Chapter 2 - THE VANISHING ACT
Audrey followed the bellman to a different wing of the resort,
one that overlooked the quiet gardens rather than the noisy pool.
She entered the room and did not look at the bed or the view.
Instead,
she sat at the small mahogany desk and opened her laptop.
She was a senior operations director,
and she knew how to dismantle a system.
First,
she logged into the joint bank account she shared with Trevor.
It was mostly her money anyway,
the remnants of her last bonus that he had been slowly chipping away at.
She transferred the balance to her private savings,
leaving exactly forty dollars in the account.
Enough for a cheap dinner,
perhaps,
but not enough for the life he thought he was entitled to.
Next,
she changed the passwords to the Netflix,
the Hulu,
and the Amazon accounts.
Small things,
petty things,
but she wanted him to feel the walls closing in.
She looked at her phone,
which was buzzing incessantly with messages from the family group chat.
Diane: "The wine here is divine! Trevor, dear, make sure Audrey brings my shawl when she finally comes up."
Brooke: "Tell her to bring my sunscreen too, I left it in her bag."
Trevor: "She's probably just sulking. She'll be up in an hour to apologize."
Audrey felt a strange sense of detachment as she read their words.
They weren't talking about a person;
they were talking about a servant.
A servant they had forgotten to invite to the table.
She deleted the group chat.
Then she blocked Diane.
She blocked Brooke.
She blocked Russell and Scott.
Finally,
she looked at Trevor’s name.
Her thumb hovered over the button for a long time.
She didn't block him yet.
She wanted to be able to see the moment the realization hit him.
She went to the mini-bar,
poured herself a glass of sparkling water,
and sat on the balcony.
The sun was dipping lower,
turning the Atlantic into a sheet of hammered gold.
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Somewhere upstairs,
seven people were about to find out that their "joke" was the most expensive one they had ever told.
