wouldn't say more than, -It won't work out." That proving useless, she'd done the only thing she could do in the situation, which was to tell him they'd likely have to end their relationship. To this, he'd calmly replied without the slightest tinge of panic to his words, -So that's what you do when you don't get what you want? You just cut people off?"
-Yes," she'd declared, -that's what I do. And it's not when I don't get what I want. It's when they won't listen to what I'm saying for their own good."
-How can it be for my own good not to take the job? It's money. It's a future. Isn't that what you want?"
-Apparently not," she'd told him.
Still, she hadn't quite been able to make good on her threat because in part she couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to work with Alan daily but not see him nightly. She was weak in this and she despised her weakness, especially when she'd chosen him primarily because he'd seemed like the weak one: considerate, which she'd taken for malleable, and gentle, which she'd taken for diffident. That he'd proved himself exactly the opposite since coming to work at Adventures Unlimited scared the hell out of her.
One way to terminate her fear was to confront it, which meant confronting Alan himself. But really, how could she? So at first she'd fumed, and then she'd waited, watched, and listened. The inevitable was just that - inevitable - and since it had always been that way, she spent the time attempting to harden herself, becoming remote within while playing the part of certain without.
She'd carried the act off until today, when his announcement of -I'll be gone a few hours down the coast" sent the sirens off in her brain. At that point her only choice was to ride fast and far, to exhaust herself beyond thinking so that she exhausted herself beyond caring as well. Thus, despite her other responsibilities that day, she'd gone on her way: along St. Mevan Crescent and over to Burn View, down the slope of Lansdown Road and the Strand, and from there out of town.
She'd kept riding eastward, long after she should have turned back for home. For this reason, darkness had fallen by the time she'd geared down to make the final climb up the Strand. Shops were closed; restaurants were open although meagerly peopled at this time of year. A dispirited line of bunting crisscrossed the street, dripping water, and the lone traffic light at the crest of the hill cast a streak of red in her direction. No one was out on the soaked pavement, but in another two months that would all change when summer visitors filled Casvelyn to take advantage of its two broad beaches, of its surf, of its sea pool, of its fun fair, and - one hoped - of the experiences offered by Adventures Unlimited.
This holiday business was her father's dream: taking the abandoned hotel - a 1933 derelict structure sitting on a promontory above St. Mevan Beach - and turning it into an activities-oriented destination. It was an enormous risk for the Kernes, and if it didn't work out, they'd be destitute. But her father was a man who'd taken risks in the past and had seen them bear fruit because the one thing he wasn't afraid of in life was hard work. As to other things in her father's life...Kerra had spent too many years asking why and receiving no answers.
At the top of the hill, she turned into St. Mevan Crescent. From there, along a line of old B and Bs, older hotels, a Chinese takeaway, and a newsagent's shop, she reached the driveway to what had once been the Promontory King George Hotel and what was now Adventures Unlimited.
The old hotel stood, barely illuminated, with scaffolding fronting it. Lights were on in the ground floor, but not at the top where the family quarters were.
In front of the entry, a police car was parked. Kerra drew her eyebrows together when she saw it.
At once she thought of Alan. She didn't consider her brother at all.
BEN KERNE'S OFFICE AT Adventures Unlimited was on the first floor of the old hotel. He'd fashioned it out of a single that had once undoubtedly been used by a lady's maid, since directly next door to it - and formerly with an adjoining door - was a suite. That he'd had converted to a unit