Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,38
dolphin that didn’t have a tail. He pressed Select and settled back against his own pillows, strangely content to be watching a kid-friendly movie.
Fifteen minutes later he heard a card slide into the door’s electronic lock. Meg walked in the room. She looked tired. Beautiful, but tired.
Officer Burtiss stood in the doorway. “Same time tomorrow, Meg?” he asked.
She nodded. “That would be great.”
He looked at Cruz. “Will you need me anymore tonight, sir?”
Cruz looked at Meg. She shook her head. “No, that should do it,” he said. “Thank you.”
Officer Burtiss stepped back into the hallway and closed the door. Meg kicked off her shoes, set her briefcase and purse on the floor and sank into the chair in the corner of the room. She smiled in Jana’s direction.
“How long has she been sleeping?”
“Since about thirty seconds after we started the movie. Of course, she wasn’t tired.”
“Did you find your way around the city okay? I probably should have made a couple suggestions.”
No, she probably should have come with. Then he could have solely focused on the day rather than his attention being splintered between watching and enjoying Jana and worrying like hell about Meg. He was still mad about her abrupt insistence that she had to work. “I think the hotel has a concierge for that, don’t they?”
She started to respond, stopped and said nothing. Now her tired eyes were filled with hurt. It didn’t make him feel any better that she’d gotten the point. “Never mind,” he said, waving his hand. “Anything new happen today?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to take a shower.”
She was in the doorway, between their rooms, when he remembered what he’d seen. “I saw Charlotte today,” he said. “She was with Mason Hawkins.”
Meg frowned. “My Charlotte?”
He nodded. “You hadn’t mentioned that there was a relationship there.”
“Because I didn’t know there was one. Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s weird because I got the feeling the other night at the dinner that she might have a thing for Slater.”
Now Meg was shaking her head, as if it was too much to take in. “I think she admires Scott. We all do for what he’s been able to do with the hotel.”
Cruz rolled his eyes.
Meg ignored him. “But she certainly never said anything about Hawkins. I guess I do recall a couple times that I walked into the office and he was there but she always had some excuse. He was dropping off invoices for me to sign. We’d sent up a check request without a signature. Things that made sense to me.”
“When he lost his job, she didn’t say anything? Didn’t try to plead his case?”
Meg shook her head. “No, but there is something that suddenly makes more sense, though. When we terminate an employee because of their misconduct, we protest their unemployment claim. This saves the hotel money. And most of the time, we win. But we didn’t win his and when we investigated why, we learned that our protest never reached them. It never got faxed in. Charlotte was responsible for making sure that happened. I didn’t think too much about it. She handles a huge workload and every once in a while, something is going to fall through the cracks.”
“Now that you know, do you intend to say something to her?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
He nodded and she left the room. He leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes. An hour later, Jana stirred. She opened her big brown eyes, arched her back like a cat, gave him a sweet smile and slid off the bed. “I’m hungry,” she said.
He was, too. It had been more than six hours since lunch. He got up, poured Jana a glass of milk and grabbed a banana. He turned to hand it to her and realized that she’d spied the barely open door to Meg’s room and had made tracks.
He poked his head around the door. Meg was lying on the bed. There was an open book next to her. Jana had crawled up and was sitting next to her, Indian-style. She was leaning forward, studying Meg, who was perfectly still, sort of like a deer caught in headlights.
“So do you live here?” Jana asked. “This is the nicest house I’ve ever seen.”
“I work here at the hotel. I’m staying for just a few days.”
“Mama said that you used to be Uncle Cruz’s wife.”
Meg swallowed. “That’s right. I knew you when you were born,” she added.
“How come you’re not married