shower followed by icepacks for the swelling.
Luckily, she had found a spray can of lidocaine in the first aid kit, which also helped. Now, she woke and looked at her leg.
The area was still red, and only one wound from a stinger still stood out. Justine wasn’t about to let this slow her down, though. The jellyfish that had bitten her must have been small or young because when she had searched for home remedies for jellyfish stings on the Internet, she had seen some incredibly painful looking stings, nothing like hers.
So, she swung out of bed, took another shower, rubbed calamine lotion on the area, and got dressed.
A fresh cup of coffee, an egg white omelet and while she didn’t feel all together one hundred percent, she felt a whole lot better.
Justine put her dishes in the dishwasher, left her condo and walked up to the office.
Justine went to the windows that Archer had worked on, tested them and saw that they all operated smoothly. Plus, she hadn’t been awakened by any loud banging sounds. Justine made a mental note to check with her guests and make sure they hadn’t heard anything, either.
She was surprised to see that there was no sign that Archer had even been there working. She’d had some contractors work before in the house in Chicago and they tended to leave a mess after they left. Justine remembered complaining to a plumber. His response had been pretty clear.
“I make holes, I don’t fix ‘em,” he’d said.
That certainly wasn’t the case with Archer Thorpe. If anything, the places where he’d worked were cleaner than when he’d begun.
She went back to the office, then checked out the pool area to see how her guests were doing, but there was no one there.
However, parked near the turn off from the main road into her driveway, she saw a black sedan with tinted windows. Justine wasn’t sure why it caught her eye, but it seemed out of place.
For a moment, she felt a tinge of panic.
Could it be her ex-husband?
No, no way. There would be no way for him to find her, plus, if he did, she highly doubted he would park just outside where she lived and watch her. No, he would probably come right in and–
She did not want to think about that.
Besides, most cars in the Keys had tinted windows, and if it was anybody watching her, it would probably be the FBI.
Justine decided to ignore the car, and went into the office where she found a beautiful, brown-skinned young woman with startling green eyes waiting for her.
“Hello,” Justine said.
“Hi, are you Ms. Beaudry?” the girl said, with a lovely, lilting accent that struck Justine immediately as quite lovely.
“Yes,” she said. “You must be Taye?”
The Feds had told Justine they’d hired a girl to work full-time in the office.
“I am,” she said.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Justine said.
They chatted for the better part of a half-hour and Justine learned that Taye had just moved to Passion Key a month ago and had answered a classified ad for the job of receptionist. She had been hired over the phone, contingent only upon a quick meeting with Ms. Beaudry.
“You’re hired,” Justine said. She knew that the Bureau had already done an extensive background check on the girl.
“How about you start tomorrow?” Justine said.
“That would be great,” Taye answered.
She left and Justine checked the answering machine for any messages or complaints from the guests but there weren’t any.
Justine smiled. Well, having the Federal government working for you didn’t hurt, either. Agent Herring had told her that there was a specific division that “supported” businesses being used and/or run by people in “the program.” Free advertising was the best kind, Justine figured.
She went back to her condo and let herself in.
It smelled strongly of lidocaine.
She fired up her laptop and checked her email. There were no messages from the FBI. So she assumed no news was good news.
However,