by Mia Caldwell
Raina left Abigail to throw dirty linens into the washing machines and she herself returned downstairs, to Martha’s small office off the kitchen to help with the books.
By that evening she was beat, hardly able to keep her eyes open. She spent some time with the kids seeing to their homework and just chatting about their first day at school.
“It was great!” Chantal was saying, talking so fast that Raina had a difficult time keeping up with the names of her new friends. Jeremiah and Crystal were also clamoring to tell her about the day’s activities.
After she put the kids to bed, Raina had to return downstairs and help with the clean up from supper. At eleven, the day was finally over and Raina collapsed in a chair in the dining room.
“It gets easier,” Martha said, coming to sit opposite Raina. “You’ll get used to it, I promise.”
“Does it? One thing’s for sure, I won’t have to get a gym membership,” Raina said.
Martha laughed. “I’ll stay for as long as you feel comfortable. I know the adjustment is hard, especially coming from a big hotel. The work does get more physical with a small establishment. You’ll find yourself chipping in a lot so things can move well.”
Raina looked at Martha fondly. “Thank you so much, I really don’t know how I would have done this without you here to hold my hand.”
16
Kelly’s head throbbed and it was only ten in the morning. The reasons for her pounding headache were in the files in front of her. She wished Raina still worked for Del Mar. At the thought of her friend in her B&B, Kelly smiled. Raina was really the bravest woman she knew. Imagine buying a business and just taking a huge leap of faith like that.
Last weekend she had taken a drive and popped in to see how Raina was doing, and was amazed at the efficiency she had seen there. She could never say this to Raina, but Kelly had always looked down on B&B’s, dismissing them as pokey, badly run establishments, for little old lady tourists. What she saw at Cliff West convinced her otherwise. Raina was setting it up like a smaller version of Del Mar, doing construction to modernize the rooms and the grounds, and for a moment Kelly wished that she herself had Raina’s opportunity.
The thought had escaped as fast as it had come. She liked knowing that when the clock hit five o’clock, her work day was over. The weekends were hers alone to do as she wished. She looked at the files again. The kitchen and the housekeeping departments, now headed by a terse older woman called Ann, had requested more supplies.
Yet the records showed that the supplies had been delivered and signed for by the supply manager. She stood up resolutely and took the files with her as she went to Ann’s office.
“Hey there,” Kelly said.
“Hi, what can I do for you?” Ann said.
While she was efficient at her job, Ann had rebuffed any attempts at friendliness, and after a week, Kelly had backed off. It was clear the woman in her early fifties liked to keep her professional and private lives separate. That suited Kelly fine and now, she went straight to the point.
“Can I see the actual figures of the quantities of each item,” Kelly said.
“Sure, they’re right here. Is there a problem?” Ann said.
“No, just double checking,” Kelly replied.
There was no point in alarming the new head housekeeper, besides it really had nothing to do with her, and Kelly did not want her to worry needlessly. She took the file and returned with it to her office. Her intention had been to check them out in Ann’s office, but the way the dark haired woman was watching her made Kelly decide otherwise.
It was then that she had a thought and Kelly felt her blood grow cold.
The actual supplies received were half of the quantity they should have been.
She knew that Roger must have had something to do with it, but what alarmed her was that the supply manager must also be in on the scheme. There was no way that Roger could work alone. It was the supply manager’s job to countercheck all items received against the order.
Back in her office, she slumped in her chair, wondering what to do next. Her headache took on a new intensity and she rubbed her temple.
“Can I do that for you?” The familiar, oily voice leered.
Kelly groaned inwardly and didn’t open her eyes. She hoped that when she opened them he would have disappeared.
She hadn’t seen Roger in weeks and she had clung to the faint hope that he had found a new victim to terrorize. She looked warily at him now and recalled his assault weeks earlier. The only good thing about it was that he had been caught on camera. But before doing anything about bringing him to justice she needed to find out for sure that he was the one stealing from the company.
In spite of herself, Kelly felt a wave of fear at his approaching form. He must have seen it because he said: “Little Kelly, frightened of me are you? You should be, I’m not a man to play games with, and I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Kelly swallowed hard and fought the temptation to lick her dry lips. She knew that Pervy Roger would view it as a seductive gesture.
“Hello, Roger,” Kelly said.
“Look at you all prim and proper when I know you’re a tigress when you’re with a man who knows what he’s doing. So when is it Kelly? Tonight?” Roger demanded, placing his hands on her desk and leaning towards her. Kelly felt stifled by his close presence and she could not think. She looked around desperately searching for a means of distracting him.
“For what?” she said, feigning ignorance.
“Don’t play with me, Kelly. I’m giving you this last chance. I don’t understand you women. What will it cost you, one lousy night of pleasing a man who could change your fortunes?”
“Look, I can’t think right now. My head’s killing me.”
