"Jessica, what the hell are you doing?" Ashley looked up from her phone just in time to see her friend perch atop the massive oak dresser spanning the wall.
"Don't you feel that?" Jessica held her hand up, her eyes carefully tracing the line where the sky-blue walls met the ceiling.
"No." Ashley flipped the covers off her bed, pulling on a rumpled pair of navy blue joggers as she joined her friend.
"There's a draft and I have got to find it." Jessica narrowed her eyes, weaving her hand through the air and tiptoeing around the scattered phone chargers and empty cans cluttering the dresser as she moved along the wall.
Ashley sighed. "You and your drafts. Get down before you break your neck!"
"I'll break your neck!" Jessica's glare was sharp, but then her expression softened. "I'm fine." She gave a playful wag of her tongue before turning back to her work.
"Seriously though. You bleed out all over this carpet and we'll never get our security deposit back!" Ashley laughed, smacking her friend on the rump.
"Bitch!" Jessica laughed but continued to track her hand along the wall. "Found it!"
"What?"
"The draft Ash! But this doesn't make any sense."
"It's probably just air from the vent." Ashley rolled her eyes.
"No. The air isn't on. This is coming from the other side of the wall."
"No way!"
"Way. Check it out." Jessica stepped to the edge and stood on the tips of her toes causing her wavy blonde hair to sway in the light breeze.
"Well, look at that." Ashley shrugged her shoulders.
"Aren't you even a little curious where it's coming from?" Jessica planted her hands on her hips.
"Not really. Why don't you see if Rachel or Taylor want to play
draft whisperer
with you. I'm going back to bed."
Jessica scoffed. "No way they're up for it. You saw them trying to go shot for shot with those guys at Tootsies."
"Yeah, but my sister can drink most guys under the table. Rachel too from the looks of it."
"Then why'd they pass out so early?" Jessica grinned and lowered herself down. "Come on, give me a hand with this."
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like, fuckface? I'm pulling the dresser out."
"Why?"
"The draft! Come on!"
Reluctantly, Ashley joined her friend at one end of the bulky dresser. Together, and with considerable effort, they managed to heave it away.
"Okay now what?"
"This wall... it doesn't look right. Don't you think?" Jessica narrowed her eyes at a patch of wall.
"Looks fine to me," Ashley said, rubbing her arm where it had begun to ache.
"Yeah, but..." Jessica trailed off, her fingers tapping along the wall until she paused--her hand freezing as the sound shifted to a hollow thud.
"That's probably just..."
"Just what?" Jessica asked, pressing her palms against the wall. With a soft click, the surface gave way, and a two-foot section slid aside, revealing a darkened room beyond. Jessica smiled. "What did I tell you?"
"Wait. What the fuck?!" Ashley shook her head. "A secret room?"
"That's what it looks like. Come on!"
They stepped into the darkness, immediately noticing a drop in temperature. A mini-split air conditioner hummed softly at one end of the room, while several lights in varying colors glowed faintly along the opposite wall.
"This is probably just the server room."
"What would an Airbnb need with a server room?" Jessica asked, still skeptical.
"No idea." Ashley shrugged, running her fingers through her thick, brown hair and yawning.
"See if you can find the lights." Jessica continued to peer into the darkness.
Ashley slid her hand along the wall until her fingers brushed against a plastic switch. She pressed down, flooding the space with hard light. In the center of the room stood a desk cluttered with computer screens, their displays blank. Wires and cables sprawled across the surface, snaking in every direction and disappearing into various holes in the walls.
"Huh, would you look at that?" Jessica said, approaching the desk. She found a mouse and moved it back and forth several times until the screens blinked to life.
To their horror, they realized that each screen displayed multiple camera feeds--eight in total. The images showed views from the kitchen, living room, downstairs game room, both bedrooms, and all three bathrooms, revealing that every corner of the rental was under surveillance.
"No!" Ashley exclaimed, her mouth agape.
"No wonder we got this place so cheap!" Jessica chuckled.
"It's not funny! This is illegal... I think." Ashley scratched her head, concerned.
"Get your phone! We need to record all of this and go to the police," Jessica insisted. "Well, tomorrow. It's like two-thirty in the morning." She stifled a yawn with her fist.
"Yeah, okay, but we're shutting this down first. There's no way I'm sleeping with a camera on me!" Ashley exclaimed, darting into the bedroom to grab her phone. She quickly returned, recording video of the entire setup. "I mean, look at this! You can see right into our bedrooms--even our bathrooms! I bet they've caught us undressing and showering and everything!"
"If Taylor and Rachel even bothered. I bet they--wait, look at this."
"No way! You perv, that's my sister!" Ashley glowered.
"No, look." Jessica pointed to the screen showing the second bedroom. Ashley's jaw dropped as she realized that Taylor and Rachel were lying together in the same bed, wide awake and clearly not sleeping.
"Is this transmitting somewhere you think?" Ashley asked, her eyes scanning the room before landing on the modem in the corner.
"I'd say definitely." Jessica hurried over to the modem and yanked it out of the wall.
To Ashley's dismay, the monitors remained active.
"We'll have to unplug everything," Ashley said, her voice shaky and her gaze fixed on the image of her sister and her friend.
"For sure." Jessica nodded in agreement. "At least if someone was watching us, I'm pretty sure I cut them off," she said, nodding to the lifeless modem.
"This is such a fucking lawsuit." Ashley shook her head.
"Oh my god, look!" A grin spread across Jessica's face as she pointed to the infrared image of Taylor and Rachel.
Rachel had climbed out from under the covers, swinging her legs over Taylor's head. Her red hair glistened midnight black under the camera's infrared eye as she grasped large handfuls of her mane in pleasure. She was saying something, though neither Jessica nor Ashley could read lips.
"I wish we could hear what she was saying." Jessica grinned.
