“The restaurant’s okay,” Mariana said gruffly. She was out of breath and had wet splotches all over her pants and chef’s coat. “Miracle of miracles.”
“The guest rooms on the third and fourth floor were spared. But on the second?” Hallie shook her head. She was on her elbows and knees now, wielding a twisted towel like a squeegee to push water ahead of her, aiming, too, for the entrance. “They were evacuated as soon as the sprinklers went off.” Her eyes rested on Arabella’s face for a moment. “Maybe it’s a good thing the vacancies have gotten as high as they have.”
“What I’d like to know is why the police haven’t been able to figure out who the hell has it in for the hotel.” Beulah dumped a wad of soaking papers into Arabella’s trash bin. “But then that’s the police for you,” she groused and sloshed her way across the lobby again.
Arabella nudged Mariana toward the leather chairs nearby. “I know they’re wet, but go sit down,” she urged. “Take a breather.”
The fact that the older woman didn’t argue spoke volumes. Arabella took over the broom that Mariana had been wielding and, leaving the trash bin to Jason once more, added her efforts alongside Grace.
She knew it was too much to hope that Brady wouldn’t return to the topic of Jay, though she wished he could have waited until they weren’t surrounded by a dozen other people.
“I’ve been leaving you messages for hours.”
“My phone was in my bag.” She pushed ahead of him, following her own personal wave of water right outside the doors. She watched the water flow down the terra-cotta steps. “I wasn’t trying to avoid you.”
“You were with Cross.”
“All day.” She gave him a tight smile. “So if you’re thinking about trying to lay all this—” she swept out her arm “—at his doorstep, think again.”
He frowned. “I don’t think Jay did this.”
“Don’t you? Detective Teas seems to think he had something to do with the balcony collapse. Are you saying you didn’t know about that?”
His expression told her well enough that he had. “I’m not saying I agree,” he defended, following her back inside again. “But the guy’s got too many blank spots in his background.”
“So what if he does? Does anyone’s background hold up perfectly under a microscope? Does yours?” Her annoyance with Brady was well placed in her broad sweeping against the water. No matter how much they pushed out of the building, it still seemed to maintain its depth above her toes. “Why doesn’t the water go down?” Admittedly, she’d only been at it a short while in comparison to everyone else.
“The worst of it’s been here in the lobby,” Grace said as she wearily pushed her broom past them again. “It was almost ten inches deep before we were able to get the water cut off.”
“Fire suppression system bypasses the regular water system,” Jay said, reappearing. “Cutting one off doesn’t cut off the other, but in this case, the suppression system’s cutoff was bypassed, too.” He had two long-handled window-washing squeegees in his hand and he gave one to Hallie. “You’re going to ruin your back at that rate.”
She sat up on her knees, stretching gratefully before pulling herself up to her feet using the squeegee as a crutch. “You’d think I’d still be used to crawling around cleaning under beds and such.”
“Nothing prepares a person for this,” Arabella said.
Brady propped his arm on top of his broom. “How did you know the sprinkler system’s cutoff had been tampered with?”
“Guys in security told me,” Jay said evenly before putting his back into helping sweep the water out of the lobby.
“I told you I’ve been with him all day,” Arabella muttered through her teeth.
“Doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t planned another time,” her brother said under his breath.
She huffed and walked away, moving to the rear of the lobby nearest the elevators. The doors were standing open and she stepped inside the furthest one. Every light on the panel was lit. Lord only knew how badly it would misbehave after this latest calamity.
She swept, swept, swept until she’d managed to push almost all of the water out of the car. Then, before it could flow back inside, she shoved a few of the sopping towels that Hallie had been using into the door track, creating a rough sort of dam. Then she did the same thing with the second elevator. Hallie had noticed and brought her several fresh towels.
“Here.” She crouched down and helped wedge them into place.
“Thanks.” Arabella watched her from the corner of her eye. “Hallie, I’m really sorry that I didn’t mention—”
“Forget it,” Hallie said, cutting her off brusquely. “I shouldn’t have overreacted like I did.”
Arabella turned to face her head-on. “We’re okay then?”
Hallie made a face. “How can we not be? Look at you. Black eyes and on your hands and knees mopping up water.”
“Oh, God.” Arabella covered her face again. “All day long I’ve been forgetting how awful I look. First Jay and now—”
“Jay?” A smile played around Hallie’s lips. “What’s going on with Jay?”
Arabella’s face went hot and Hallie’s lips pursed in a silent whistle.
“Not bad,” the other girl said under her breath. “Not bad at all, girlfriend.” Then she pushed to her feet and started squeegeeing water out of the corridor and toward the lobby.
It was dark by the time they all successfully conquered the water well enough that there only remained a gloss of moisture on the terra-cotta floor.
All of the area rugs had been pulled out to the parking lot. So had all of the heavy wood furniture and everything else that was even capable of being moved at all.
Someone brought in folding chairs—Arabella thought it might have been Jay, but by that point she was too exhausted to really notice or care.
She was just glad to get off her feet
