Reclaiming His Bride (DiCarlo Brides book 3) (The DiCarlo Brides)

by Tullis, Heather

  She jumped a little when there was a knock at the door.

  “Housekeeping.”

  Lana sucked in a breath to steady her nerves before she let the maid in. She wasn’t starting to buy into the story of the ghost, so why was she so jumpy? She glanced at Blake and decided to blame it on being too close to him. They swapped lamps and plugged in the new one. “Put a note on that for someone to check out the electrical, would you?” she asked before the maid left. When she moved the bed back, Lana studied the lines in the carpeting again. “There are three sets of lines there now. One set isn’t very deep, like it wasn’t there for long.”

  Blake looked at it. “You’re right. Do you think someone’s been messing with our guest?”

  “Someone’s definitely messing with us anyway. I keep hoping they’ll get bored and stop.” She walked around the bed and checked the other side.

  “That’s not likely. If it is someone doing this on purpose, that is, and not a whole slew of coincidences fueled by crazy rumor.” Blake had never been a fan of the idea that someone was pretending to be the ghost. He preferred the theory that employees were just ascribing odd occurrences as being the ghost showing himself.

  “I don’t believe in that many coincidences.” Lana shrugged. “I just wish I knew who was behind all of this. I mean, unless you want to believe Manuel really is doing it all,” she paused when Blake snorted in response. “What if they made the lamp blink on and off, and then switched it back, or whatever, while the guest was downstairs?”

  “That would take some serious guts. And how would they manage it?”

  “All of this takes some serious guts, don’t you think? Or a seriously twisted sense of humor. The question is what the person or people behind it think they’re accomplishing? Is it just a series of practical jokes because they’re bored? Is there something more to it?” She looked at Blake, wishing they were really on the same page in all of this. She missed the easy way they’d once spoken to each other, and the way she used to be able to get his insight without all of the hard feelings between them.

  They entered the elevator and Blake looked at her. “I say it’s time we find out what security can tell us.”

  Blake and Lana watched and waited as Joel checked the computer program that tracked keycards. “It looks like the keycards used to access the room were the ones for the guest, housekeeping and yours.” He looked up at them. “A master keycard for housekeeping was used about ten minutes before yours.”

  That put her on alert. Who was in the room while the guest was complaining about the light? At least it explained why the lamp had been functioning perfectly when they arrived. The person responsible had already fixed the problem.

  “Is there any way to tell which card it was, and who has it?” Blake asked.

  Joel nodded and clicked a couple more times. “It’s number twenty-one. Which according to Vanessa’s spreadsheet, was issued to Graciela Munoz this morning. I’ve disabled it in the system so it won’t open any more doors.”

  Blake looked at Lana, “I guess we go to housekeeping next. Most of them should be gone, but it’s possible Vanessa’s still there.”

  “I guess so.” Lana preceded him out of the room and down the hall. She felt a little chill go up her spine as they passed by the hotel entrance, though whether that was because they were being watched, or just her imagination, she didn’t know. Things were quiet in the halls, which was expected since it was getting late. Lana had never found it creepy before but at the moment, she found herself on edge.

  Housekeeping was on the second floor back behind a door guests rarely seemed to notice. Vanessa was at her desk, her brows lowered as she stared at the computer screen. She looked up at them in surprise and hit a few keys on her screen. “What’s going on?”

  “Graciela Munoz, is she around still?” She had to be if she was in the room a few minutes previously, Lana figured, but maybe she played a trick on the guests before taking off for the day.

  “Graciela? No, she went home hours ago. Almost everyone did.” Vanessa checked a paper. “She’ll be back again tomorrow.”

  “Could you check, if she still has key card twenty-one? Or was it turned in?” Blake asked.

  Vanessa clicked through a few spreadsheets on her computer. “Yes, that’s the one assigned to her. We recoded them all just yesterday and I gave it to her this morning.” She unlocked a desk drawer and riffled through the numbered card. “She must have forgotten to turn it in this afternoon. What’s going on?”

