Rozie stopped with her hand on the spa’s glass door.

  Maybe the balmy room caused her to feel faint… or the masseuse hit a nerve or some pocket of emotional energy. She had already rationalized the woman’s bizarre behavior—one of those hippy types, energies and meditations. But the vertigo? Rozie felt better already, unnerved, but physically steady. She pushed her way out the door, only to halt once more.

  Willow had joined Sophie’s impulsive sun tanning. Her pale, slim figure lay stretched topless out on a towel. Sara must have gone inside for her own massage. Rozie filled a glass from the large glass dispenser on the table. She mumbled an excuse and hurried back up to her room. From Erica’s expression, she was the only one to register Rozie’s discomfort.

  Entering. from the back, Rozie found herself in the rear section of the house next to the elevator and the basement stairs. She clutched the handrail, braced herself, and heaved herself up the steps to the second floor. The front of the house passed in a blur as she stomped her way to the room.

  Once inside, she shut the door, more forcefully that she intended, and threw the lock. Her dress clung to her oil-covered body. Revulsion climbed up her throat, and she peeled off her clothes and climbed into the shower.

  She should have declined the massage. Even if she guessed at the woman’s motives, it wasn’t any less alarming to see her chanting in ecstasy an inch from her head, hands hugging Rozie’s abdomen. Then those trophy wives and their perfect bodies… She hoped they would cover up before her husband returned. Rozie broke from her rumination to stand in front of the tub, facing the burden of bathing. Stand in a shower with aching feet or sit down in a bath feeling like an ingredient in a macabre soup. Only to climb out all over again. She risked slipping on the slick white porcelain, and couldn’t even get the job done thoroughly with all the oil still on her back.

  . The heat intensified the foul smell from the water. Suddenly, wryly, she understood the Victorians and their obsession with scents and a backwards notion of hygiene. They didn’t want to bathe, so they compensated for it with pungent perfumes.

  If she couldn’t get completely clean, at least she could do it fast. She chose to shower.

  As she lathered up a washcloth, the tiny bar of soap slipped from her wet hands. The ivory-colored rectangle slid down toward the drain. And Rozie nearly cried. She squatted down and braced herself on the edge of the tub, grabbed the soap, and reversed back to her feet. And for the life of her, the massage oil would not come off.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  A diesel engine rumbled by the hotel wing. She imagined the men leaping from the back of the truck, shotguns slung over their shoulders. Stinking of sweat and bug spray.

  Rozie could feel the oil heavy on her back, out of her reach. Like one of those pathetic ducklings in a Dawn dish soap commercial eagerly awaiting the gloved hands to wash them clean. She expected Dom any minute—needed him to come, be compassionate, scrub her back, and be with her on their last vacation, just the two of them.

  But as the minutes passed, she felt the heat penetrate her body until it radiated out again. Sweating in the downpour, Rozie turned down the temperature and waited. She yearned for her husband to come up, help her out of the bath, wrap her in a towel, and sit with her on the bed.

  , she thought bitterly. She swore as the water fell from her face in long streams, as her logical mind countered her emotions and hormones. She flung the knobs off, grabbed the towel hanging from the rack on the wall, and threw it around her back.

  “Screw it.” She sawed it back and forth over her wet, sticky skin.

  Rozie flung open the closet. The small plastic laundry bag fluttered, dangling from a hanger clip. She yanked it free and stuffed her soiled dress inside, her one good bra, and underwear. She dropped it on top of the unmade bed. ‘All-inclusive’ had better come with laundry service.

  Her emotions ran out suddenly, and she felt spent. She collapsed on the bed, wrapping her arms around her belly. She lay there while the minutes passed. Her novel called to her from the nightstand. When she picked it up to read, the words swam without registering, so she gave up. Lights out on her pity party, no gift bag for the lone guest. Her damp skin cooled. The skin-on-skin sensation of her enlarged breasts annoyed her.

  Rozie swung her legs off the bed and sat. Blood rushed down to her extremities, and she shut her eyes until the dizziness subsided. When she opened them, she gasped.

  Another pair of bare feet stood in front of hers. Long yellow toenails less than two inches from her feet. Black smoke swirled from the gray, puckered skin wrapped tightly around large knobby bones. Bare ankles and calves.

  She screamed and recoiled, backing across the bed. Muscles screamed with the added mass of the baby. Then nothing—silence filled the room. She opened her eyes. She was alone. No way to get in—she had locked the door when she came in. She took as deep of a breath as Little Lowry allowed. As she crawled to the edge of the bed, she thought of the gap below it. Large enough too…

  “No way,” she said aloud. And pushed herself off the mattress. She backed against the wall, unable to look in fear she’d see something lurking under the bed.

  Rozie threw her bag open and squirmed into a pair of sweatpants, a sports bra, a tank top, and a big wrap-around cardigan. She raced out the door. She was halfway down the hall to the rest of the mansion when she realized she didn’t have her key and had forgotten to lock the door.

  “No way,” she said again, looking back.