Read Online Lure of the Wicked by Karina Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

her legs from the warm water, awkwardly getting to her feet on the marble ledge.
    “Sure!” Jordana waved her newly polished nails. “Hey, maybe later we can go shopping together. I’d love to show you my favorite stores. There’s this salon, I bet it’d do wonders for your hair.”
    More clothes. Another haircut. More money. Naomi’s smile stretched her cheeks into aching points as she retreated.
    Behind her, the flamboyant woman’s failure of a whisper sighed out a long, verbal shrug. “I don’t care how much money she has. Did you see her face ?”
    Enough time, and Jordana’s would have matched it.
    At the desk, she retrieved her clothes from the efficient Agatha, smiled stiffly through a reminder that her massage appointment would begin precisely at one, and barely managed to get to the elevator before she couldn’t take it anymore.
    She needed out. Somewhere, anywhere. She was smoothed and buffed and polished and depilated.
    She looked like a goddamn marble statue. Like some rich, pampered— Shit. Like every other goddamned perfect woman in that fucking beauty spa.
    Fuck her team’s sense of humor. Fuck the so-called relaxation she was scheduled to sit through, and shitfuck to the man named Joel with the magic hands.
    The last thing she needed— wanted —was to be alone inside her own head.

Chapter Six
    “T wo of the suites have checked out.” Lillian’s voice in Phin’s ear registered stalwart resignation as he made his way through the halls. “Alexandra and her retinue, of course, with her regrets.”
    “I imagine she went home to be tended by her own doctors,” Phin murmured, bypassing two of the staff’s personal athletic trainers with an easy smile and nod.
    Nothing to see here.
    He shifted the comm to his other ear as Lillian continued, “And the sweet doctor from New England.”
    Damn. He’d been hoping for a good word from the man whose words carried a lot of weight on his side of the coast. Pausing in the hallway, Phin pinched the bridge of his nose. “How did he seem when he left?”
    “Quiet. He expressed no displeasure, praised the staff’s precision and care. However, he checked out a full four days early. I think we can extrapolate from there.” In the background, he could hear the muted click and tap of her keyboard. He could easily picture her in the small, beautifully furnished office tucked just beside his, posture ramrod-straight and hair elegantly upswept off her shoulders.
    Like a picture-perfect secretary of ages past.
    Phin squeezed his eyes shut behind his fingers. “Okay,” he said again. “All right, it’s not a complete loss. Was Alexandra all right?”
    “Your mother took excellent care of her, like she always does.”
    “Is she okay?”
    Lillian sighed, briefly. “Tired, but she’s out and about now. What about the accused witches you ferried out last night?”
    “Seen out safely, thank God. Joel and the team returned home by midnight with nothing out of the ordinary to report.”
    “The backup driver was found, then,” Lillian surmised in her simple, factual way “Excellent. Now, what about the sauna?”
    Phin turned, checked down both ends of the hallway before allowing himself to slump back against the wall. He could still hear the grim technician’s report, echoing like a death knell in his head. “Sabotage seems the likeliest cause.”
    The sound of keys stilled. “Excuse me?”
    “The technicians ran a full diagnostic. They were up all night.”
    “Which means,” surmised his mother, who knew him all too well, “that you were, too. I trust you’ve managed a nap?”
    Phin grimaced. “I’m fine. The sauna, however, is not. We’ve put up a barricade to make sure no one else goes in, but I suspect guests will be avoiding all of the hot rooms for a while.”
    “Tell me about this sabotage.”
    “The short version? Someone crossed the wiring to short-circuit the lock for the disinfectant mode.” His head echoed like a hollow drum as he