by Smoke, Lucy
The old woman’s eyes twinkled. “Good choice, Dear. Good choice.”
* * *
I came awake slower than usual, my eyes refusing to open. I was encased in warmth and the wonderful smell of ocean and coffee. I flipped over and snuggled into a heated side before I realized what I was doing and my eyes popped open.
“Morning,” Marv said, his gray eyes bright.
“How long have you been up?” I asked.
He shrugged, tossing the covers away as he sat up. “Few minutes.” He stretched his arms over his head and I could see the veins just under his skin on the paler sides of his underarms. Marv reached over during my distraction and popped me lightly, teasingly, on the thigh. “Get up and get dressed. Texas will be here soon.”
“What?” I reached over to slap him back, but he was already crawling out of the bed. I grunted as I rolled and almost fell off of the mattress. “Why?”
“You’ll find out.”
I groaned, but did as he asked. When we were in the common area and the smell of brewing coffee already scented the air, there was a brief knock on the door and with his cup in hand, Marv answered.
“Coffee?” Texas’ voice perked up the room. “Do you have any cream or sugar?”
“Why ruin a good thing?” Marv sat back on the couch, lounging like the elegant, wealthy gentleman that he was.
“You mean make it better?” Texas shot back. “Knix, I think he means that I make everything better.” My head turned as Knix walked into the room, taking up more than his fair share of space. Not that he could help it. Everything seemed so dainty when he was in the room. His dark-brown eyes scanned over me before he strode to the living area and plunked down on the seat across from me.
After Texas successfully found the cream and sugar, and joined Marv on the couch across from Knix and me, Knix sat forward and addressed the room.
“Here’s the update,” he announced. “Mr. and Mrs. Foster’s room set off an alarm last night. Texas has set up a–”
A knock interrupted his sentence and all eyes turned to the door. As if they had choreographed their movements, Knix and Texas stood and ushered me into the bedroom while Marv went for the door. Knix pointed to me and then to the bed with a firm set to his mouth. I wanted to argue, but one look back at Texas’ serious expression, I decided against it, doing as they wished, and sat.
The guys stood just behind the door, their ears close enough to eavesdrop. Even from the bed I could hear Marv’s tone, first surprised, and then concerned. A few moments later and Marv opened the bedroom door. Texas scrambled back towards the bed to stand over me. Knix stood, like an unmoving mountain until whoever passed through the door with Marv was in sight. I watched his tense shoulders deflate.
Jonathan, the concierge who had first greeted Marv and I and shown us to our suite, came through with a younger woman. She had smooth, tan skin and a deep worried look in her brown eyes. The beauty mark below the side of her mouth trembled with her lips.
“We have a complication,” Marv began.
Knix looked at the young woman and Jonathan and, with a sigh, nodded them towards the living room. After everyone was seated once more, Marv explained that the young woman with Jonathan, Beth, was his daughter-in-law. Jonathan had worked for Marv’s parents at their charity events before, but he had never worked on Sweratt Island. Because he had recognized Marv and knew his family, he had thought it best to come here.
“It’s begun,” Marv said. “Jonathan, do you want to tell us what you know?”
Jonathan nodded, his weary eyes crinkling with stress as he explained that Mrs. Foster, the woman from dinner the night before, was missing some very expensive pieces of jewelry, and Beth was in charge of cleaning their suite.
“I knew something was wrong as soon as I entered the room,” Beth said, her voice shaking. “I’ve met the Fosters. They seem like a put together couple. When I went in to clean, their room was a mess.”
“I don’t want them to blame her. She would never do this, sir.” Jonathan’s worried gaze flickered between us and Beth, who looked ready to cry.
“I don’t think you will have to worry about that,” Marv said reassuringly. “You’re innocent.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Jonathan said. “But innocent people go to jail all the time.”
“I can’t go to jail!” Beth cried out, fat tears filling her eyes and streaking down her cheeks.
“That won’t happen,” Tex jumped in. “We’re working on figuring out who is behind the thievery. We will figure it out before anyone leaves the island.”
“What if you don’t?” Beth sobbed. “I did not know of the stealing. Then I heard from some of the managers that this has happened before. I do not want to be blamed.”
Beth put both of her hands to her face and leaned over, continuing to cry in her lap as her father-in-law attempted to soothe her. The guys shared a three-way look. Marv sighed before he stood up and clasped Jonathan on the shoulder.
“Do not worry, friend,” he said. “We will make sure this is taken care of.”
When Beth looked up, still teary eyed, I caught her attention and smiled. “Trust them,” I said. “Trust us. We will help.”
The guys all looked at me. Beth’s whole body shook as she pulled in a nervous breath and nodded. Marv ushered Jonathan and Beth back out into the hallway and they were excused to go finish their duties. The front door closed, locking me in with the guys and a whole lot of pressure to find out who was stealing from the guests of Sweratt Island.
Chapter 18
I collapsed onto the couch in the living room, breathing out a sigh of frustration. Marv said something quiet to Knix and Texas who both glanced at me. I didn’t hear what they said but I watched as Knix shook his head and ushered Texas and Marv out the door. As soon as the door was shut behind them, I steeled myself, but Knix didn’t say anything as he strode back into the center of the room, his eyes trailing over me. He took a seat next to me, so close there was no way for me to move away without it being obvious that I didn’t want to touch him. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want to touch him, though. It was that I did. Very much.
