“Not possible.”
Snatches of conversation with Emmett in the meditation room came back to her.
“Another owner?”
“Yes. There are six of us.”
“Are you all related?”
“In one way or another.”
“Oh my God…”
She forced herself to scan the smiling faces of the men, but she needed a magnifying glass to really see their features. After she placed the book on the table next to her, she started opening drawers in the table and searching among the bookshelves.
Voices floated down the hall. Abigail stood still and listened as a man with a Hispanic accent admonished someone for leaving the cart in the hallway, and asked if the person had locked all the doors before leaving the area unattended.
“Shit,” hissed Abigail. She looked around for a place to hide. Nothing. She sprinted across the room and tried the other door, then breathed a sigh of relief when it opened. As she closed it behind her, she remembered she’d left the overhead lights on and the scrapbook on a table, but it was too late. Voices on the other side of the door told her two people had entered the library.
She didn’t wait around to hear their conversation. Instead she opened the door to the hallway and left. When she returned to the lobby, she walked toward the elevators as quickly as possible. Her heart beat so fast she felt sure she’d pass out.
Once she was safe in her room, she began to pace. What if there had been security cameras in there? She’d seen them in all the public areas of the resort so far. Even if there were, what could they do to her? The door had been unlocked. How was she to know she wasn’t supposed to be in there? It wasn’t her fault.
Then why had she not stayed in the room to explain?
Coward.
There was nothing she could do about it now. In the morning, she’d find Tiffany and ask her to help with a costume, then go to the party as if nothing had happened. If someone confronted her about it, she’d deal with it then.
And she’d try to forget what she’d seen in that scrapbook.
How could they be the same men? Those pictures had been taken over sixty years ago, and yet they both looked the same age as they did now. So did Gregory.
Abigail brushed her teeth and washed her face, remembering the way everything around her had seemed to disappear except Emmett’s eyes her first day here, and how his hair had appeared to be electrified.
As she changed into her pajamas, she remembered the way Zach had warmed the very air around them with the mere presence of his body next to hers in the sleigh.
She tossed and turned, trying to sleep, but each time she closed her eyes, she saw Emmett’s ice-blue eyes and Zach’s pewter ones, their gazes intense and hypnotic.
What the hell were they? How could she ask without giving away what she’d found in the library? And did she really want to know?
* * * *
Emmett had almost fallen asleep when a persistent knocking on his sitting room door forced him awake. He threw on a pair of jeans and pulled open the door to find Luis and Rose, one of the housekeeping staff.
“What’s wrong?”
“Maybe nothing,” said Luis. He glanced at Rose before continuing. “I was making my rounds and noticed her cart in the hallway outside the offices. She’d left it there to take a smoke break outside.”
Rose stared at the floor, and Emmett resisted the urge to remind Luis he didn’t give a rat’s ass if the staff smoked, as long as they didn’t do it inside.
“And?” he asked, not bothering to hide the impatience in his voice.
“And she admitted she might not have locked all the doors before she went outside to smoke.”
Emmett took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Luis liked to take his time getting to the point.
“The library was unlocked, and when we went inside, the overhead lights were on, and one of the scrapbooks was lying on a table, open to the New Year’s Eve Ball in 1946.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t look at the book,” said Rose, “and I didn’t leave the lights on when I left to go outside.”
“Someone else was in the room,” said Luis.
“Did you check the security cameras?”
Luis and Rose exchanged a glance.
In a small room behind the front desk, Emmett reviewed the tapes for the past thirty minutes. It was his fault. He’d told the others he was going to take all those scrapbooks and put them in the basement ages ago, but it hadn’t seemed urgent.
He reviewed the tape three times, but there was no doubt Abigail was the one who had entered the library and looked at the scrapbook. He watched her turn to the last pages in it, then paused the tape at the point where she mouthed something and nearly jumped out of the chair. It was obvious from her reaction she’d seen the picture at the back of the book where they’d all posed together.
It wasn’t like this was the only picture of them taken decades ago. Abigail could have picked any one of those scrapbooks at random and seen the same thing. For that matter, if any of the guests studied the portraits hanging in the lobby carefully, they’d see striking resemblances to the six of them. But their guests didn’t come here to study old photographs, and they didn’t ask if the resort had a library.