“Take a Tylenol,” Roger said in a sweet voice.
“I tried, it won’t work. And actually I was just about to take the day off,” Kelly said.
“Take two,” he said and then backed off, seemingly in deep thought. “Give me your address. I’ll pop in tomorrow to check on you.”
It was too much for Kelly and her temper exploded. She was tired of the cat and mouse games and it was time to put a stop to it. Now she knew how Raina had felt. Kelly felt pushed to the edge and she did not care about the consequences anymore. As far as she was concerned, Roger could go to hell.
“Drop dead, Roger. I wouldn’t touch you with a one hundred-foot stick if you were the only man left in the world.” She started to gather her purse and other personal items, knowing she had to leave quickly to escape him.
Roger moved like lightening and the next thing Kelly felt was a burning pain on her cheek as he slapped her. “You fucking bitch, who the hell do you think you are? You’re a worthless little tramp, and don’t think you won’t pay for this.”
Kelly gripped her cheek. Tears of anger and humiliation ran down her cheeks and before she could say a word, the bastard strolled smugly out of her office. She wiped the tears from her face with an angry sweep of her hand. The idea of a day off had been a way to get Roger out of her office, but now, she decided to take it.
She took her handbag and went to the Human Resources office. She explained that she was unwell and left as quickly as her long legs could carry her. In the lobby, she set her face into a cold mask when she saw Roger walking in her direction.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said in a cold tone.
“Taking the day off, I’m not feeling well,” Kelly answered, gritting her teeth.
“Go on, just know there are consequences for everything.” he warned her ominously.
Kelly refused to be intimidated anymore. She lifted her chin, gave him a cold stare, and she marched off and left him standing there.
In the second floor apartment where she lived, Kelly kicked off her shoes and sank gratefully onto the couch. It felt odd to be home at noon but the silence was marvelous. She stretched out her legs and reveled in being away from the poisonous atmosphere at the h
otel.
After a nap, Kelly woke up to find that the headache was gone and her muscles had relaxed. The power nap was just what she had needed. She went to the small kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. As the machine brewed, she looked out of the window, her mind far away.
She had to figure out what to do with the camera recordings that she now possessed. She had been smart enough to make several copies and stash them various places.
But then, she remembered the emails from Raina’s office email address. Her hands flew to her mouth. For all she knew, Roger was probably seated in her chair writing a similar email to more supposed suppliers. He could frame her just as easily and make it look like she’d been in on Raina’s schemes.
Damn it!
Roger was the regional manager, he could be wherever he wished around the Del Mar and no one would lift an eyebrow. The coffee boiled and she poured the hot beverage into the cup with cream and sugar.
Her options were pretty narrow, Kelly thought as she carried the cup of coffee to the living room. The obvious person to go to with her suspicions would have been the supply manager but seeing that he was a suspect too, immediately crossed him off the list.
The other people she could contact were people who oversaw the South East region, which was led by Roger himself. She would go through the management when she returned to the office and figure out the best person to talk to about her suspicions. There had to be someone who would listen to her.
The following day, Kelly was among the first people in the office. She hung her jacket on the back of her chair and switched on her computer. An hour later, she had a list of three people. Each of them headed different regions and the third person worked directly under the Del Mar Group’s CEO himself. She started at the top and with trembling fingers, she dialed the number of the head office.
“Is he expecting your call?” a secretary’s efficient and distant voice asked.
“No, but I’m the manager of Del Mar in Palm Beach and I have a confidential matter that I need to bring to his attention,” Kelly explained.
“I’m sorry but the right person to speak to would be your regional manager. Please follow the appropriate chain of command. Thank you.”
It was the same with the other three. She was advised to talk to her regional manager and in one case got an earful from the secretary or whoever picked up the phone for breaking protocol. Frustrated, she shelved her efforts for the moment and went to the conference room to attend the staff meeting.
To her chagrin, Roger was there, and he sat smiling at her from her own chair. She looked around for an empty chair, as far from him as she could be. She played with her pencil until she felt everyone’s eyes on her.
“Kelly, we’re waiting for you,” Roger said.
She started the meeting, though her heart was pounding hard against her chest. What was he here for? She went through the whole meeting without incident and was relieved when it was over.
“Before you all return to your duties, there was something I wanted to speak about,” Roger said. “Soon, we’ll be making huge changes around here. Some of you will be promoted and others will lose their jobs. If you’re incompetent and cannot perform the small tasks asked of you by your bosses, then know you’re one of those waiting to be axed. We’ll not tolerate lazy and uninspired employees. Does everyone understand?” He looked at Kelly pointedly. Around the table people murmured in concern. “That’s it, have a good day.” Roger ended the meeting, and let employees shuffle fearfully out of the room.
All the while, Roger had kept his eyes on Kelly.