  Blake shook his head. “Her keycard was used to access a room on the fourth floor about half an hour ago. More of this ghost business.”

  “I’m sure she went home.” Vanessa’s brow furrowed. “She turns her phone off at night, but will be back in the morning to work at eight. I can bring her to you when she gets here.”

  Blake put out a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Lana and I will meet you after breakfast and we can talk to her together.” He turned to Lana. “I’ll meet you in the restaurant to discuss the situation?”

  Lana wanted to tell him she didn’t think it was necessary, but nodded her agreement. He’d made it sound like a legitimate business meeting. How could she tell her boss no in front of an employee if she didn’t have a good excuse?

  “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Vanessa said. “I’m just going to double-check my math on these timecards and head home.” She stretched a little, as if to illustrate what a long day it had already been.

  “You do have a big crew,” Lana said. She bid Vanessa goodnight and allowed Blake to usher her into the hall, his hand at the small of her back. His touch made her skin feel hot—a spot which seemed to radiate throughout her system.

  “I’ll have Joel check the cameras before he leaves for the day,” Blake said. “See if we can find Graciela on any of them. Or if there’s any other footage indicating who might be responsible. That hall does have cameras.”

  “I should have thought of that.” Lana blamed her constant exhaustion and the fuzziness in her head on the baby, even though her distraction had more to do with Blake’s touch than anything else.

  “Seven-thirty?” he asked.

  “Seven-thirty, what?” She couldn’t follow his train of thought, her own was already on another track.

  “In the restaurant for breakfast. Unless you’d rather eat in my room.” His voice dropped to the deep sweet warmth of the molasses he liked to pour on his pancakes.

  “The restaurant will be just fine,” she answered a little too quickly. Lana shivered a little, remembering the last time he’d used that exact tone on her.

  “It’ll be easier to have a private conversation in my suite,” he said.

  “Yeah, but the conversation is more likely to stay on target if we meet in the restaurant.” Goosebumps—the good kind—slid into her scalp when his hand slipped up her back to touch her neck.

  “Afraid to be alone with me?”

  “Chemistry isn’t everything, Blake.” She shifted out of his reach when they came to the elevators. “I’ll go up for the night, now. Thanks for offering to have Joel check the cameras.”

  “See you in the morning, honey.” He slid both hands into the pockets of his pants and sauntered away.

  Lana touched her chest with one hand and felt her heart galloping inside her. She really needed to get this under control; there was still ten months until her contract ended at this hotel and she fulfilled the terms of the will. She just had to hold him at arm’s length until then.

  Easier said than done.

  Sage was always an early riser, so Lana called her first thing the next morning and invited her to breakfast. “Joel is probably already finishing up his search of the video from last night. You should come in and eat with us. I know you have a treatment this morning.” And it would keep her from being alone with Blake—which was her real objective.

  Sage worked almost every day for at least a little while and preferred to be at the spa for the employee meeting even
on her days off. “Sounds like fun. And I haven’t eaten yet.”

  When the two women walked in and found Blake at the table, he shot Lana a knowing look, but she ignored it.

  “Look who’s going to join us before her meeting,” she said by way of explanation, though she was pretty sure Blake had already picked up on exactly what Sage was doing there.

  Sage’s lips twitched. She always seemed to know what was going on with the others, to some extent—she never pried into the other’s lives, but didn’t appear surprised when things happened either. Lana was starting to think Harrison was right about her abilities. “Thanks for letting me come. I hate eating alone, don’t you? And Joel’s already been here for a couple of hours.” She slid into the seat next to Blake’s, leaving the other side of the table for Lana.

  “I’m always happy to have you join us,” Blake said. As always, his southern manners were impeccable. “Bless Lana’s heart for thinking to ask you.” He added more drawl to his words than usual. The colloquialism was more suited to a little old lady than to him, but he made his point well enough.

