I wake up facedown, naked.
I know that it’s 5:29 without checking the alarm next to me because my body operates like clockwork and I’ve been waking up at the same time for the past ten years straight. Hell, maybe longer. I lift up onto one elbow and take a hold of the alarm on the bedside table, turning it off from the bottom, knowing that when I get home from the site tonight I’ll be switching it right back on. It’s an unnecessary precaution to make sure that I’m never off-schedule, and I’ve had it since the first day that I started my company. Needless or not, I’ve kept it going.
I place the clock back onto the dresser and I roll heavily onto my back. I lift an arm to drag a hand down my face and the sheets fall and crumple halfway down my abs. I rest both of my forearms behind my head for a good minute, allowing my body to reacclimatise to the fact that there’s no one in the bed next to me, no one is going to appear in the bed next to me, and therefore I need to cool it right down.
I give it two minutes.
It doesn’t cooperate.
Fine, I think to myself, steeling my jaw and squeezing my eyes shut.
I’ll just go about my morning hard as nails.
I pull on a pair of joggers and go downstairs to make a quick breakfast, glancing at my cell that I’d left out on the kitchen counter the second that I came in yesterday evening. There’s a missed call from my kid’s landline, but that’s no worries because I already rang him on my landline last night, even though I hadn’t known that he’d tried calling already. And then there’s a text from my brother, Jason.
It reads: It’s all yours.
Yesterday was the last day that I’d be working with Jace and his recon guys on the Pine Hills gig, and from here on out it’s going to be just me and the joinery team. We’ve spent the whole summer doing the place up – there’s not one piece of panelling on that site that hasn’t been lifted, drilled, and polished by my own two hands, and I’m happy as hell that half the job is already done. Now we’re down to the big interior pieces: cabinets, bed-frames, headboards. Heavy shit that has to be treated with care because the human eye is drawn to minute flaws. I could spend weeks making one piece picture perfect but if it’s one millimetre out everyone’s going to notice.
I pop up my toast, paste on the spread, and then I finish it off in a couple of bites. I’m on my way upstairs in under two minutes so that I can take a shower, pull on my uniform, and get back to work.
I slip the tongue of my belt through the metal buckle one-handed as I dismount the stairs, chucking on my boots and then grabbing a waterproof as I exit the front door. By the time that I’m in my truck I’ve already got my cell dialling my brother on speakerphone, and I’m off the driveway before it even connects.
“You know that today’s my first day off all year, right?” His voice comes through the line deep and scratchy. Someone just woke up.
I almost snicker. “I’m heading to the site right now. Just ringing about that text you sent.”
We aren’t texters, so I know he’s baiting me with something.
“Aw man,” he groans, the line crackling as he moves the cell from one hand to the other. Jace lives even further away from Pine Hills than I do. In fact, his place is so distant from most of civilisation that our phone calls exclusively sound like they’re coming from the bottom of the Atlantic.
I indicate at the junction, waiting for him to get to it.
“You won’t believe me even if I tell you,” he says. There’s a tinge of disbelief in his voice that makes my eyes narrow.
“What is it?”
He blows out a breath and, after a few beats, a coffee machine whirs nearby. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
I grimace and ease my foot back down on the pedal. “You’re spoiling me,” I deadpan. “Is there something at the site? Don’t tell me they sent twenty batches of the wrong wood polish again or I swear to God I will lose my fucking shit.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he mumbles, still half asleep. “But, like, you’re fucking welcome in advance for the warning. I don’t wanna pre-empt you too hard but, seriously, you’re either gonna be livid or, like…” He searches for a word. “Euphoric.”
“You call this a warning? You are one cryptic shit.” Doesn’t matter that he’s in his thirties. Once a little brother, always a little brother.
I can sense that I’m not about to get more out of him and I don’t like talking on my cell whilst I’m driving so I punch the end call button and then flip the phone over when I reach the next red light. If I catch a single glimpse of Jace texting me something cagey I’m going to shot-put the thing out of my goddamn window.
No more distractions.
The drive is smooth-sailing the whole way up to the foothills. It’s overcast but it isn’t raining yet and we should have at least a few weeks before it gets Phoenix-Falls-torrential. I catch glimpses of the newly spruced cabins before I take the final turn in and I can see from here that the wood is still good and dry. Ideal paint and polish conditions. I make a mental note to bump that up the agenda.
It’s only when I’m finally pulling into the site that the curiosity piqued by Jace resurfaces to the forefront of my mind.
Euphoric? Big word for 5:45 in the morning.
There’s only one thing that could get a guy feeling euphoric at the crack of dawn.
I put the car in park and sit back, folding my arms across my chest as I scan the site. There are no other cars here. Not gonna lie, that kind of puts my theory to bed.
I could’ve sworn that the only reason my brother would be acting scrambled would be due to a woman, but I can see clear as day that there isn’t a single piece of timber out of place. No new vehicles in the dirt. I lean back to check if the cub’s in use, but even those blinds are drawn.
Maybe someone is coming but they aren’t here yet. Like the person who owns Pine Hills, something Ray. But that doesn’t exactly align with Jace’s attitude – the guy sounded stoked.
