Her Instagram boasted the same photo of her—in a different bikini each time—on the beach, with her sun-bleached hair rippling in the wind. The link in her description led to the online store where she currently sold her designs. This site, too, was papered with pictures of Megan.
I returned to her Twitter feed and studied the timeline of events. She documented every minute change in her routine, from the moment she got dressed to the time she stepped on and off the plane.
Three days ago, she’d tweeted: Heading to Chicago for a business trip! Can’t believe True to You is interested in buying my designs. Wish me luck! An hour later, she’d posted a classic “view from the plane window” picture and labeled it Taking Off! That evening, she tweeted a filtered photo of the Saint Angel Hotel lounge and a martini emoji.
From the looks of things, Megan hadn’t been successful in selling her designs to True to You, a company I’d never heard of, because none of her social media accounts boasted about a sealed deal. Instead, she’d uploaded an illustrated quote attributed to Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
After that, Megan didn’t post anything until late Sunday night. Her final picture featured a blurry selfie, a poorly lit bar, a craft cocktail, and the fuzzy outline of someone’s shoulder. The caption—drnks on the towm—implied Megan might have had one too many by that point.
Since then, Megan had been silent on social media. A few people had posted on her Facebook page, asking how her sales pitch went, but they received no reply. It looked like Megan hadn’t logged onto any of her accounts since Sunday night.
I frowned as I scrolled through her pages. Was Megan upset enough over her failed business venture to ditch her hotel bill? A drunken decision would explain her hasty exit from the Saint Angel Hotel, but it didn’t account for her absence from the Internet.
Evelyn’s phone rang, scaring me out of my skin as it blared a sped-up version of “The Humors of Whiskey.” Evelyn groaned and smacked the phone off the nightstand in an attempt to silence it. It ricocheted off the wall and bounced down the loft steps, still playing its insufferable tune.
Evelyn let out a string of blasphemous curses. Her foot caught in the covers as she crawled out of bed. She tripped and fell face-forward, hurtling toward the stairs. I leapt up with the intent to save her from a disastrous fall, but she caught herself on the railing and regained her balance.
“Cursed phone,” she mumbled, entirely unperturbed by her brush with a broken neck. “Damn company. Stupid boss.” She answered the phone. “I am on vacation! What is so hard to understand about that?”
I lifted an eyebrow. Evelyn had to be at the end of her rope to talk to her boss like that. From what I’d heard in the past, she’d always had the utmost respect for him. As she listened to the other end of the line, her eyes flickered up toward the loft to check whether or not I was eavesdropping. I pointedly stared at my laptop.
“Hang on,” she muttered into the phone. “Let me take this outside.”
Once she moved to the balcony, I leaned over the loft railing and peered outside. Evelyn was so desperate to get out of the room that she hadn’t grabbed a jacket. In her thin pajama pants and shirt, she crossed her arms against the wind and jumped from foot to foot to keep warm. From her crinkled brow, I could tell she was losing the fight with her boss. She looked pissed.
When she came inside, I launched myself back into bed. By the time she trudged up to the loft, I was tucked under the covers like I’d never left my spot.
“Wagner?” I guessed.
She collapsed on the bed and covered her face with a pillow. “They want me to accept a job.”
“Here in Chicago? Now?”
“Yup.” She let out a frustrated groan. “I told them I’m not doing it.”
“Good,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to. You requested the time off. Why do they keep bothering you anyway?”
Evelyn rolled over on her stomach. “Because they don’t usually have people in the States. Me being here presents a unique opportunity for the company.”
“Who do they want you to guard?”
“It’s—”
“Confidential,” I finished. “I don’t know why I ask.”
“It’s rubbish. I don’t want to do it.”
“I thought you weren’t going to.”
Her eyes glazed over. “Yeah…”
I playfully smacked her butt. “Buck up! You’ve got maid of honor duties to attend to. What’s on the schedule for today?”
“The bridesmaids fly in today,” she said. “I have to pick them up from the airport and get them to their final dress fittings. Then the hen party is tonight.”
“You mean the one you haven’t planned yet?”
She grimaced. “What’s there to plan? Aren’t they all the same? Go out, see some strippers, get shite-faced?”
“I’ll tell you what.” I set aside my laptop to give Evelyn my full attention. “I’ll plan the bachelorette night, and you can tell Marie you did it.”
“Really?”
“What are friends for?”
“You’re the best.”
She pulled my pinky toe until the knuckle popped. I pushed her off the bed with my foot. Chuckling, she rolled to her feet and headed to the bathroom to clean up.
Opening up my laptop again, I refreshed Megan’s Twitter page. Relief flooded through me when I spotted a new tweet: Back in the Sunshine State! How come no one ever told me
