Page 10 of Just My Luck

“Sir, are you a guest here?” Big Joe’s rumble of a voice, louder than a boat engine, made the intruder startle.

He turned and gazed at them from behind enigmatic black sunglasses. He wore a dark button-down shirt tucked into belted dark pants, and looked like someone from a kung-fu movie. He held a phone in his hand, but smoothly tucked it into his pocket.

Suddenly she wished she’d called more than one security guard.

“My apologies,” said the man with a polite bow of his head. She recognized his accent as Japanese; many of their guests came from Japan. “I take photos for my boss. He wants to know security arrangements if he choose to come.”

“I’m on the security staff,” boomed Big Joe. “Next time just come to us. Come on now, time to go. Rules are rules.”

“Of course.” Again he bowed his head. Zara didn’t trust him at all, nor did she believe him. She’d dealt with other wealthy and security-conscious individuals who required a thorough breakdown of the resort’s security arrangements. Not once had someone shown up out of the blue and taken pictures.

Come to think of it, how had that happened? Had the guards at the entrance gate just let him in?

“Who do you work for?” she asked the intruder. “I’d be happy to discuss this with him or her. We’ve never had a security breakdown with any of our guests.”

“His name is Lincoln Kerr.”

A noise from outside the hale made them all look toward the window. She saw nothing but shrubbery out there. Were the kids hiding in the bushes? No sign of them inside so far.

“Did you say Lincoln Kerr?” she asked, to bring everyone’s attention back inside the hale.

Although the L’s and R’s in that name gave him some trouble, Zara knew who he was talking about. Lincoln Kerr was one of the billionaires involved in the luxury survival bunkers she’d been hearing about. He’d been in the news lately because his half-sister had staged a boardroom coup and ousted him from the top of his own company. No doubt he’d deserved the comeuppance.

“I think you have the wrong island,” she told the man in black. “That billionaire bunker is on Maui.”

“Not wrong island.” He shook his head. “He not call here yet?”

“Lincoln Kerr?” She started to shake her head no, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to give out any information about guests. Or non-guests, she supposed. “I couldn’t say,” she said primly.

“You’ve not seen him?”

These questions made no sense. If he was scouting security arrangements for his boss, why would he think she would have already seen the man? “It’s time for you to go. This hale is not available,” she said firmly. She cast a glance toward Big Joe, who put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest to emphasize her point.

The intruder didn’t look one bit intimidated. He strolled toward the door as if he had all the time in the world. The way he carried himself made it clear that he was in charge of this encounter, not them.

As he passed by her, Zara resisted the impulse to stick out a foot to trip him up. Even if he stumbled, he’d probably Ninja it into some Jedi move that wound up with him still standing and her plastered to the ceiling.

He slid into his dark sedan and started it up. She peered at the license plate, but it seemed to be some special kind of plate with no numbers. Maybe a diplomatic plate, or something else that exempted you from normal rules. A “numbers are for little people” kind of license plate.

“Phew.” She let out a breath as soon as the car rolled away from the hale. “Thanks for coming out here, Big Joe. That was…weird, to say the least.”

Big Joe put a finger to his lips. She froze. He tiptoed to the side window. Quietly, he eased it open, then reached one long arm out the window and into the shrubbery.

“Someone’s out here,” he called.

“Oh, that’s probably…” She clamped her mouth shut. Big Joe wasn’t on the very short list of people who knew she let her brother and sister hang out in the hales.

Anyway, it wasn’t Mia and Eddie, she quickly saw, as Big Joe dragged the skulker into view.

It was the gardener, Jim, and he looked absolutely furious.

“Let me go,” he ordered Big Joe from between gritted teeth. The big security guard had a solid hold on his shirt. His straw hat had gotten skewed to one side, giving him a drunk-and-disorderly appearance. “Zara, tell him I work here.”

“Don’t let him go,” she told Joe. “I have some questions for that dude.”

She ran out of the hale and around the side, to the spot where Jim was fighting to free himself from Big Joe’s grip. He held something in his hand, which he was maneuvering into position. Fearing it was a gun, she felt her heart race.

He pressed the trigger and blasted a stream of water against the open window and Big Joe on the other side. A hose, not a gun.