Reckless Girls

by Rachel Hawkins

Genres: Women's Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

The gripping new thriller and instant New York Times bestseller, perfect for escapist reading!

The holiday of your dreams…
When Lux and Nico get the chance to sail to a remote island off the coast of Hawaii, they’re thrilled. It’s the trip they’ve been dreaming of their whole lives.

A tropical paradise…
Despite a dark history of shipwrecks and murder, the island is beautiful. But they’re not alone – another group is already there.

No one will hear your screams…
It’s not long before cracks emerge, and someone goes missing. Then a body surfaces, and Lux starts to wonder if any of them are going to make it back to shore alive…

‘A thriller worth staying up all night to finish’ Julie Clark, author of The Flight

‘Tantalises from page one’ Katherine St. John, author of The Lion's Den

‘You’ll tear breathlessly through the pages’ Kate White, author of Have You Seen Me?

Release date: January 4, 2022

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) plot twists (1) suspenseful (1) terrific writing (1)

Sample

ONE


Sometimes I wonder if people on vacation think they’re actually on another planet.

Or maybe just another dimension?

It’s the only explanation I have for the shit that I’ve seen in the six months that I’ve worked at the Haleakala Resort in Maui. And I’m not just talking about the weird stuff you’d expect—sunburned couples asking if I’m interested in “joining them later that evening,” the groups of women who wear coordinated tank tops emblazoned with the phrase GO-GETTERS! while they spend several thousand dollars on tequila shots and eventually get into a weepy argument at the lobby bar, or the douchey Wall Street bros who leave lines of coke on the bathroom counter, then accuse the maid who serviced the room of snorting them.

Those were all messes I ended up cleaning up—one way or another—but I’m talking about the truly unhinged moments, like the guy who offered me $200 if I’d eat a whole pineapple in front of him (I didn’t), or the senior citizen who spent the entirety of her weeklong vacation in her suite ordering adult movies off the TV and endless french fries from room service (honestly, good for her). There was also the time I went to clean a room where some frat guys had stayed, and found concentric circles of urine all over the carpet (someone’s dad whipped out an Amex to pay for the replacement after I provided management with photographic evidence of the damage).

Which brings me to today, as I stand in the middle of the Makai Suite, looking at the array of sex toys laid out on the bed, considering where this particular moment falls on the spectrum of disgusting, disturbing, and deranged.

“This is so fucked up,” Maia mutters next to me, her arms still full of damp towels. “It’s like Stonehenge, but with dildos.”

I snort, already pulling on a pair of gloves. “To be fair, I only see two—okay, no, three—dildos. That one”––I point to the hot-pink disc on the right—“is a vibrator, and that purple thing is … yeah, I don’t know what that is, but anyway, good for these people, they’re clearly having a lovely time here on the island.”

Maia shakes her head, moving back toward the laundry cart. She’s shorter than me, and the skirt of her uniform hangs down past her knees. It should make her look dowdy or frumpy, but Maia is incapable of that. She looks like a hot actress on some CW show who is merely deigning to play a maid.

“I’m not against anyone having a good time, Lux. I just sometimes think they forget that, like, people will see this shit.”

“Or they wanted us to see this shit,” I counter, pulling a plastic bag stamped with the hotel’s logo off my own cart. “Maybe that’s part of their whole deal.”

“Gross,” she replies with a shudder, and I pick up the pink vibrator, dropping it into the bag.

“Prude.”

“Weirdo,” she says before disappearing into the bathroom. I grin at her, and turn back to my task.

Maia is new here at Haleakala, just started last month, and while I like her a lot, I have a feeling she’ll be gone within a couple of weeks. I’ve been here long enough to realize that the housekeeping staff tends to fall into three categories: the lifers, ladies who have been here ten years and will be here for another thirty; the “this is a temporary thing, but I’ve been here a year,” crew; and finally, girls like Maia who think working at a five-star resort will be fun, not too much work, and will earn them a decent amount of cash.

I was supposed to be in the third group, but after six months, I’m worried I’m sliding into the second one.

I’d come to Hawaii for a guy—which, I realize, sounds stupid—but I feel like any woman who’d had Nico Johannsen ask her to meet him in Maui would’ve bought a plane ticket on the spot.

And besides, it hadn’t just been the guy himself—it had been what the guy was offering. A chance to travel, to sail around the world, to finally have some experiences.

An adventure.

“Livin’ the dream,” I mutter, surveying the bed, unsure how to proceed. Should I lay all of the toys out on a towel on the bathroom counter, the way we do makeup brushes?

Suddenly, all I want to do is leave. Tear off this uniform, abandon my cleaning cart, walk out of the resort, and go back home.

But where even is that now?

