Kill List (Special Ops #8) (2 page)

“Yuck,” she shook her head. “If that is the case then I am so glad I have bathroom and closet duty on this one.”

“Oh man. How do I get out here this time?”

“Because I took out there the last time and had to triple glove just to get all those used condoms up.”

Amber laughed. “Oh yeah. Well for you I hope the bathroom is not looking like a sexual hurricane went through it.”

“Oh man...” she mumbled as she took her bag into the bathroom area. There was a closet that attached to it and gave a second entrance and exit to the main hall of the room. She figured she would start in the bathroom and work her way back to meet Amber.

“Don’t sweat it,” she told herself. “You could be completely jobless and homeless. In New York homeless would totally suck, especially in the winter.” She was happy to see there wasn’t a stitch of condoms anywhere on the floor, walls, or other areas. Although whoever had this room had gotten some black powdery dust all over the sink and bath area. A little dust, provided it wasn’t toxic, was better than a lot of bodily fluids to clean up.

She shrugged. “Happiness is a choice, Olivia; choose it.” That is what her mother would always say to her. She would always tell her not to let the bad things in life break her. She would always tell her that happiness was a choice. No matter how bad things were she could choose to be happy. This, she looked around again, was definitely not what she planned for her life, but she could be happy; she would be happy.

She was working with her best friend, whose brother she had a serious crush on. The man would probably never look at her with a hint of desire. The last time she saw him he was nicely muscled, still had the longer hair because thanks to his heritage the government had afforded him with the “okay not to cut” blessing—not that he would have cut it anyway. From what Amber had told her, and what she had seen of him when she met him, he was strong willed like a warrior of the past. He would not be broken.

He was her kind of man, but he didn’t look at her twice by way of appreciating her smaller body, her nicely adorned figure that wasn’t slutty in any way imaginable. She was a classy dresser if she did say so herself. But even though she liked the nearly six-one hunk of a man he seemed to go for the blond haired blue eyed look.

She shrugged. Perhaps she would stay single forever. Single would be one less person to have to put into the grave one day, one less person to have to say goodbye to.

She cleaned up the bathroom and then looked into the closet, which was already perfectly kept with very few items of clothing in the way. The safe was there and she noticed, once again, how this room was a little different than the others. It was almost like the person working on putting this room together had installed it wrong and tossed up his or her hands in that so not ripping this sucker out now kind of thing. She couldn’t say for sure on the why, but she definitely could see the difference in the rooms. In this room there was a small space between the safe and the wall whereas the other rooms had the safe right up against the wall. She wondered why they deviated, but she didn’t have time to think about that. She had work to do. There were still other rooms to be cleaned. Getting reprimanded for not finishing all rooms on time would not be a perfect ending to an already gross encounters filled day.

She had to find another job, another path to follow, because there was no way she could spend the rest of her life triple gloving to pull used condoms off the wall, off the dresser, off the floor and out of bed sheets. There had even been one in the pillow case. No, this couldn’t be the next twenty, thirty, or at the rate of her current paycheck, forty years of her life. There had to be something better, something that could at least make her feel like she had a purpose and was making her parents proud. Her father wanted her to go back to school and while that wasn’t an option now that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to find work in another state.

She thought about her last job search and the not so nice reply that she was an under skilled sanitary worker. She was not a sanitary worker. She was the best maid this side of Texas. She laughed to herself. No, she wasn’t the best maid, but she wasn’t the worst either. Maybe if she had bigger breasts she could stop trying to use her brain and just show a little more cleavage, using her feminine wiles to get her way just like Amber had the corner on doing here. “Maybe I should ask her to use her finer assets and skills to get me transferred to a desk job,” she mumbled to herself before shaking her head and declining the not so sane portion of her brain’s idea for moving out of maid central. She was tired, but at least she had a job. There were a lot of people who didn’t have one at all.

She pushed aside her thoughts and put her mind on doing the best job she could. Amber had gotten her this position and she wouldn’t let her down. It’s not like middle aged frat boy mentality men were a staple at this luxury hotel. It’s not like she had to clean up condoms from the rooms on their cleaning section list. No, it could be worse. At least condoms weren’t drug needles. At least triple gloving provided protection whereas a glove or two, or even three, would not protect against a prick of a needle.

She took her kit back out to stack it on top of the cart. “I’m going to need the vacuum when you’re done.” She swiped her hand over her forehead, knocking a fallen strand of hair back in place.

“You know, I’ll get that. You’ve worked your butt off and this room has been so easy for me thus far.”

“Lucky you,” she sighed.

“I’m just lucky that way. Next room I’ll be sure to take the worst area and leave you with just crumpled sheets and vacuuming.”

“Uh huh,” she rolled her eyes playfully. “I left my Bosha Brush in the bathroom. I can’t clean the cracks without that,” she shook her head. “Are you almost done?”

“Yeah, I just have to get this case back where it was. I had to move it to vacuum properly.” She lifted the case and her hand must have hit the wrong button because the case popped open and folders and papers fell out.

“You want help putting that back?”

“Nah. I got it. You go get that brush before you forget it and then boss man will holler at both of us.”

“No, he’ll holler at me. The man wants you bad, Amber, and you know it.”

She giggled. “And I use it too. I’m getting us the Loving Day event off in June. I’m definitely going to find you a man.”

She laughed. “Focus on yourself.”

“I have two fighting over me and one about ready to give me the highest raise he can to get me. I don’t need a man. You do. You’re thirty-four now—”

“Five,” she corrected her. “I just turned thirty-five yesterday.”

“Oh crap! I forgot your birthday.”

