Chapter 29

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Maddie's arms flailed, and she screamed as she felt herself falling.

In an instant, it became clear to her what would happen if she hit the ground below.

Pain. So much pain.

Above her, someone yelled. Then someone else shouted.

Her hand hit something.

Caught it.

Or it caught her.

Josh. He'd caught her.

Somehow, he had managed to lunge forward, land on his stomach, and grab her hand before she fell too far.

But she now dangled four stories in the air.

She made the mistake of glancing down.

Her head spun when she saw the manicured grass below her.

It was too far below for her comfort.

"Maddie?" someone screeched nearby.

She glanced over. Adrienne and Brody stood on the balcony next door.

They gawked at her.

The next instant, Brody climbed onto the railing of his balcony. He carefully skirted around the ledge before landing on the patio beside Josh.

Wasting no time, he dropped to a prone position and reached for her.

He grabbed her other hand.

On the count of three, Brody and Josh pulled her onto the balcony.

She sprawled on the tile there, her cheek pressed into the dirty floor. She was safe.

It would take a few minutes for her body to catch on to that fact.

Her heart raced out of control as she tried to catch her breath.

That could have been really, really ugly.

She was so thankful Josh had been able to grab her. That Brody had been close. That together they'd been able to lift her to safety.

Brody squatted on one side of her and Josh on the other.

"Are you okay?" Josh asked.

"Now I am." She sounded breathless as she said the words. "Thank you. Thank you both."

Brody looked up at Josh. "What happened?"

Maddie rolled onto her back and kept her eyes open, watching the interaction, wanting to know the answers to those questions herself.

"I don't know." Josh rocked back, resting on his palms as he took in shallow breaths. "She leaned against the railing, and the next thing I knew, she was falling."

Brody stood. Hands on his hips, he paced the balcony.

Maddie watched him from her position on the floor.

Brody paused from his pacing and peered at the wall where the railing had been bolted to it. "I don't see any signs of damage."

"Is it rusty or something?" Josh asked.

Brody continued to examine the wall, his gaze darkening. "It doesn't look like it."

"I need to call the manager," Josh muttered. "He needs to know what happened."

"I'd say so, especially if this might be a risk for other people as well," Brody agreed.

Maddie listened to the two men talk. But deep inside, she knew this wasn't a maintenance problem.

Someone had done this on purpose.

For the sole purpose of hurting someone . . . either her or Josh.

Five minutes later, the hotel manager was in the room, along with the head of maintenance and Adrienne, who'd run from her room and had been let inside Josh's suite. She hadn't tried to scale the wall between their balconies like Brody had.

Josh put a blanket around Maddie's shoulders as she sat on the bed. Even though Maddie wasn't cold, she couldn't stop shaking.

Adrienne sat beside her with an arm around Maddie's shoulders.

Maddie watched as the manager—a balding, fifty-something Kauai native named Harris Toler—examined the balcony along with the head of maintenance. Josh stood close by observing everything, as did Brody.

"I can't believe this happened," Maddie quietly told Adrienne. She wanted to keep her voice low in case someone on the balcony said something she needed to hear.

"Me either." Adrienne shook her head. "How horrific."

"I'm glad you guys were close," Maddie whispered. "I'm not sure if Josh could have pulled me up on his own."

"I had no idea we were neighbors. I guess we've been coming and going from our rooms at different times."

Maddie nodded, exhaustion overtaking her as her adrenaline faded. "I guess so."

"It looks like the bolts have been loosened," the head of maintenance said.

She pulled herself upright.

The bolts had been loosened? Then Maddie's theory was probably right. Someone had done this on purpose.

Except this wasn't her room. So had someone done this in hopes of hurting Josh?

"I was out on the balcony earlier, and the railing seemed fine," Josh muttered. "I didn't lean against it or anything, but it seems like I would have noticed if it was loose."

Maddie hardly heard him.

Instead, her thoughts churned. Maybe Josh was the target all along—except she wasn't sure how much sense that made. In fact, maybe she was reading entirely too much into this. Maybe these were all accidents, crazy coincidences.

Deep inside, she knew that wasn't true, however.

Detective Kalani had said that Josh left his room on the night of Jared's murder.

Josh claimed he'd gone to the gym. But had he?

The last thing she wanted to do was bring up the subject of the detective. She feared Josh would ask too many questions and realize she was a suspect.

But she was curious.

Either way, how were all these events connected?

Maddie couldn't put the pieces together yet.

"I knew we shouldn't have picked this hotel." Josh's voice filled the air, louder than it needed to be.

"I assure you that we're a fine establishment and things like this don't normally happen." Harris raised his head, his nose slightly upturned.

Then Josh turned to Adrienne. "Weren't you the one who chose this location?"

Adrienne dropped her arm from around Maddie and froze. "I was. I mean, yes, my team and I picked this specific resort."

"Well, you did a terrible job." Josh practically spit out the words as he shook his head with disgust.

"I don't think that's fair." Adrienne drew back, clearly offended.

"It's completely fair!" Josh's nostrils flared. "Did I not emphasize enough to you just how important this event was?"

"Josh . . ." Soft warning filled Maddie's voice.

"What?" Josh's eyes flashed with anger. "You don't think it's clear that someone is starting to sabotage me? Is it you?" His gaze burned into Adrienne.

"Why would I do that? How would I benefit from doing so?"

"You need to lay off, man." Brody stepped closer, anger edging his voice.

But Josh seemed to hardly hear him. He still faced Adrienne, accusation in his gaze. "Is it you? Have you been behind these incidents the whole time?"

"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice shook. "I thought this was the perfect location."

"Excuse me." Harris's voice cut into the conversation. "I assure you that we're going to get to the bottom of this and make things right. We're so thankful that nothing worse happened."

"You should be thankful," Josh muttered, his eyes narrowed. "Because if my fiancée had been killed because of this . . ."

Silence hung in the air. Maddie could fill in the blanks.

Josh would have sued the resort for all they were worth.

Because money always made things better. She frowned at the thought, knowing it was far from the truth.

"I've already put in a call to my head of security. They are checking the room key log to see who else has come into your room today." Harris paused as his phone buzzed. "It appears they're calling me back now."

He put his phone to his ear. A few minutes later, he ended the call and turned to them again.

"We have record of the maid coming just before lunch," Harris explained. "Then at eleven-thirty, maintenance came to fix the toilet, which apparently wouldn't stop running. Also, Mr. Harding left this morning around eight, then returned at twelve-thirty, but only stayed ten minutes. Then returned again closer to four."

Maddie's gaze shot to Josh. "Weren't you playing golf at twelve-thirty?"

His face went still. "Yes, I was."

"Who else has a key to your room?" Harris turned to Maddie. "Did you come up perhaps?"

Familiar dread gripped Maddie. "No, I'm not staying in here."

The familiar look of confusion crossed his face.

Maddie waited for it to pass.

Finally, the manager looked back at Josh. "Anyone else?"

Josh shook his head. "No."

"Then we'll pull up security footage. I assure you, I will get to the bottom of this if it is the last thing that I do."

With his words still echoing in the room, Maddie's phone buzzed.

It's a good thing someone heard you SCREAM.

A knot lodged in her throat as she read the words from the same unknown number.

Why was someone intent on torturing her like this?