  Lana managed not to smile. But only just. “I’m very thoughtful like that.” She opened the menu and selected a breakfast of fresh fruit. The baby was behaving at the moment, but there was no reason to antagonize it with greasy food.

  Conversation stayed away from her relationship through the meal—thanks to Sage’s presence—and they managed to discuss what had happened the previous evening without Sage insisting that ghosts were real—a success in Lana’s book. After they said goodbye to her sister, Lana and Blake walked side by side down the hall to housekeeping.

  “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Blake asked.

  “Sometimes. Though it’s not so much cleverness as self-preservation.” She checked her watch, thinking of everything that needed to be done when this situation was cleared up.

  “You don’t trust yourself alone with me? Afraid to risk your virtue?” Blake asked.

  She glared at him. “Don’t start with me.”

  “Fine.” He opened the door to housekeeping, and they found Vanessa talking to one of the guys in maintenance. She motioned that she’d seen them, finished her instructions and turned back to them. “Graciela’s down the hall; let me go with you.” She stood from the desk and followed them into the hall. “What happened, you never said last night.”

  Blake filled her in as they walked down the hall. They found the laundry cart in front of room 233. Lana stuck her head into the room and spotted Graciela, a sweet young woman from Belize who always had a smile and greeting for everyone around her.

  “Graciela, could we speak with you for a minute?” Lana entered the hotel room, followed by Blake and Vanessa.

  “Is something wrong?” Graciela’s accent was thick, though her English was quite good.

  “Could we see your key card?” Lana asked.

  Graciela looked embarrassed and glanced at her companion, then back at Lana. “I don’t know where it is.”

  Julia came around the bed and put a hand on Graciela’s arm. “She lost it sometime yesterday.” Her eyes flashed to Vanessa, who had a frown on her face. “We hoped she’d accidentally left it in one of the housekeeping carts, but we haven’t found it so far. Did you find it somewhere?”

  “No. It appears someone else found it.” Blake’s face was serious. “Someone else used your key card to play a practical joke on a guest.” He asked several questions, trying to figure out when and where it was lost, and managed to narrow it down to a short period the previous day.

  He made eye contact with both of them. “Joel is checking the cameras to see what happened last night, and he’ll see if he can figure out who picked it up. Keep closer track of your key cards, okay? That’s a major liability for us if someone gets a hold of one and uses it to steal from the rooms.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Vanessa said to them both, her mouth drawn in a thin line.

  They left the two maids. “Is it easy enough to prove?” Vanessa asked.

  “It ought to be, but whoever is doing this is pretty skilled. They’ve been playing with the cameras and who knows what else.” Lana was a little surprised Joel hadn’t caught them yet. Of course, he’d been a bit distracted with other, slightly more pressing problems until a couple of weeks earlier. Namely, Sage’s stalker.

  “We’ll let you know what Joel finds out,” Blake said.

  “Good. I’m embarrassed that one of my maids lost her card.” Vanessa clasped her hands in front of her, and her face was pinched, making her look much older than her forty years.

  Blake and Lana went to the security office to see what Joel found out.

  “I’ve checked the video,” he said. “There wasn’t anything there—not even the guest leaving her room. We knew the person behind this has been messing with the cameras upstairs. Apparently they messed with the ones on that floor too. It’s not a common skill, but I’ve been through the list of employees, checked their backgrounds, and I don’t think there are any who have the ability.”

  “Dead end, then.” Lana said. This problem didn’t seem to be getting better.

  Lana rinsed her mouth to get the bile out, then spit the water into the sink before taking a clean mouthful to drink. She couldn’t wait until this trimester was over. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired. She adjusted her clothing and fixed the smudged makeup by her eyes where she had teared up—as she always did when she vomited—then stepped back into her bedroom.

  Rosemary sat on the bed, an eel-shaped throw pillow on her lap.

  “Hi, what are you doing in here?” Lana wondered if Rosemary had heard her vomiting and if she was going to go all protective on her.

