Author's Note: Since I forgot it earlier, for the record, I do not own anything or anyone from Red Eye. If I did...I'd have Cillian Murphy's number and life would be much sweeter.
Male Driven Fact Based Logic?
Chapter One: Somebody's Watching Me
Lisa sat on her sofa in her sweats and socks with a bowl of cornflakes on her lap. She was watching late night infomercials about workout equipment and juicers. She wrapped her hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck and looked around her apartment. She wasn't exactly living what they call the dream. Her apartment was simple but she thought classy. It had a huge fluffy white sofa with a matching chair, a glass coffee table with matching end tables on either side of the couch and a decent sized flat screen TV and really soft carpet. The kitchen took up the other half of the room and contained all the necessary appliances. Toaster, microwave, coffeemaker; everything a girl needs to get by on her own. She even spoiled herself with a few unnecessary items, such as the wok that hung unused above the island in the middle of the kitchen. The other side of the apartment was devoted to her bedroom and extremely large bathroom. The tub was her favorite invention in the history of inventions. She knew that her existence was what most people considered the very definition of the word boring, but it was hers and no one else controlled it. That was what was important; maintaining control of things. If she had control of things, then nothing could surprise her. She flipped off the television and dumped her empty bowl in the kitchen sink, telling herself that she would wash it in the morning. She had to start getting ready for work in about two hours and she hadn't been to bed yet. She went to her bedroom and crawled under the covers, hoping that she could close her eyes for at least part of those two hours.
It seemed her eyes had been closed for five minutes and the alarm was screeching angrily at her to wake up. She rubbed the sleep out of her puffy eyes and literally fell out of her bed. She groaned as she pushed herself up from the floor and stumbled to the bathroom, where she hopped in the shower. As soon as the warm water hit her in the face, it was like an instant wake up. The water streamed over her body, rejuvenating her for another day, gently massaging the tension knots out of her muscles. She had the strong desire to lie down at the bottom of the tub and just let the spray knead her sore back muscles for the rest of the day, but she knew she couldn't. So instead, she washed and conditioned her hair, shaved her legs, and turned the water off. As she stepped out of the shower, reaching for her towel, she heard a clang come from the kitchen and froze where she stood. Without thinking she wrapped herself in the towel and grabbed the only thing nearby that could even vaguely pass for a weapon: a plunger.
She quietly made her way out of the bathroom and peaked around the corner into the living room and kitchen half of the apartment. She didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean anything. She suppressed the urge to call out 'hello', because if anyone was there she would rather catch them by surprise than let them know she was about to jump out from around the corner. She took a breath, stepped out from behind the wall and found herself face to face with...nothing. There was nobody there. She was being, for lack of a better word, paranoid. With another groan, she smacked herself in the head and went back into the bathroom.
After a good hour of grooming, she was dressed in a lavender pinstriped business dress suit, her hair was rolling along her shoulders in soft waves, and she wore her Prada power heels. She downed a mug of coffee in less than thirty seconds and was out the door, juggling her purse, cell phone, and keys. She made her way down to the parking garage, mace in hand, and as she walked to her Honda Civic. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being stared at. Unnerved, she felt her grip involuntarily tighten on the canister of mace. Her Prada's clip-clopped as she walked through the deserted parking garage. Parking lots in and of themselves made her anxious, but enclosed ones really freaked her out now. Her walk evolved into a canter, which then broke into a full fledged run for her car. As soon as she was in her car with the doors locked, she let out the breath that she didn't know she was holding. As she turned the key in the ignition, she made a promise to herself that she was going to start parking on the street.
Before she knew it, she was at work. The Miami traffic hadn't been bad at all that morning, which wasn't that odd considering rush hour wasn't for another hour. She parked and got out of the car and there was that feeling again. She glanced over her shoulder, searching the dark parking lot for any sign of a person. No one. She shook it off and continued toward the door. The feeling in her stomach that someone was watching her just got stronger, so she actually stopped and turned a full circle. She still saw no one.
"Oh, get a grip, Leese." she said to herself, running a hand through her hair and turning back to the hotel.
She spotted Cynthia as soon as she walked through the door. The poor girl had been there for two hours without Lisa. She was talking to one of their guys from maintenance and she looked like she was ready to pull her hair out. She had gotten a lot better at dealing with things in the past year, but sometimes she just had off days. Lisa widened her stride and broke into the two's conversation.
"What's up?" she asked.
"Oh, thank God, Lisa." Cynthia exclaimed, latched on to Lisa's forearms, "Brad says that 6018 has locked his self in the room and won't let his wife inside."
"Why not?" Lisa said.
"Well," Brad, the maintenance man answered her, "he keeps screaming at her that she slept with his brother or somethin'. He's bein' real loud and wakin' up pretty much everyone on the floor. I was just tellin' Cynthia that if we don't handle this soon, you're gonna have an entire sixth floor to apologize to by mornin'."
