Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,17

for setting a poor precedent.”

“You’re pretty high up in the management structure. Don’t breathe so heavy.”

She smiled. “I’m working on that,” she said.

She was being too hard on herself. She was one of the good guys. Always had been. Hell, one Thanksgiving, there had been people sitting at his table that didn’t even speak English. She’d discovered in casual conversation that some of the housekeeping staff had no plans for the day and that had been the end of his opportunity to watch a football game in his shorts with a beer in one hand and a pretzel bowl close to the other.

That’s what made it so hard to believe that somebody at work would want to harm her. But it was the most logical explanation.

He picked up the last of the three photos. “What about this one?”

Meg looked at the picture of a man with dark hair cut in a buzz and a short-clipped full beard. He had very blue eyes, silver-rimmed glasses and looked to be mid-twenties. “Troy Blakely worked for a short time in security. He was let go after he got in a prolonged shouting match with one of our guests.”

“What happened?”

“We were never quite sure how it started. Troy was using the exercise room. We allow all of our employees to do so on their off hours, although they are clearly instructed to defer to our guests and that they should give up machines if guests are waiting.”

“Pretty reasonable.”

“We think so. Anyway, a female guest was working out in our exercise room and decided to switch machines. Troy was in the room and must have wanted the same machine. He supposedly started yelling at her.”

“Supposedly?”

“Yes. When our human resources manager investigated the complaint, she was unable to confirm exactly what happened in the exercise room. There were no witnesses.”

“So there were lots of machines probably available?”

“Yes. That’s what made this so weird. The guest said that she got scared and decided to leave the room. Well, the altercation between the two of them continued out into the hallway. We know this for sure because we caught it on camera. What we saw matched the guest’s story. She was trying to end the confrontation by literally running down the hallway. But Troy kept following her, kept yelling at her. He was waving his arms and pointing his finger at her. Very aggressive behavior. Fortunately, he never actually touched the woman so there was no assault or battery but it was clear that he had some kind of anger management problem. No hotel can afford to keep an employee who demonstrates those types of behaviors. He was terminated immediately.”

Cruz sighed. When he’d first become a cop, he’d been surprised at how damn angry people were. Angry about their lot in life and they took it out on coworkers, spouses and their children. Sometimes they were sorry afterward. The really sick ones thought they were justified.

He stuffed the photos and the list back in the manila folder. “Let’s get some shut-eye,” he said.

It took them five minutes to get to their rooms. She was silent for the whole trip. When she unlocked her door, he followed her in. “Get your things,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re sleeping in that room,” he said, pointing toward his room.

She bristled, drawing up to her full five feet six inches. “I am not sleeping with you,” she said.

He counted to ten before replying. It didn’t help. “Yeah, I don’t remember asking but I do remember you telling me a year ago that you weren’t interested.” It was petty and probably juvenile but damn, he was tired. He’d been up for almost twenty-four hours.

She seemed to shrink, like a balloon suddenly losing air. “But...” she began.

“Until we know who is behind this, everybody is a suspect, including the person who gave you the keys to this room. If somebody gets the bright idea of breaking in, a second or two of confusion will be all I need.”

“I got the key from a woman that I’ve known for over a year. She’s not going to harm me.”

“Everybody is a suspect. Including your boss.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed.

It was the second time she’d accused him of being ridiculous. The first had been after he’d said she wasn’t in charge of who got to vacation in Texas. Hell, she hadn’t even begun to see ridiculous. He had enough in him to go all night. Had been saving it up for the past year.

But given that he didn’t want to