The question was, what should he do about it? He’d been ready to tell her the truth this morning before she asked to go looking for Zach. It now seemed as if he had no choice but to do so.
Chapter Twelve
Abigail intended to order room service and eat breakfast alone, but she’d barely finished her shower when someone knocked on her door. She almost didn’t answer it, thinking it would be Emmett or Zach, but decided that was being cowardly.
“Hi! I hear you need some help with an eighties costume.” Tiffany’s outfit forced a grin from Abigail. She looked like a cross between Madonna on her Like a Virgin album cover and Christine Taylor as Holly in The Wedding Singer.
“Well, you certainly know how to dress the part.”
“I love the eighties. Have you eaten? ’Cause I thought we’d have breakfast together, and then I could show you the secret room with all the clothes.”
Tiffany’s mention of secret rooms threatened to bring on a headache. Abigail had dreamed about giant scrapbooks chasing her down long hallways flanked with locked doors.
“Um, I was going to just eat in here.”
“Oh, okay. Did you order yet?”
Abigail shook her head.
“No prob. You go finish getting ready, and I’ll call downstairs. Anything special you want?”
“Eggs and toast are fine. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”
During breakfast, Tiffany chatted on about the various themed parties they’d had at the resort during the past few years.
“How long have you worked here?” She couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
“Seven years. I got the job right out of high school. My mom had this friend who came here for a vacation and told her about an opening for a front desk clerk, so I applied.”
Abigail took a sip of coffee. “No college?”
Tiffany laughed. “Me? I barely graduated.”
“The owners must have seen potential in you, or they wouldn’t have hired someone so young for such an important position.”
Tiffany swallowed the hash browns she’d just placed in her mouth. “They said they liked my enthusiasm and that was more important than what grade I got in algebra.”
If she had been here seven years, she might have the answers to some of Abigail’s questions.
After they finished eating, Tiffany led Abigail to a narrow staircase behind the front desk. The air in the basement was close and heavy, giving Abigail the impression of being in one of the older buildings in downtown Duluth. She was taken through a maze of brightly lit hallways and finally shown into a large room with overhead fluorescent lights. Racks of clothing had been placed throughout, leaving aisles between them as if they were in a department store.<
br />
She glanced around, astonished. “All this was left behind by guests?”
“Yep. We’ve been in business for ninety years. We have over fifteen hundred guests come through here each year. Times that by ninety and you have…” Tiffany scrunched up her face and started counting silently on her fingers.
“Roughly one hundred and thirty-five thousand guests since you opened your doors,” said Abigail.
“How’d you do that so fast?”
Abigail smiled. “I don’t know.”
“Well, anyway, I’m sure Mr. Neville—Zachary, that is—has the exact number written down somewhere. He’s really into spreadsheets, although I don’t understand why he does it all by hand.”
They began to walk down the first aisle, stopping to look at various pieces of clothing.
“This is the oldest stuff,” said Tiffany. “It’s from the twenties. Look how tiny it is. They say people have gotten bigger.”
“Yes, I think that’s true. Every piece of vintage clothing I’ve ever seen doesn’t look like it would fit most women I know. Why does Zach do everything by hand? Surely you have computers.”
“The best. Our system is really kick-ass, you know? I guess he’s just old-fashioned that way.”
Or just old. Should she tell Tiffany what she’d found last night? Would the girl tell her what was going on even if she knew?
“Zach doesn’t look old enough to be old-fashioned. What is he…thirty? Thirty-five? He would have used computers in school.”
Tiffany kept her gaze on the clothing. “I don’t know how old he is.”
They wandered to clothes from the thirties and forties, and Abigail stopped to admire the clean lines.
“I’ve always loved this look,” she said. “And I love the hats they wore. Do you have any of those?”
“Sure do. All the hats and purses are along the back wall.”
“Are there themed parties here often?”
“All the time. The owners love them. You should see the place on New Year’s Eve. All the holiday decorations are still up, and they turn on every light, inside and out. Everyone wears a costume, and at midnight, we unmask.”
Abigail’s heart began to pound. “Sounds wonderful. I wish I could see pictures.”
Tiffany’s hand slipped from the skirt she’d been admiring. She averted her gaze. “They’re probably buried on a hard drive somewhere.”