"all right. I'm on it." Lisa smiled, "Let's go, Cynthia."
She dropped her purse in her locker and started toward the elevator with Cynthia scampering after her. It was the start of a very long, very tiring day. It had taken Lisa and Cynthia two hours to calm down the domestic dispute in 6018. Lisa had had to do the thing that she never wanted to do, which was resort to threatening to throw them out of the hotel and ask them never to return. The problem was taken care of, everyone was had been woken up had been apologized to, and 6018 was cutting their vacation short.
At noon, a short tan young man with long blond hair who looked like he would rather be surfing came strutting through the front doors of the hotel. He carried a large bouquet of long stemmed white roses to the front desk and stared at Lisa, waiting for her to speak first.
"Room number?" she asked.
"Don't got a room number." the boy said, slapping a clipboard down on the counter.
Lisa resisted the urge to correct his grammar and smiled at him instead. "Do you have a name?"
"Yeah."
"well, will you tell me what it is?" Lisa asked at the same time Cynthia came out from around the corner.
The boy let out a long sigh as if she had just asked him to carry a load of bowling balls up fifteen flights of stairs and picked up the clipboard. "Yeah, it's, uh, Lisa Reisert."
Lisa unconsciously straightened her stance. "I'm sorry?"
"Lisa Reisert, geez." the boy repeated.
"That's me." Lisa informed the boy, casting him a glance like he was stupid.
The boy looked like he wanted to choke. He had apparently just realized that any shot he had for a tip had just disappeared. "Oh. Well, these are for you." He handed her the clipboard, "Sign here."
Lisa scribbled her name and grabbed the flowers from him. She watched the towheaded boy until he was all the way out of the hotel before searching through the bouquet for a card.
"Well, look who's special." Cynthia cooed, moving to stand beside Lisa. She leaned in to smell one of the pretty flowers. "Who are they from?"
"I don't know." Lisa said slowly, still searching for the card. She spotted the little white rectangle and managed to get it out and avoid scratching her hand on any of the thorns. She pulled the card out of its little envelope and read the two words that were scribbled on it.
Just because.
"That's weird." she said.
"What is?" Cynthia asked.
"There's no name." Lisa said, handing her the card.
Cynthia examined the front and back of the card and replied, "Huh. That is weird."
Lisa smiled suddenly, "They're probably from dad just trying to con me into dinner or something."
Cynthia grinned, "Awe. That's sweet."
"Yeah." Lisa said, still beaming, "I'll call him at lunch and thank him."
She never got the chance to call her dad...or go to lunch for that matter. At the last minute, a pro baseball team had decided that they wanted to stay there for the weekend and she had had to bust her ass to find rooms for them all on such short notice. She had done some major shuffling, but she had worked it out in the end.
It was 10:13 p.m. and Lisa was leaned against the front desk, braced on her elbows with her feet lifted into the air. The Pradas looked fabulous, but they were hell on her ankles. She made a decision and kicked them off. She was standing behind the desk, so other than the sudden decline in height, no one would ever notice. It had been one of those days where she just didn't care. The phone rang and a low growl escaped her throat before she picked it up and spoke in her fake chipper voice.
"Lux Atlantic Hotel, this is Lisa. What can I do for you, today?"
"Yes, Lisa. I was just wondering what time your check in was."
Lisa got that strange feeling that she was being watched again. "Sir, our check in begins at one p.m."
"How late can I check in?"
"Normally, we discourage anyone from checking in after midnight, but special arrangements can be made."
"See the thing is, my plane got delayed so I won't be able to be there until around two thirty."
"All right, may I have the name your reservation is under?"
"Jackson."
Her heart stopped, "I beg your pardon."
"Jackson. Clint Jackson."
She breathed. "Of course, Mr. Jack...Jackson. Here you are right here. So, I will either personally be here when you arrive to check in or I will leave a message with the night concierge."
"Great. And, what's your name again?"
"Lisa Reisert. I'm the hotel manager."
"Fabulous. Thank you, dear."
"Not at all, sir." she preferred to say sir, "Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?"
"Uh, no. I don't believe so. Knowing that I won't lose my reservation is more than enough. Thank you, again, Lisa."
"Of course, sir. You have a good night." The line went dead and she gratefull hung up the phone. She sighed and ran both hands over her face and back through her hair, pausing at the nape of her neck to try and work out a cramp that had been forming throughout the day. Her eyes scanned the hotel lobby. It was basically deserted, with just a few people coming in from late nights out around the city or on the beach. She had always preferred working late hours. It was more peaceful with nowhere near as many complaints and problems to deal with. But, tonight, she just couldn't shake the feeling that she had had all day. Every time she walked around a corner, she had half expected someone to jump out at her. Of course, they never did. She felt jumpy and she hated feeling jumpy, especially when she was at work. She needed her mind to be clear so she could handle anything that came up.
