Ben didn’t gossip, so Kalin wasn’t surprised by his short answer. “I don’t think she wants to talk to me right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Not long after eleven that evening, Amber stumbled her way across the bar, weaving through the throng. Every chair hosted a person. The dance floor was alive with people thrusting and grinding, oblivious to anyone else. No one would notice if she was gone for a bit. She’d crash later at her friend’s place. Before that, she had things to do. She’d had enough of this resort taking advantage of her. She was nice to people, always trying to do the right thing, so what was up? No matter what she did, she ended up getting screwed.
Her public face was sweet. McKenzie, the cocky bastard, had been one to notice. He probably never even questioned whether he could have her or not. Just taken for granted she’d be available. He slept with her and scurried right back to that Nora bitch. Nora probably knew and that’s why she badmouthed Amber to the rental manager.
And Kalin. Kalin had been friendly, joked with her about Donny, and then turned on her as if she were shit on bare feet. Kalin didn’t even stick up for her when McKenzie pushed her. She’d let the jerk keep on skiing without his pass. Well, she’d show her.
Amber trudged through the snow using the edge of the path to guide her to staff housing. With wind slapping flakes in every direction, she had two feet of visibility. She’d worn skin-tight jeans to the bar without a layer of thermal underwear, or any underwear for that matter, not wanting to look fat, and now she wished she hadn’t been so vain. At least her boots kept the bottom half of her legs warm.
Earlier, she’d moved out of her housing unit but hadn’t turned in her key. After business hours, no one was in the HR office to collect it. She’d innocently bring it back to Monica tomorrow.
She reached the staff-housing parking lot and stood in the shadows. The blinding snowstorm kept her hidden, even so, she wanted to make sure no one was there, especially security guards doing their rounds. While she waited, she dug through the snow, found a rock the size of a baseball and worked the edges loose with the toe of her boot. She checked the area one more time, and when she didn’t see anyone, she wobbled across the lot. In her drunken state, she needed three tries to unlock the front door. She bolted through the lobby, turned to the back stairs and ran up four flights.
The water system had an outlet for a fire hose on each floor. A small lock secured the wheel that opened the water flow. Amber hesitated. She almost turned and ran, but then convinced herself the resort deserved to be punished. What’s a little water anyway?
She bashed the rock against the lock, breaking the shackle with the first hit. She lifted the safety catch, opened the valve and turned the wheel. Water burst from the pipe, spreading across the floor. Within a minute water cascaded down the steps. She took off in front of the river, laughing the entire way down the staircase, listening to the water rush behind her.
* * *
The alarm from Ben’s two-way radio blasted him awake. Midnight. A first responder call paged into their bedroom. Kalin groaned and rolled over. Ben reacted instantly. He could be at the fire station in five minutes. Jumping into a pair of boots, he grabbed his truck keys and took off. The last to arrive would have to work dispatch, and he didn’t intend to be stuck at the station.
Knowing the other volunteer firefighters were rushing to get in, he didn’t waste a minute. He was the deputy chief, and he could pull rank and order someone else to remain at the station, but that never went over well. He wanted to be chief, and when the time came, he would need the support of the rest of the firefighters.
His wipers brushed snow off the windshield, but didn’t help with the drifts accumulating on the road. Ben adeptly drove around them, avoiding the largest piles, and kept his speed.
At the outskirts of Stone Mountain, he turned left into the lit fire station in front of two other cars. Both garage doors were open, and the trucks sat prepared for use. He hoped the call was something more exciting than a false alarm.
Three other firefighters were already in their yellow fire pants, held up with suspenders that covered navy T-shirts. They were at the ready with their jackets and helmets.
Jason waited for Ben near the front door of the truck. Ben had persuaded Jason to join the fire department. Like most employees working at the resort, he needed extra cash. Even though it was a volunteer position, the municipality paid each member when they were called in.
Jason’s experience dealing with high-pressure water systems in snowmaking made him a good fit. He’d finished his custom fire-training certificate at the College of the Rockies and could easily become a senior firefighter. “What’s up?” Ben asked.
“An employee called in. There’s a flood in the new staff housing building,” Jason said.
“Shit.” Staff housing was HR’s big deal. As Kalin repeatedly told him, the resort had spent over four million constructing the building. Kalin had used the new accommodations for recruiting, boasting the best staff housing in the province, trying to lure employees. A minor flood wouldn’t be so bad, but a major flood would be chaos for Kalin and her team. They’d have to find somewhere else for employees to live. Ben hated adding more stress to Kalin’s life. She already worked too many hours.
“Hey, Ben.” Vicky sauntered toward the fire truck, fully geared up, and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Stop,” Ben said.
“I know. You have a girlfriend.”
Laughter circulated among the firefighters, but when Ben glared at them, they all pretended they were more interested in getting in the truck than in Vicky and Ben.
The last of the volunteers arrived, and the fire truck took off, reaching staff housing within minutes. Ben and Jason ran into the building to assess the scene. Vicky followed close behind. Ben opened the ground floor door to the stairwell, and water spread into the main area.
