“No, that sounds right. Scott.”
“He got in late last night.”
“Thanks, Mellie.”
“Not a problem, Mrs. Lamb.”
“You can call me Abigail,” she said. She hadn’t officially taken Bruce’s last name yet, although she knew he’d like her to do it.
Still, it felt strange to be referred to as a Mrs., let alone a Mrs.
Lamb.
“Not a problem, Abigail. Anything else?”
“I was planning on going for a swim.”
“Lucky you. You know how to get there?”
“I think so. Back outside, and towards the woods.”
“I can show you the secret passageway, if you’d like,” Mellie said.
Abigail agreed and followed Mellie behind the bar and into a part of the lodge that felt as though it was for employees only.
There were stacks of chairs and boxes of wine, and there was actual fluorescent lighting in tracks along the ceiling. They went down some cement stairs, Mellie walking fast in her khakis and white shirt, and Abigail briefly wondered if it was a good thing or a bad thing for Mellie to be stuck on this island with so many male employees. They were in a dimly lit hallway that suddenly veered to the right, and then they were in an even dimmer tunnel, carved from rock, with a much lower ceiling that curved like an archway.
“Wow,” Abigail said.
Mellie turned back, smiling. “This is a secret, so don’t tell anyone I brought you down here.”
At the end of the tunnel, at least fifty yards, Abigail began to smell chlorine, and the air changed, becoming warmer, more humid. There were double glass doors, and the two women pushed through into another hallway, this one carved from stone as well, but more luxurious, with soft lighting and a higher ceiling.
Mellie pointed to the left and said, “There’s a changing room just down a little ways. Everything’s in there.”
“Thank you, Mellie,” Abigail said, and made her way down the hall, then pushed through another glass door marked with a stenciled w. Inside, it felt less like a changing room and more like a spa. The walls were stone and all the furnishings were made from blond wood. She found a closet where she could hang her clothes and took off everything but her bathing suit. She was, not surprisingly, the only one in the changing area, and for a moment she longed to be at a different type of resort, one that was full of women and children. It was too quiet in here, almost creepy, and she kept thinking about her stalker. There was no way that Scott Baumgart was his real name, and she wondered how he’d managed it. Had he paid in cash? Or had he used his real name to register, but then asked the staff to call him something else? She supposed it was possible that he really was a Scott, but what were the chances? She’d come up with the fake name of Scottie on the night they’d slept together. Hadn’t she? He’d called her Madeleine and she’d countered with Scottie. Because of Vertigo. That was the way she remembered it. If his name really was Scott, he’d have mentioned it, right?
She heard a distant sound, like a door closing. Leaving her clothes behind, she went in search of towels, finding a neat stack of them near the exit, along with swimming caps and goggles wrapped in plastic. She grabbed one of each and walked out toward the pool, hoping she wouldn’t be alone out there. The quiet of this place was getting to her.
There turned out to be two pools, one a standard lap pool with eight lanes. She was happy to see that one of the lanes was occupied. It was a man, but she knew right away it wasn’t Scottie.
The man hurtling through his strokes was dark-skinned, and Abigail thought she’d seen him the night before, noticing him because he was one of the few people of color, either guest or employee, here at Quoddy Resort. The only peculiarity of the lap pool was that the far lane extended into a curving tributary that went under an archway built into the stone wall. Abigail skirted the wall to see where it went and there was the second pool, built just for lounging and designed like an underground grotto, vegetation everywhere, rocks plunging up out of the water, even a small waterfall. It was magical, actually, and Abigail felt a stab of anger at Scottie for keeping her from enjoying this moment.
While she was standing there trying to figure out if she should actually do some laps or just lounge around in the grotto, the door across from the women’s changing room swung open and a staff member entered. He walked over to Abigail and asked her if she wanted anything. “A smoothie? Or a tropical drink?” Abigail, tempted to order a Bloody Mary, declined, and the employee, who’d introduced himself as Brad, showed her a button she could push if she changed her mind.