Cynthia kissed Lisa on both cheeks and walked out the door at midnight to go home for some much deserved rest. She had gotten to the level now where she dealt with just as much as Lisa did herself and she had certainly earned her rest tonight.
"Bye, Cynthia. Safe drive." she called after her friend.
"Yeah. Don't work too hard." Cynthia laughed.
"Yeah, right." Lisa called back to her, rolling her eyes.
Rodney, the night concierge was about two hundred years old. Actually, he was seventy-three and had once upon a time resembled Lurch from The Adam's Family. He was very tall and very lean with white tuffs of hair at the sides of his head just above his ears with a few stray strands atop his head, not enough that he even attempted a comb over. He was always dressed in crisp, perfectly creased suits and was more disciplined than a Marine drill instructor. There were constant pools going on throughout the hotel betting on what branch of the military he had served in. Marines, Army, Airforce; Lisa had her money on C.I.A. special forces. She loved Rodney. He was one of the few people at the hotel she could depend on to keep things going if she had something come up. If for no other reason than all the younger guys were terrified of him. He preferred the graveyard shift because there were less screaming kids passing through the lobby.
He stood behind the counter while Lisa made her rounds. Everything was peaceful, for once. People would be amazed at how much chaos went on in hotels at two in the morning. She clacked back down to the lobby, yelled to Rodney that she would be back in a minute and ran for the employee bathroom.
Rodney laughed to himself as he watched Lisa go breezing past him. The glass doors of the entrance slid open and a tall man in a nice suit came strutting in. He walked with condidence up to the counter. Rodney figured him for ex-military as well, the way he carried himself.
"Yes, sir?" Rodney asked.
"Yes, I need to check in."
"I'm sorry, sir, our check in ends at midnight."
"No." the man said, with a smile, "I spoke to a Lisa Reisert. She made special arrangements for me."
"Your name?"
"Jackson."
"I'll get her at once, sir." Rodney said and walked away from the counter. He went to the back and bumped into Lisa just as she was coming from the bathroom, drying her hands. "Leese, there's a Mr. Jackson waiting for you at the front."
For the second time that night, Lisa felt her heart stop beating. Jackson! She thought. Then, the phone call came back to her and she remembered the guest who needed the late check in. "Of course, yes." she said.
Rodney led her back out to the front desk. He stood in front of her so she could not see the customer. When they were actually back in the lobby, she came out from behind him with a wide welcoming smile plastered across her lips.
Standing there, staring back at her, was a tall prematurely balding man in his late thirties wearing a smart suit and small silver wire rimmed glasses. "Hello, Mr. Jackson. I'm Lisa Reisert. Welcome to the Lux Atlantic, did you have a nice flight?"
"Once we were actually flying, yes, it was all right." Clint Jackson said, returning her smile.
"Great," she tapped at a few keys on the computer, "I've got you all set up here. So, of I could just make a copy of your credit card, we can get you into a room for some sleep."
"That would be excellent." Clint Jackson responded, handing her a credit card from his wallet.
Lisa scanned it into the computer and logged him into the system. "All right, there we go. You're in room..." her speech faltered, "uh, you're in room 4080. Here's your key." She was struggling to keep the smile on her face, "If you know you'll be requiring breakfast from room service, they'll be accepting pre-orders for the next thirty minutes. Otherwise we have three lovely restaurants for you to choose from. Here's your credit card and Stuart, our bellhop will be up shortly with your bags. I hope you enjoy your stay with us, sir. You know my name, so if you need anything, you just let me know."
"Thank you, very much, Ms. Reisert." Clint Jackson said, smiling before he vanished into the elevator.
Lisa leaned back into the wall for support, covering her mouth with one trembling hand. She was worried that if she tried to stand by herself she would fall. That had simply been too much for her to handle. Granted, room 4080 had been completely remodeled and no longer came close to resembling the room it had once been, but it was still room 4080. Lisa felt her eyes welling up. Her state of obvious distress gained Rodney's notice and he was instantly at her side.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asked.
Lisa hurriedly wiped the tears away from her cheeks and sniffed, "Nothing. Nothing. It's...it's just been a really long day."
"Okay, it's all right." Rodney said, rubbing her arm comfortingly, "you go on home, okay, honey? You go get some rest. I can handle things here. You don't need to be here this late. Okay?"
"Yeah." Lisa nodded, "Yeah, Rodney. You know what, that sounds like a good idea. Thank you."
She pulled herself together as best she could, straightened from the wall, and after gathering her things, she ran to her car and sped the whole way back to her apartment.