Technically, I live in a tiny ranch house on the south side of the island, a place Nico and I share with two dudes he works with at the marina, plus their girlfriends. Except we don’t even have a room there—we sleep on a mattress they put out in the living room at night. The whole place constantly smells like salt and sunscreen, and the sheets always feel a little damp and gritty. The six of us share two bathrooms, with wet swimsuits dripping from the shower rod, and towels with little dots of mildew because nothing in that place ever seems to stay dry.

Home was supposed to be Nico’s boat, the Susannah.

Even thinking about it hurts, imagining it in its dry dock, with a big fucking hole in the hull. Nico had sailed her down from San Diego after we’d met, and I’d flown to meet him here. One-way ticket, my entire life packed into one roller bag and a backpack.

But when I’d gotten to Wailuku, I’d learned that not only had the Susannah’s engine busted on the trip over, but when Nico had it moved to the marina where it could be fixed, an accident getting it off the trailer had pierced the hull, a repair Nico didn’t have the funds for.

Correction, Nico wouldn’t ask for the funds to repair it. His family has more money than God—they run this massive law firm, personal injury, litigation, shit like that—but Nico wants to make his own way in the world on his own terms.

It’s a really admirable quality, when it isn’t also wrecking our plan and keeping me stuck here, cleaning up strangers’ sex toys.

Maybe the boat is cursed, I’d said to him just the other night, whispering against the warm, salty skin of his neck as we huddled on our mattress, rain pattering on the tin roof.

Maybe it’s you, he’d murmured back. Letting a woman on board a ship was thought to be bad luck back in the day.

Maybe you’re an asshole, had been my reply, he’d only laughed and kissed me, and then our tiny, sandy mattress hadn’t seemed so bad. Nico was good at that, distracting me, his unflagging optimism bringing me out of those spirals of worry and doubt and what the fuck now? Nico didn’t worry about the future—and if an uncharitable voice in the back of my mind occasionally hissed that Nico didn’t have to worry about that kind of shit because I was always doing it for him—I ignored it.

Or, I tried to.

Anyway, before the Susannah and Hawaii, I’d been in California, but that had never felt like home to me, not really. I’d moved there with my mom from Nebraska when I was twelve, and when she’d died eleven years later, I’d just stayed in San Diego because I couldn’t think of where else to go.

Now, at twenty-five, all of it is starting to feel like a series of wrong turns and missed chances. Heading left when I should’ve gone right. Zigging when I should’ve zagged.

I strip the bed and shove the sheets in the bottom of my cart. I hear the door to the suite open as Maia goes into the hall to get more towels or shampoo that smells like bananas and hibiscus.

“So, do you think I should make these assholes a festive towel sculpture shaped like a cock?” I call out to her. “I know a swan is the normal thing, but given their tastes—”

Behind me, someone clears their throat, and I straighten to see two people standing in the foyer, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt in violent shades of red and green, a woman in a matching dress. They’re holding mai tais, their faces bright with embarrassment or sunburn or both, and I offer a weak smile.

“Aloha?”

An hour later, I’m standing in the parking lot of the Haleakala, in my cutoff shorts and T-shirt, my uniform and name tag back in the hands of my boss—well, former boss now—Mr. Chen, and while I should be freaking the fuck out, I tip my face up to the sun and smile.

No more sheets. No more towels. No more stray fingers “accidentally” brushing my ass. I’ve wanted to quit for over a month now, but there’s something freeing about having the choice taken out of my hands. It’s not my fault the Sandersons walked in when they did. Not my fault they’d left all that stuff on their bed in the first place.

Not my fault that I don’t have a job anymore.

Now, I just have to tell Nico.


TWO


“Gotta say, losing my job because of a dildo is a first.”

Since I’m officially unemployed, I can meet Nico at his favorite lunch counter on the island. He sits across from me, smelling like salt water and engine grease, but still so handsome I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, my knees. He’s got a red bandana holding his sandy hair back from his face, and his skin is tanned and smooth, a tattoo curling around his bicep.

If I’m honest, the tattoo is more than a little douchey. Typical white dude tribal shit that doesn’t actually mean anything to him, but three days after we met, he added a curling L to one edge of the tattoo for me. That was sweet, at least.

He was sweet.

He still is, of course, but it was different when I first met him. When our relationship was heady and new, the calm he radiated was a welcome balm after years of dealing with Mom’s cancer: the hospitals, the chemo side effects, the screaming fights with my dad over the phone.

Nico is the kind of guy who can say something like, “Don’t pick up what you don’t need to carry,” and you actually believe it—that he’s figured out some better, more enlightened way of living—and you don’t even want to punch him.

Well, you don’t always want to punch him.

Now he just slurps his soda and nods at me. “Job was bullshit anyway.”

“Such bullshit.”

“And you can have another one, like, tomorrow,” he goes on, pointing at me with his cup.

