“I hate you, Flora.”
She absolutely beamed at him. “That’s the spirit, that’s what I want to hear. Four more.”
“Lill Byers?” Eve said.
“Should be here, should be in her office. Don’t you quit on me, Zeke. Don’t you quit. Three. Squeeze it, pump it, form, form, form. Two more. Just past check-in,” she added for Eve. “You got it, you got it, last one. Finish strong.”
Eve heard the guy collapse, gasping, when Flora whistled her approval on the last set.
“Thirty-second water break,” Flora announced as Eve headed toward the office. “Then it’s time for crunches.”
“You’re a monster, Flora.”
“That’s what you love about me.”
“Maybe I should get a personal trainer,” Peabody speculated. “If I had someone like that hammering at me, I’d have a perfect heart-shaped, drum-tight ass in no time.”
“You’d blast her with your stunner before the end of the first session.”
“Other than that.”
Through the narrow glass of the office door Eve saw a woman with a skullcap of orange hair and a body honed scalpel sharp sitting at a comp with two screens running.
One showed the CGI image of a woman carrying maybe twenty-five to thirty extra pounds struggling through a session of core work—crunches, leg lifts, crisscross—while the other ran a spreadsheet of names and figures in various columns.
Eve knocked briskly.
The woman tweaked one screen so the figure pushed through some single leg stretches.
Rather than bang on the glass again, Eve pushed in, said, “Hey!”
“Let’s add five full roll-ups,” the woman said, and the figure on the screen moaned and began them.
Eve tapped the woman on the shoulder. She squealed and jumped as if she’d been scalded, spun around to goggle, then to laugh. And finally removed earplugs.
“Sorry, so sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. The first shift wants the music up to scream, so I use these. What can I do for you?”
“Lill Byers?”
“That’s right. I’m the manager.”
Eve pulled out her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
The healthy color in Lill’s face dropped to gray. “My kid. Is my kid okay? Is Evan okay?”
“It’s nothing to do with your son. It’s one of your employees.”
“Oh Jesus.” She ran a hand over her bright cap of hair. “Sorry. My kid’s with his father for a few days—a pre-Christmas deal as the asshole’s going to Belize with his current slut over the actual holiday, so too bad for his son. Anyway.” She let out a long breath. “Something’s up with one of my gang?”
“Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?” Eve asked.
“Sure. Relaxation room, this way.” She led the way out of the office, across the workout area, passed a mini self-serve juice bar, up the curl of steps to the second level and into a room with soft gray walls, two long benches and a half dozen padded sleep chairs.
The door closed, brought silence.
“We offer clients a meditative space to balance things. Yin and yang. Somebody’s in trouble?”
“Trey Ziegler.”