I sat forward, edging my elbows close to my sides. “Why did Marv and Texas leave?”
“They have to set up for the next part of our plan,” he said.
“Oh.” I scratched a spot on my wrist. “Why aren’t you with them? What’s the next part of the plan?”
“Before I tell you that, can I ask you something?”
I paused before nodding. I didn’t know why he felt the need to ask me if he could ask a question. Why he couldn’t just outright ask me?
“What did you think of Jonathan and Beth?”
I frowned, confused. “I think they need our help.”
He nodded as if he expected that answer. “And when you asked them to trust us, did you mean us as in you, Marv, Bellamy, Texas, and me or trust us as in me, Marv, Bellamy, and Texas?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “We’re going to help them as a team, right? If you need me, I’m here to do whatever you need. Why am I here, if I’m not going to help them? I want to help.”
Knix smiled, dark-blue eyes sharp. “I’m happy to hear you say that, but I needed to know because as of right now, most of your work is done. We can give you more to do, if you want to stay. But you were here to give a sufficient reason for Marv to be here as a guest. This is a couple’s retreat after all. He needed a date to be here.”
“If you didn’t want me here, you could have just gotten an Iris girl,” I said, recalling the strange conversation I had overheard between Bellamy and Texas. My eyes trailed to the lamp just beyond his head, trying to look away without truly doing so.
“Alex thought you would work well with us,” Knix replied, shifting in his seat to lean closer. My gaze met his again.
“Alex isn’t here,” I reminded him.
Knix nodded. “You’re right, he’s not. I just needed to make sure that you knew if y
ou wanted to leave, you could.”
I remained quiet for several more moments. Did I want to leave? No, I wanted to stay. I wanted to help Beth and Jonathan. They needed us. It was then, with a jolt, I realized I wanted to be a part of their us. I wanted to be included so badly and, in a way, I felt like I already was. Looking back at Knix, I noticed him watching me, waiting patiently.
“Do you want me to stay?” I asked hesitantly.
He rubbed the underside of his jaw as a grin spread across his full lips. “I would like that very much, Little Bit,” he said. “But it isn’t about me right now. This is about what you want. What do you want, Harlow?”
I kept my eyes locked with his. “I want to know more about Iris,” I said.
“That’s the choice you have to make then,” Knix replied. “Does your curiosity about Iris overrule your need to help others?”
My brows lowered until they formed a V between my eyes. “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “Holding information over my head to help people. Shouldn’t you be jumping at the chance to get me on board? Don’t you need my help?”
“We could use you, yes.” Knix sucked back a breath, before releasing it in a huff. “But we could survive without you. If you’re going to do this and go any further, you need to be doing it for the right reasons.”
“And what reasons would those be?” I asked.
Knix sat up straighter. “You can’t be doing this with the intent to get information. After this job, we may not feel like you’re completely ready.”
“You’re saying that even if I finish this investigation with you,” I began. “You still might not tell me about Iris?”
“That’s right.”
Knix waited as I turned that over in my mind. This whole time, they had been promising me things about Iris – information, jobs, connections, a network that would help me and my Mom. He was telling me that even if I risk myself in his investigation, I still might not get any reward. Though that thought made me wince, another thought was even more difficult to consider. If I didn’t help, would Beth and Jonathan be okay? Would Mrs. Foster ever get her belongings back? Would whoever was doing this get away with it again? After several long moments of silence between us, I looked back at Knix with determination. He raised one brow.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said confidently. “You said this is about me, about if I want to continue, but it’s not. It’s about them – Jonathan and his daughter-in-law. It’s about Mrs. Foster. They need help and I want to help them.”
It shouldn’t have been such a difficult decision and if I was honest with myself, once I got over the curiosity of Iris, it wasn’t.
“Alright, then,” Knix stood up and offered me his hand. “Let’s go.”
I took the offered hand, but frowned at him. “That’s it?” I asked.
He nodded. “That’s it.” Knix tugged me towards the door. “Most of the guests are either in their rooms or downstairs at breakfast right now. We’re going to meet with everyone in Texas’ command center.”
“Command center?”
My legs worked to keep up with Knix. He didn’t release my hand as we moved down the hallway, passing several doors and Island Employees dressed in the same blue shirt and white pants uniform.
“It’s the room they gave him to work on the security cameras and computer systems,” Knix replied.
We headed towards what was obviously an employee hallway. The doors were plain with no gold ornamentation, and some were left open as if the occupants had left in a rush. From what I could discern, peeking into the rooms as we rushed by, there were two or three single beds smooshed together in each, with dressers and no other fancy décor that would have been basic for guests.
Stopping in front of a similar door at the very end of the hallway, Knix knocked twice before turning the handle. The darkened interior surprised me, but as I entered I saw that Texas was sitting like a king on his throne in front of a wall of monitors and boxes with wires peeking out and extending in every direction. He leaned back with rope candy hanging from his mouth.
