probably arrive later tonight—he likes to make an entrance.” Her toothbrush slows, and I frown at her.

“That bad, huh?”

She shrugs. “I’d... be careful.”

I sit back and arm the sweat from my brow. “What’s he like?”

Thea sits back, too. “He’s... particular.”

“As in?”

She looks at me. “As in, be what he wants you to be.”

Hours pass. Light leaches away into a brooding dusk of cool blues—and still no word on Voper’s arrival. When I travel from the main deck to the bridge deck, lugging my caddy, the deckhands are prowling about in their epauletted dress whites, idly wiping at the railings with their chamois and fluffing deck pillows. The yacht is spotless.

Such stillness. The lights of Monte Carlo have begun to wink on, preparing for night, a glowing, golden constellation set back amongst the hills. As if in answer, the Lair’s exterior lighting systems pulse on, and I look over the side to see a deep, lurid red radiating from every deck and into the water around the hull, lighting up the dark harbor with a bloody fire.

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