I re-grip the steering wheel, tapping at it with my thumbs, and I try to think over if I’ve forgotten something. My day-to-day schedule has been solely physical lately so I haven’t had much time for mulling and contemplation. I wrack my brain and try to work it backwards but all that I want to think about is the task at hand. Working the Pine Hills gig is a huge deal for us – the contract is heavy and, if we pull it off, I know that the owners have at least five more locations like this one that I want my name all over. It’s heavy lifting followed by a heavy payslip. Sign me the fuck up.
I click open my door and step down into the dirt, the gravel crunching under my boots as I work my way around to the back of the truck. I throw back the tarp on the bed and start unloading the equipment I don’t keep on the site overnight, hauling my toolbox under one arm and gripping my fist around the larger gear. I use my free hand to get the key to the office from the front of my pants, shifting the toolbox a little higher against my side to stop it slipping as I unlock the door. Once it’s open I head straight to the desk and put the pieces of kit down, ready to retrieve the rest, when my eyes suddenly catch on the board on the back wall and a frown forms on my brow.
Huh. That can’t be right.
I move around to the back of the desk, leaning against the edge of it and folding my arms across my body as I look at the two empty key hooks. Bungalow A and Bungalow B. Not one key to spare. I scan my eyes across the rest of the pegs, wondering if they’ve gotten mixed in with one of the cabins, but it doesn’t look like any of the other hooks have been touched. I look down at the silver o-ring that I’d wedged down my pointer finger, a series of too many keys dangling from it, and I let out a gruff sound whilst I appraise them. Good job I’ve got duplicates of my own otherwise that would be a pain in the ass. I’ll have to get a couple spares made from the ones I’ve got but that’s a job that can wait until the end of the day. It’s not crucial at this second.
But what is crucial at this second is why the hell someone’s taken the keys to those bungalows from my goddamn office.
I roll my neck and then stand straight, heading for the door with a new destination in mind.
I’ll get the rest of my gear from the truck after I’ve checked out the bungalows. I can’t think why any one of the guys would have taken them, especially seeing as half the crew just finished up on this gig. When Jace and I signed this project the owner originally suggested that we take up an on-site residence whilst leading the renovation, but we’d declined because we live close enough to drive back and forth each day. And no-one really wants to be living at their office twenty-four-seven, even if they’re technically on site around eighteen-five.
Would Jason have taken the keys? Seems unlikely. The more plausible answer is that he did a last-minute check of the site before he left and forgot to bring the keys back to the cub.
Unless it wasn’t a member of the crew.
My steps get a little heavier, a little faster, as I contemplate that we might have a squatter on the site. An offender. Teenagers messing around.
I shake my head. Not on my site.
I work my way down past the vacation cabins, eyeing them all briefly to check that everything is still the way I left it, and then I finally reach the clearing path that leads to the elongated double-bungalow, the stopover spot for the family that owns the place. There’s a small garden at the front of each, with currently-bare flowerbed trims to make them homey. I neaten up the edge of one with the toe of my boot as I step up to the door that used to be labelled ‘A’. I stop briefly just outside and I hold still, checking if I can hear anything. Maybe I would be able to if we hadn’t just fitted the best double-glazing in the freaking country.
I lean back so that I can see all of the front windows. Curtains are still drawn. So far, so good.
Then I grip the door handle, pause for a moment, and tug.
No give. Jace must have locked up.
Unless it wasn’t him.
The thought comes like an itch that I have to scratch and there’s no way now that I can’t check, just to make sure. I flip through my keys until I come to the one with the words Bungalow A taped to it and I slot it straight through the lock with no hesitation. Twist, tug. I’m in.
The bungalows are laid out in mirrored floor-plans, so where Bungalow A opens straight into the small living-dining-kitchen space with a bathroom at the back and the bedroom to the left, Bungalow B is the reflecting opposite. They’re technically one-story with the exception of the balconies. A stairwell at the back of the kitchen leads to a square door panel in the ceiling, opening up onto the roof that’s bordered in to keep it safe.
Being separate entities from the holiday cabins we’ve left the bungalows in pretty much their original form, but we did clear out some of the old furnishings with the intentions of sprucing them up when we re-kit the vacation properties. Right now the dining space is without tables or chairs, although we made sure to keep those fridges on hand for the crew’s food. My eyes flick across the empty space, feeling like something is wrong. There’s nothing out of place but something feels a little… different. Warmer. Steamy? My frown deepens as I decide to breach the threshold.
Why the hell is it so warm? I’ll check the bedroom and then I’m out of here. No point getting paranoid about some missing keys when they could have been taken for any number of reasons, justified or otherwise.
I’ve just about talked myself down from thinking that something’s amiss when my body finally reaches the bedroom doorframe. My breathing halts when I see what’s on the quilt. The used quilt. A quilt that’s crumpled and fluffed up, like it’s been tossing and turning all night.
But the quilt isn’t the problem here.
If this is a joke from one of my men, someone’s ass is getting fired today. I take a step closer to the slinky red lingerie set laid delicately on the bed and my neck gets hot, my jaw suddenly setting hard.
See-through lace cups supported by two slinky ribbon straps and – Jesus – a pair of red panties, with barely enough fabric to cover an inch of skin.
I roll my shoulders and try to settle my heaving chest.
This is the most unprofessional shit that I’ve seen in the past fucking decade. My hands are twitching by my sides as I try to work out which of my men would be stupid enough to do this.
They’re solid guys, or so I’d thought. I can’t imagine any of them pulling a prank like this.
Lingerie? Fucking lingerie?
I hear a soft gasp behind me.
Then all hell breaks loose.