  “I could hear you puking from my bathroom downstairs. As I quite often do at this time of morning.” Rosemary set the pillow out of the way and patted the empty spot beside her. The quiet, tactful move surprised Lana; Rosemary wasn’t known for her tact.

  Lana sat beside her. “It’s really nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Of course, because pregnancy is totally natural, so why should I worry about you puking your guts out every morning, pushing yourself at a killing pace all day, then falling asleep over paperwork in the evening? You never give it a rest.”

  Though she opened her mouth to protest, Lana couldn’t. It actually felt good to have someone to talk to—though she wasn’t sure Rosemary was the one she would have picked, given the choice. She glanced over and saw the door to the hall was closed and felt grateful this was at least private. “I sometimes fall asleep at my desk, actually. And I snuck home for a nap on Monday. It makes me feel like a slacker,” she admitted.

  “That makes me feel a little better. You need to take care of yourself—unless you don’t intend to keep it.” Rosemary sent her a sideways look.

  Lana found herself covering her flat stomach with her hand, as if to protect her child. “Of course I’m keeping it. It’s my baby!”

  “Your call. I won’t judge you either way.” Rosemary smirked a little. “The question is whether or not Blake knows he’s going to be a father.”

  Swear words escaped and Lana wondered just how transparent she’d been. “What is it with you people? Seriously. I thought we were being far more discreet than that—I mean there’s really nothing going on with us right now.”

  Rosemary laughed out loud. “If there’s nothing between you, it’s one of the most interesting nothings I’ve ever seen. You try so hard to act professional, but the personal chemistry just seethes every time you’re together. Who else mentioned it?”

  Lana wished she hadn’t said anything. “Cami. But if both of you noticed, surely everyone else has by now as well. No one keeps anything from Sage, no matter how hard they try, and the others aren’t exactly morons, either.”

  “The sisters would know, yes. Vince for sure. Joel never misses a trick.” Rosemary leaned back on her elbows as she considered the list. “And Alex seems to know everything about ever
yone—that’s Dad’s fault, probably. I bet Harrison is blind to it, though.” She seemed to get an unnatural amount of joy out of that.

  “Great. Why don’t I just hang a neon sign on my forehead?” Might as well anyway, except she and Blake were getting a divorce. And having a baby. And she still didn’t know how to tell him.

  “So tell me when it happened?” Rosemary prodded after a moment. “You haven’t exactly been going on dates. Not that you need to date to get pregnant, but a quickie in the office doesn’t seem your style.”

  “No, it’s not,” Lana jumped in, not wanting Rosemary to follow that thought any further. “It only happened once. The night of the grand opening.”

  “You tried so hard to pretend you were thrilled about the celebration,” Rosemary tugged at a pucker on a curve of the eel pillow. “I think part of you was excited, but you were upset, too. Missing your mom. And missing Dad—we all do, even if we don’t admit it. The old letch.” Her lips tipped a little and her voice took on an edge of fondness.

  “Your mom didn’t come,” Lana pointed out, curious and hoping for details. Rosemary hadn’t made a comment one way or the other about that, and she never talked about her mom. Ever.

  “No. But we’re not discussing me, we’re talking about you.” Rosemary shifted to face Lana better. “So you guys had a little recreational time together that night?” Her brows wiggled. “Did you have something going on before we all came here?”

  Lana felt her face flush. She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t used to discussing this kind of thing, either. “We had a thing last winter.” She squeezed her eyes shut and knew she needed to come out with it. Eventually everyone would know—it was a miracle it hadn’t been revealed during the media frenzy over the summer. “Don’t tell anyone else, because I’m not ready, and Cami doesn’t deserve to hear it third hand, but we eloped last January.” She held her breath for a second, waiting for Rosemary’s response, but she didn’t say anything. Lana peeped over at her, but Rosemary looked stunned, uncharacteristically speechless, in fact.