Page 28 of Babies for the Christmas Grump
This hotel is her shot.
I just don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with that.
That night, I sit in the cold, dim light of my office, staring at the screen as if it’s a thousand miles away. The cluttered files in front of me are a mix of security logs, financial statements, and old emails from Evie.
She’d flagged these months ago, just before she died.
At the time, I dismissed them. Thought they were another one of her paranoid tangents. The kind of thing she’d notice but never quite manage to connect.
She was constantly scanning the shadows for problems that didn’t exist. A little eccentric, a little obsessive. But she loved this hotel and enjoyed making sure it ran smoothly.
Or so I thought.
Now, as I sift through the numbers, the red flags are too obvious to ignore. The discrepancies, the missing funds. They’re not just accounting mistakes.
This is calculated.
The kind of sabotage that takes more than a careless slip of the pen or a misplaced invoice. Someone’s been hiding their tracks, covering up their theft with just enough smokescreens to keep it from being noticed.
The numbers don’t add up, and it’s worse than I thought. Money’s been siphoned off from multiple sources: vendor payments, guest accounts, and operational budgets.
A little here, a little there. Nothing too significant to trigger an immediate alarm. But over time, it’s added up.
I lean back in my chair, exhaling slowly. What I’m looking at settles over me. Something clicks inside me.
This isn’t a failing hotel.
Someone was making it fail.
The realization hits me with a punch to the gut. Someone within these walls has been actively undermining this place.
I glance at the old voicemail from Evie, still saved in my inbox from last month. The last time I’d heard her voice. She’d been drunk, in one of her moods, rambling on about everything under the sun.
But there was something in the last bit of her message that has always stuck with me, even if I didn’t want to admit it.
“If you don’t start trusting people, Ryder, you’ll end up rich, alone, and boring as hell. Don’t be boring, darling.”
The words linger, taunting me.
I mutter to myself, almost reflexively, “Too late.”
Evie had always told me that I had a way of pushing people away, of keeping them at arm’s length.
She hated the way I kept everything so tightly wound. The way I wouldn’t let anyone in, even when I knew I needed to. I never listened to her. Never trusted anyone enough to.
I pour myself another drink, the amber liquid sloshing gently into the glass. The sharp burn hits the back of my throat, and I close my eyes for a second, letting it settle in.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Who the hell do I trust now?
CHAPTER NINE
Sunny
December 2nd
I’m notsure if the fire in my chest is rage or shame, but either way, it’s burning through me.
I slam the front door to my office shut behind me, the echo bouncing off the walls, loud as a warning shot.