“Everything good?” Texas asked, raising a brow. Knix and I both nodded in response.
“Tell us what you’ve found,” Knix ordered, catching the back of a rolling chair, positioned on the other side of Texas, and pushed it towards me.
I looked down at it for a moment before tucking my skirt beneath my thighs and sitting down. Marv leaned against the wall behind me and Bellamy, dressed in an employee’s uniform much like Knix and Texas, stood across the room from us.
“Okay, so here’s the deal.” Texas swung his chair back to the wall of monitors and to my left several of the dead screens lit up. One revealed a long empty hallway, the second two displayed a luxurious dining room filled with the guests, including Mr. and Mrs. Foster at different angles.
“Here are all of the guests and we’ve established that the thief or thieves – if there are multiples – aren’t employees,” Texas began.
“They can’t be,” Bellamy cut in. “Not if this has happened repeatedly over several different functions and there are new employees each time.”
“But each time before, employees have been blamed, right?” Marv asked.
“Have any confessed?” Knix asked.
Texas shook his head.
I sat back and watched them, amazed by their keen intellects bouncing ideas off one another. Texas said that Knix was the boss, and I could understand that they followed his lead as a unit, but they were a team and like Marv had said before, none were a burden to the others. They worked surprisingly well together despite their differences.
“Harlow, what do you think?”
I was shocked out of my thoughts by Marv’s question. I looked at him before turning to look at the rest. All eyes were on me. I bit my lip and contemplated. If employees were being blamed and none had confessed, but Sweratt had hired all new staff for each event, then it would make sense to consider that the thief or thieves were more than simple maids and butlers and waiters.
“What about the managers?” I asked. “There must be someone with the company that has to run every event.”
Texas turned to a monitor on his other side, and after tapping on his keyboard for a few seconds, he pulled up a picture of a balding man with bright, cheery eyes. He scooted out of the way so that we could all see the image.
“This is Donald Carrigan,” he said. “He’s an accountant for Sweratt Inc. He’s in charge of this event.”
Texas leaned over and clicked a few more buttons causing several more faces to pop up alongside Donald. One was of a sharp looking woman with dull, brown eyes and flat blond hair in her thirties. The rest followed suit, all different, and all apparently connected with Sweratt.
“That’s Marybeth Donnelly, Rodrick Redfield, Olivia Briggs, and Roger O’Leary,” Texas repeated each name while pointing to the corresponding picture. “Each of these people have managed events here and each hold a position within Sweratt’s actual company.”
“So, they don’t have the same managers each time either,” Knix said. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes and sighed. “This is getting more and more complicated.”
There was something else, though. There was a set of people we hadn’t even considered yet. My eyes were drawn to the monitor of the luxurious dining room as the idea formed in my head.
“What if,” I began hesitantly. Maybe it was ridiculous, but the longer I thought on it, the more the idea made sense. Who else could it be? Every employee for the event was new. There was no way it could be one of them.
“Harlow?” Bellamy prompted.
I turned back to the group. “What if we’re looking at this all wrong,” I said. “What if it’s not the employees, but one of the guests?”
They all stared at me. The quiet made me nervous, but Bellamy blinked at me and then tilted his head. Slowly, a smile spread across his face and he let out a loud whoop. He took three long strides and whipped me out of my chair, spinning me ar
ound twice before planting my feet down once more and kissing my forehead.
“That’s it!” He beamed down at me.
“Shh,” Texas hissed. “The walls here aren’t exactly soundproof.”
Bellamy didn’t seem to care. He continued smiling. “That’s it,” he repeated. “If we look through the guest log for this event and cross reference it with the old guest logs, we’ll be able to find the link. If we don’t have the thief now, then we will at least have a much smaller lead pool.”
Marv stepped forward, clasping Bellamy on the shoulder and pulled him away from me. “How are we going to get those old event lists?”
Bellamy frowned. “Don’t we have access to that online?”
All eyes turned to Texas.
Texas grimaced before scratching his chin uncertainly. “I can get it, but it might take some time.”
“Go ahead and do it,” Knix announced suddenly. All eyes flicked over to him. “Marv, take Harlow down to the dining room. You need to mingle with the guests. This time, instead of simply attending the activities, I want you to be actively searching for suspects. If Harlow is right, then we’ve missed something. Texas? Didn’t we already check out the guests?”
“We ruled them out,” Texas answered.
Knix’s brows pinched down and his frown deepened. “And their plus one’s?”
Texas’ eyes widened like a deer caught in front of a blinding light. “I–” He glanced around, his eyes dazed as he tried to think. “Shit,” he cursed lowly.
“I’ll go ahead and head to the kitchens to see if they need any extra help,” Bellamy volunteered.
“Good idea.” Knix nodded. “I need to go discuss this with Mr. Carrigan. He needs to be made aware of the situation.” He looked toward Texas. “We all make mistakes, don’t worry,” he assured him. “We’ll fix this.”
Texas frowned, but with grim lips he bent his head in acknowledgement.
Marv nodded and took my hand. Before he could direct me back into the hallway, Texas jumped up and offered each of us new earbud communicators with tiny speakers. He flushed as he helped me put it in this time.