She shrugged. “No big deal. I have to go get the brush and you need to clean that up.” She pointed to the mass of papers. She couldn’t make it out, but she thought she saw a picture or two, or more, inside the disheveled pile on the floor. She twisted her mouth to the side and narrowed her eyebrows inquisitively. Not that she should care. She was just the maid, but it was intriguing and if she were nosey she just might have a look. But she wasn’t nosey and it wasn’t right to rifle through his stuff. Besides, with pictures and paper maybe the guy was a reporter or something—but did reporters end up in posh rooms like this?—the ones that cost over a grand a night? No, no way was he a reporter. She contemplated the possible other professions, but hadn’t completely kicked reporter out. For all she knew he could have been working for one of those sleazy tabloid magazines and could have been given the top level hotel fare to get close to a story on somebody highly financially, politically, or celebrity important.

Her mind was still exploring ideas about the man whose room they had just cleaned. Judging from the suits in the closet he appeared to be well kept and fashionable, but judging from the mess in the bedroom and in the bathroom she was having a hard time thinking of him as a clean individual. No, she figured he kept those suits so perfect so he could blend in wherever he went without looking out of place.

She had gone back to get the brush and was nearly clearing the rounded corner when she saw Amber looking through the pictures. She was going to open her mouth and chastise her for not already having everything in the case, in a playful way that they could laugh about, until she saw the man with the gun pointed at the back of her head. It was as if in less than a breath she saw Amber fall to the floor. She hadn’t heard a shot, but she was not so naive that she didn’t know that man had just shot Amber in the back of the head. His gun had a silencer and she knew that; it was the only way the sound could be muffled.

There was red starting to pool on the floor but her eyes couldn’t focus. Her mind couldn’t string things together fast enough to answer the questions whirling in her mind. But when it came to fight or flight her brain was functional enough to know she had to choose flight. She had to hide. In her mind there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that the man would kill her too if he found her.

She hastily, yet quietly went back into the bathroom and then into the closet. She quietly closed the oak wood door behind her and then found a spot between the high safe and the wall. She sunk down thanking the heavens that she was short enough, and small enough, to fit and still be covered. There was no way she could get out of there right now. Trying to go the front way would run her into the killer, and going out the back exit might do the same since the hall she would exit in was definitely visible from the area where Amber had been working.

Tears stung her eyes as her breath seized in her chest. She was so afraid and trying desperately not to make a sound. If he didn’t know she was there maybe he wouldn’t look for her. But maybe he did know she was there. Maybe he knew they were two to a room cleanup in this hotel. No maid worked alone and it wasn’t because of safety issues, it was because of time issues. The deadline for cleaning all the rooms was insane, but that didn’t stop the higher ups from demanding it. God help the poor team that missed the mark because firing an employee for no real good reason wasn’t beneath the movers and shakers in this high class luxury hotel power circle.

She heard his footsteps on the gray stone floor of the bathroom. If only the rooms outside of the bathroom hadn’t been carpeted Amber would have heard him coming up behind her and she could have—what?—run? Yes, maybe she could have run or sprayed him with a bottle of cleaner. No, the cleaner wouldn’t really work. Everything was organic and plant based. Yuri, one of the other maids, had gotten a little in her eye and she said it hadn’t burned at all. She just rinsed it with water and saw the nurse after she finished her cleaning duties. Nurse Becket gave her a prescription for eye drops and Yuri had been fine. Seeing as though they didn’t walk around with defense weapons, and the cleaning solutions weren’t an option, Olivia realized that there wasn’t any possible way to survive this. If only that stupid case hadn’t fallen open. If only Amber had just put the folders and papers back faster. If only the last room hadn’t taken longer than usual they could have been out of there before that monster got back.

The door to the closet opened. She could see the light trickling in and she hoped that the light wasn’t somehow casting a shadow that would show she was in there. When the door closed she felt a hint of some relief that he didn’t know she was hiding there like a turtle drawing its head into its shell to avoid danger. Her actions were just as useless as the turtles because just like somebody could bash the turtle’s shell, break it and kill the creature, this man could still find her hiding and give her the same kind of end.

She could hear numbers being dialed which told her he was still in the bathroom. He hadn’t left, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave either. She had assumed he would have cleared out of there fast so he could get away with murder, but he wasn’t running away. He, and she couldn’t believe her ears, was making a phone call. He felt that safe with a dead body in his room that he could find the time to make a phone call?!

He hadn’t left which meant she couldn’t leave either. He would hear her leaving if she tried. He would see her crawling out to the main hallway so she could get to the room’s exit door. No, she had to wait. She had to stay hidden and pray—pray that he wouldn’t find her, and that he wouldn’t kill her too. Is this what her parents had felt?—this fear, this intense dread that life was going to end sooner than desired, sooner than necessary, sooner than it should have? She wondered if they knew the moment the train started to move and the trouble started to happen that they were going to die. Did they feel their heart racing while they prayed they could get to the next stop and get out alive?

“Mauris nigra,” he said. Then there was brief silence other than his footsteps clanking against the stone floor. “I have a kill in room 1422,” another short pause. “A maid. She got too nosey,” he said.

She had not gotten nosey. She was simply trying to put the paperwork back. But Olivia was not about to go out there and correct the killer who held the gun. Angry? Yes. Scared? Yes. Stupid? No. She was not stupidly going to walk out there and tell this murderer that Amber wasn’t nosey, that she wasn’t trying to pry into whatever business he had going on, that it was all an accident. She wouldn’t take a bullet for trying to assert the truth. She would just have to tell it to the cops. At some point she was going to get out of this room, call the cops and give a statement to help them put this guy in prison.

“Yeah. Get a couple officers over here to clean it up, dump her body somewhere else, and make this go away like you’re paid to do. I’m pulling out. My work isn’t done and I can’t afford to have this cover blown. Get rid of it.”