She had held his gaze and now she straightened her shoulders. He would have to fight her tooth and nail to get her to leave. She would not leave as quietly as Raina had. Roger needed to be reined in. If she let this go, he would only do it to the next person, and the person after that, and then the person after that. This needed to end, and Kelly had every intention of being the one to do it.
She flashed him a bright smile and turned to leave. She expected to hear his voice calling out to her but nothing came and she shut the door behind her.
The bad feeling came then.
She knew that her days were numbered anyway, and so far she had not done anything with the information she had. Sexual harassment was not enough though. That was often brushed under the table.
But Roger was a thief and she wanted him caught and put behind bars. Companies didn’t like losing money. If she sent the evidence of the pervert harassing her, it was likely that they would try to settle with her quietly, she would have to resign and Pervy Roger’s life would go on untouched. But stealing? He would have to answer for that—wouldn’t he?
Kelly flicked on her computer. She watched the video where Roger had grabbed her and she had to close her eyes to stop herself from watching the vile man abuse her. She forwarded through several other videos from the previous days and paused when she saw his figure enter her office.
She looked at the time stamp and realized that must have been from yesterday, Kelly thought. She pressed play and watched in fascination as he shut the door and sat behind her desk. He turned on her computer and moments later was typing furiously on it.
“Damn it.” Her voice was loud in the silent room. She knew the bastard was setting her up in the same way he had done with Raina.
Her heart constricted with fear. Raina had been lucky that the company had not pressed charges. Kelly knew that if Roger went ahead with his plan, she could very well find herself behind bars. There was no time to waste now. She had to find someone willing to listen to her story.
She returned to the company’s website again and this time she focused on the CEO himself. It would be her last ditch effort to get someone to listen to her. His name was Christian Del Mar. There was not much information about him on the company website—not even a picture.
She typed his name on a search browser. She hit the jackpot immediately. There were tons of information about him. Evidently the gossip blogs and society pages just loved him.
Kelly perused all the stories that came up in her search. Every once in a while she looked up nervously, worried that Roger would walk in, though it was unlikely. He had given up on her and had already decided to punish her by framing her. She read more about this man and hoped that he was a good person, though if he was anything like his uncle, Pervy Roger, she was in deep trouble. But Christian Del Mar was her last hope. If she couldn’t get him to look at her evidence she might as well start planning for a stay in the county jail.
She got his office telephone numbers and email addresses without much excitement. She knew that his assistant and secretaries would not let her through. She had to think of another way to speak to him.
As she scrolled through his impressive biography, she felt a little hopeful seeing the kind of person he was. He seemed to give a lot to charities and had apparently taken a year off to work with students in the developing world.
An idea came to her then and her heart raced. He had taken a year off to help the underprivileged, which meant that it was probably his passion. Surely he would not just stop after the year was up.
He probably had other talks and charity events scheduled throughout the year. With mounting excitement, and feeling a bit smug at her own cleverness, Kelly searched again, looking for a list of events, but coming up with nothing until she came to a college website announcing that Christian Del Mar of the Del Mar hotel group, would be giving a talk at Paramount College. It was free to students, but interested outsiders could buy tickets if space was available.
Kelly immediately fired off an email to book a reservation for herself. Then she returned to the browser and she hit another jackpot. There was a video on him giving past interview. Kelly clicked on him, knowing that she would need to recognize him at a glance if she was going to catch him before or after the talk.
The video played and the camera zeroed in on an attractive man, with intense blue eyes and a teasing smile. He was very charming as well
as being handsome, and it was clear why the society blogs were obsessed with him.
But the more she watched, the more Kelly started to feel a nagging sensation that she knew him from somewhere. He seemed strikingly familiar yet Kelly could have sworn she had never met the CEO of Del Mar Group of hotels.
Huh, she shrugged to herself. He must just have one of those faces …
17
Over the rest of the day Kelly kept going back to her computer, checking for more videos of Christian Del Mar. Something was bothering her—something just didn’t sit right. She tried to put her finger on it, but her mind was stubbornly refusing to work out what was bothering her.
Kelly screwed her eyes at the computer screen. She could have sworn she had seen the face before, but where?
She groaned and leaned her head against the desk, closing her eyes in frustration. As the video continued to run, the velvet voice of Christian Del Mar played in the background.
And then, she got it.
Kelly almost fell from her seat. She knew that voice. Eyes wide, she turned back to the screen and wondered how she could have missed it.
The eyes were blue now and the hair a jet black, but the shape of the face and the easy smile were the same.
“I’ll be damned!” Kelly said out loud. “It’s Christopher the maintenance guy.”
Her mouth hung open as she watched video after video, reaching the same conclusion each time.
She thought back to all their encounters and then grew hot with embarrassment when she recalled how strongly she had come on to him, except … his eyes had always been on Raina.