“We need to evacuate. Call Kalin and get a list of occupied units. She has it on her computer at home,” Ben directed Jason. “Ask her to email it to me.”
Vicky beat Jason and called Kalin.
“Stay away from him,” Jason said to Vicky once she was off the phone. “He doesn’t need the hassle from you.”
Vicky put her standard pout on her face. “How come you never liked me?”
Jason shook his head. “Grow up.”
Ben pulled the fire alarm. He ran to the side stairway and took the steps two at a time, reaching the top floor within a minute. He crossed the hallway back to the flooded stairway and discovered water gushing from the stand pipe. He turned the wheel, cutting the supply, and caught his breath.
The broken lock was pinned in one corner, jammed under the edge of a rock. He held the lock between his thumb and index finger, examining the damage. The rock shouldn’t be there. He didn’t need to be a detective to figure out the rock had been used to smash the lock. Vandalism. Someone was pissed at the resort again.
Ben returned to the ground floor and found a group of staff milling around with the members of the fire department. He checked his phone for the list from Kalin and motioned for Jason to follow him.
They entered each unit that had employees assigned, confirming no one remained in the building. Now they had to decide if the building was safe. There might be structural damage caused by the flow of water. Ben took in the ruined carpet, installed a mere month ago, and the water stained walls and ceiling and felt bad for Kalin. He’d watched her excitement while the building came together, piece by piece, over the last year.
Ben called Kalin, and she answered on the first ring.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“Hard to tell. I’m concerned about the building structure.”
Kalin groaned. “It’s brand new.”
“To be safe, I don’t think the staff should sleep there tonight. Can you call the front desk and authorize an allotment of guest rooms?”
“That’ll be expensive. We don’t get those for free.”
<
br /> Stone Mountain managed the privately owned condos and paid a rental fee if they used them. “Take it easy. Insurance should cover the cost.”
“You’re right. I should have thought of that. I’m just uptight. Is it safe enough for staff to get some things for the night?”
“I think so. I’ll get anyone affected organized and then send them to the front desk.”
“I’ll meet the staff there to make sure they get settled,” Kalin said. “By the way, thanks for having your girlfriend call me.”
“I asked Jason, she just—”
“Relax. I’m kidding. Did you take Chica with you?”
“No.”
“She’s not here. She must have snuck out when you left. I’ve been calling, but she’s not coming. I’ll look for her on my way back from the front desk.”
“Not at this time of night. I’ll go when I get home. She’ll come back. Don’t worry.”
* * *
The front desk agents assigned each employee a room. Once confident there were no issues, Kalin drove through the resort looking for Chica, using the search as an excuse to drive by the fire station to see if Vicky and Ben were both there. The fire station stood ominously dark.
Chica didn’t answer her calls as she drove around the resort, but with the noise from the wind and visibility diminished by the storm, she wasn’t surprised. She arrived home without Chica, without Ben and felt defeated. She plopped on the living room couch and watched the snow fall. Every few minutes she checked outside for her beautiful dog.
The second Ben entered their place, Kalin asked, “Did you find her?”
“No. I asked security to keep an eye out for her. They’ll bring her home if they see her.”
“She could get lost in this storm. Shouldn’t we go looking?”
“She’ll be fine.” Ben took Chica’s leash from Kalin and set it on the coffee table. “Let’s go to bed. She’ll bark when she comes home.”
Kalin followed Ben but didn’t feel right going to bed without Chica in the room. “How bad is the building?”
“It’s hard to tell. The carpet and walls in the east stairwell are ruined.”
She flipped the heavy quilt off her pillow and eased in. “Do you think there’s structural damage?”
Ben got in the other side of the bed and shifted until he pressed against her. “We’ll need an expert to check. It could go either way.”
“How did it happen?”
Ben hesitated. “It was vandalism.”
“No.”
“Someone broke the lock on the stand pipe and opened the water flow.”
Kalin’s eyes moistened with tears. “What am I going to do if we don’t have rooms for the new employees? Most of them accepted their jobs based on having housing. If they have nowhere to live, they won’t come. They’ll be here in two weeks.”
“We’ll know more in the morning.” Ben pulled Kalin close, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “There was housing in town before the new building was built. Monica must know how to find rooms.”
“I’m not looking forward to telling her this.”
“She’ll figure something out if she has to.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t look for Chica?” Kalin asked.
“She could be anywhere.”
“Is Vicky going to be a problem for us?”
Ben reached over Kalin and turned off the bedside lamp. “Never. You’re my girl.”
Kalin pressed her cheek against Ben’s bare chest and closed her eyes as his chest hair tickled her skin. Sleep took its time in coming.
* * *
As Ben predicted, barking woke them when Chica returned at dawn.
“See. I told you she’d come home,” Ben said.
Kalin whipped off the quilt and ran to the door before Ben rolled over. The storm had subsided, leaving a blanket of white snow. The outdoor light reflected off the snow’s surface, giving the illusion of tiny jewels scattered over the driveway.