I stab at a noodle and shrug. “Why don’t we look at how much we’ve saved up? Maybe we can finally get the Susannah fixed?”

He doesn’t answer that, just rolls his head from side to side in this gesture that I’ve seen a thousand times from him. It basically signals a mix of “eh” and “we can talk later,” and frustration suddenly shoots through me.

There’s no getting away from the fact that Nico is happy here. He says that he wants to keep traveling like we’d planned, but the more time passes, the more I can see him settling in, putting down roots. He likes his job at the marina, and working with boats. He makes friends everywhere because he’s that kind of guy, so all his coworkers love him (hence us having a free place to stay). If anyone can “bloom where they’re planted,” it’s Nico.

I’m not sure I’ve ever bloomed anywhere. Sometimes I wonder if I even can. Maybe that’s why the idea of never being planted in the first place is so appealing to me.

Or maybe I’m just sick of cleaning up other people’s shit, sometimes literally.

I poke at my food and glance toward the counter, where the line has finally thinned. It’s nearly two, which means they’ll close soon, and Nico will go back to the marina while I’ll go … back to the house, I guess? Sit on the couch, wait for Nico to come home?

That’s almost more depressing than cleaning hotel rooms, and I suddenly have the tiniest pang of regret for what happened today. Maybe I should’ve really apologized to the Sandersons, groveled even. Begged Mr. Chen for another chance.

But I can’t let myself go down that road, because if I start regretting one thing, there will be a thousand other decisions to second-guess. Quitting school, the way things went down with my dad, those lost years of partying with friends who weren’t actually my friends. The aimless way I’d drifted through life—until I’d met Nico.

“I met a couple of girls today,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts.

I look at him, raising my eyebrows. “And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Well, they were looking for a boyfriend while on vacation, and I decided that seemed a lot more fun than fixing boat engines, so it looks like I’ll have a new job soon, too.”

I give him the finger and slurp some more noodles. “Seriously, Nico.”

Grinning, he winks at me before pushing his empty plate away. “Seriously, Lux, I met these two girls. Americans. East Coasters.”

He says that with enough disdain that I lift my eyebrows. “We can’t all be gods of Southern California, Nicholas.”

I expect him to laugh, but I spot a little irritation in the wrinkle that appears on the bridge of his nose. I don’t know if it’s the gentle teasing about his background or the use of his real name, but in either case, I wave my hand, not wanting an argument. “Sorry, go on.”

He lets it drop. “Well, they were looking to charter a boat for a few days, but the dude they were supposed to talk to wasn’t there, so we got to chatting instead. I think they might hire me.”

I’m not exactly the jealous type—with a boyfriend who looks like Nico, you kind of learn not to be if you don’t want to lose your mind—but I still feel a weird flutter of apprehension. “Hire you to sail a boat for them? Take them around the island?”

He shrugs, leaning back in his seat. Outside, it’s started to rain, a soft drizzle that I know will be over in a few minutes and leave the air thick and sweet smelling. “I guess? They asked if I wanted to get drinks tonight and talk it over, and I told them I’d bring my girlfriend.”

“Look at you, you loyal motherfucker,” I tease, and he grins at me again, reaching across the table to take my hand in his, kissing my knuckles.

“More like terrified you’d cut my dick off in my sleep if I met two girls at a bar without you.”

“Loyal and smart.”

The rain picks up, slapping hard against the roof, and Nico glances outside before turning back to me. He has beautiful eyes, deep brown, and they crinkle at the corners as he smiles.

“I figure if they don’t hire me for the job, they might at least buy us a couple of beers, and it’s not like I have anything else going on tonight.”

“Same,” I say, then laugh. “I mean, fuck, now I don’t have anything else going on at any point, ever.”

I hate that it doesn’t sound like a joke.


THREE


The girls picked a tourist bar, because of course they did.

Pineapple Pete’s is too crowded, and I can smell that particularly noxious mix of sunscreen, beer, and duty-free perfume that always hovers over these kinds of places. With my luck, I’ll run into the Haleakala guests who got me fired today.

Nico had gone back to work after lunch, cleaning up and changing at the marina and leaving me to get ready back at the house. But since our roommates were also going out tonight, I had to fight for shower time and a space at the mirror, which means I’m running late and my hair is still wet in one spot in the back. I don’t know why I even made an effort to look nice—Nico will just be wearing the extra shorts and T-shirt he keeps in the bag he takes to work. It’s not like I care about impressing some rich college girls on vacation, but I still found myself pulling out my favorite dress, the yellow one with the halter neck and tiny embroidered birds along the hem, the one that swirled around my knees and always made Nico’s eyes linger a little longer on the curve of my hip, the hollow of my collarbone.


Copyright © 2021 by Rachel Hawkins