Without greeting Kalin, Chica trotted straight to her bowl and lapped the water. Kalin stepped on the clumps of snow dropping off Chica and followed her to the kitchen.
She turned on the light and gasped. “Ben. She’s hurt.”
Blood spattered the floor where Chica had crossed the tiles, and the water in her bowl turned pink.
After she finished drinking, Ben examined her. Blood stained her mouth and throat but nowhere else. “I can’t find a wound. She must have killed something.”
“What?”
Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s get her washed.” He dragged Chica into the bathroom and turned on the taps. “Don’t tell anyone about this.”
Not liking a bath, Chica bolted backward, but Kalin expected the move and shut the door. They wrestled her into the tub. After cleaning her, Kalin threw the blood stained towels into the washer.
“Hand me the new collar you bought her,” Ben said.
“I didn’t get her a new collar.”
Ben winked at her. “The one with her name embroidered on the outside and ‘I Love Ben’ on the inside.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ben’s neck reddened. “The pink collar in the front hall.”
“You’re kidding me. I would never buy anything pink.” Kalin went to the front hall and lifted the collar off a peg. She examined the writing on the inside. “How did she get in here?”
“Who?”
“This has to be from Vicky. Is she stalking you?”
Ben rubbed his hand across his forehead. “We’ve been slack about locking the house. We don’t know it’s her for sure.”
“Really? Is there someone else out there who you expect to get ‘I Love You’ messages from?”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“What if she let Chica out?”
“I can’t see her doing that, but I’ll talk to her and tell her to stay out of my life.”
Screw the Blonde Goddess. She can’t have Ben. Kalin lifted her pajama top over her head and let it flutter to the floor. She gave Ben her best seductive smile. “We’ve got half an hour before the alarm is set to go off. Any ideas on what to do with the time?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
At eight thirty that morning, Kalin waited for Reed in his office. There she was again, bringing him bad news. To kill that thought, she wandered along the edge of his desk taking in the photographs. The theme covering the desktop shifted from the wall photos of Ian skiing to photos of family, and if the display was any indication, Reed was proud of his peeps. She stopped at a framed snapshot of a young woman wearing a seventies ski outfit, holding a ski trophy and beaming at the camera.
Reed cleared his throat.
Embarrassed Reed caught her snooping, she said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“That’s my wife, Susan. She raced when she was a teenager.”
Reed’s heart-warming smile was the one Kalin remembered from the first time she met him. She guessed that was his usual look but stress turned him serious. “I love the outfit.” Kalin smiled back at him. “Looks like she was good.”
“She was.” Reed dropped his gloves and toque in a basket and hung his ski jacket on a hook. “You’re here early. Something must be going on.”
“The new staff housing building was vandalized last night. Someone opened the fire hydrant tap on the fourth floor and flooded the building.”
“How bad is it?”
“We evacuated last night, just to be safe, and the fire department called in a construction company to assess the structure. We should know later today. I put the staff in private units for now.”
“Wasn’t the tap secured?”
“It was. Ben found a rock beside the stand pipe and thinks it was used to break the lock.”
“I think you need to spend some time evaluating the security situation around the resort. You’ve made a few errors since your promotion. I know it’s not your fault someone vandalized a building, but it looks like it was easy to do.
Have you been spending more time on HR issues than on security?”
“No. The other way around. I’ve let Monica handle most of HR while I focus on the McKenzie situation.”
“I see. That tells me you should be asking for more help from Fred. I’d like to meet with you more often and review what you’re working on. Ask Gertrude to schedule two weekly meetings for the next couple of months.”
“Okay.” Kalin didn’t want to explain her awkward relationship with Fred, but she didn’t want to take the blame for everything that went wrong either. She’d have to figure out how to get Fred on board.
“Do we know who did it?” Reed asked.
“No. I think it’s a spiteful act. Whoever did this was angry at the resort.”
“You have someone in mind?”
Kalin hesitated, but it had to be said. “Two days ago, Monica evicted Amber Cristelli, and she had until last night to move out. She’s the employee who’s been checking people at the entrance to the tuning room. I can’t think of anyone else.”
“How did she get in the building? Wasn’t it locked?”
“It was. Amber still has her keys and will return them to Monica this morning.” From the length of the wrinkle lines formed by Reed’s frown, Kalin could see the answer made him unhappy.
Reed shook his head several times. “You evicted an employee and didn’t take her keys away from her.”
“She left the building after HR closed for the night. It’s our procedure for the employee to return the keys the next day unless we think they’re a risk.”
“That policy needs to be changed. Did you report the flood to the RCMP?”
“Ben called them last night when the fire department was on scene. I’ll call Constable Miller about Amber this morning.”
“Did you inform the insurance company?”
“I just talked to them. They’re sending someone this afternoon. I’ve turned this over to the maintenance department.”
“Okay. Follow up later today and let me know the status.”
Descent (A Stone Mountain Mystery Book 1) Page 19