“Nice to know someone uses a computer.”
Tiffany’s laugh sounded forced. “Yeah, the other owners use them. It’s just Mr. Neville who likes to do things by hand.” She walked quickly toward the opposite wall, and Abigail followed. “Here we are. Eighties stuff.”
She began to pull items off the racks, hold them up to Abigail, then either shake her head or smile. The pieces Tiffany liked were soon draped across Abigail’s outstretched arms.
“Emmett mentioned there are six owners now.”
“Yep.”
“Who originally owned the resort?”
“Family members, I think.”
Tiffany avoided eye contact and had become skittish, like some of the clients Abigail observed who came in for depositions. Her father always called them “guilty by body language.” It was obvious she was uncomfortable with Abigail’s questions, but did that mean she was hiding something? Or had she been trained not to reveal too much to the guests?
When Abigail changed the subject, asking Tiffany how she enjoyed living up here and what she did with her time off, the girl visibly relaxed and began to chatter again.
After Abigail picked out a costume, she took it back to her room and opened her laptop. She hadn’t used it once since arriving. She answered a string of e-mails then began to dig around, looking for information on the resort other than what was on their website.
A search for Illinois corporations revealed they had incorporated the resort in 1934. They’d filed a recent annual report and were in good standing. To dig deeper, she’d need to access the databases she used at work.
Abigail leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. If she called someone at work and asked them to research the resort for her, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t blab it to the entire department. She was reluctant to access the databases over the resort’s Wi-Fi. What if they monitored the websites their guests visited? Then again, she couldn’t be the first guest who’d gone sniffing for clues.
Within ten minutes she found out the original owners listed with the state were Leonard Fallon, Andras Neville, Sterling Neville, Hugh Fallon, Blade Fallon, Cristian Neville, Reeve Neville, Nikolas Fallon, Gregory Fallon, Demetrius Neville, Emmett Fallon, and Zachary Neville. They were the same first names that had been listed at the bottom of the unmasked New Year’s Eve photo, over sixty years ago.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she whispered.
“Yes. There are six of us.”
“Are you all related?”
“In one way or another.”
Where were the other six now? More importantly, how could Emmett and Zach have been among the men who started this resort ninety years ago?
Abigail tried searching public records and every database she knew of for information on Zach, but came up blank. It was as if he didn’t exist outside this resort and never had. When she ran into the same brick walls searching Emmett’s name, she decided not to bother with the other ten.
She was now convinced Tiffany had been hiding something. The girl was loyal to her employers. Abigail would behave the same way toward her father or the other partners in the firm. There were some secrets you simply didn’t divulge.
But she had to know what was going on before she did so much as press her lips to Zach’s or Emmett’s mouth again.
Chapter Thirteen
At least five times Emmett resisted the urge to go up to Abigail’s room and ask her about the scrapbook. As soon as Tiffany came on duty, he asked her what Abigail had said while picking out an outfit for the party. Tiffany told him she asked why Zach didn’t use a computer, who the original owners were, and whether there were any pictures of the parties they’d had at the resort over the years.
Emmett leaned close so the guests milling about the lobby couldn’t overhear. “Did she ask anything specific about me or Zach?”
Tiffany shook her head, but the way she glanced at the counter told Emmett she was either lying or Abigail had come close to asking something that made Tiffany uncomfortable.
“Tiff, it’s okay to tell me.”
“I’ve told you everything, Emmett. Honestly, I have.”
“Well, did she seem more curious than usual?”
“I haven’t really talked to her before. I thought her questions were innocent enough. Why do you ask?”
He straightened up. “Nothing. She may have seen something, that’s all.”
Tiffany lowered her voice. “Then just tell her the truth. She seems pretty levelheaded. I don’t think she’ll freak or anything.”
“You think not?”
Tiffany shook her head. “She’s cool, you know?”
“Cool, yeah. I like her, too. Thanks, Tiff. See you at the party later.”
A look of relief passed over Tiffany’s features. “Wouldn’t miss it! And wait till you see the outfit Abigail picked out. She looks really hot in it.”
Emmett smiled and walked toward the dining hall, hoping Abigail would be there for lunch. He’d been disappointed to find she hadn’t come down for breakfast. He didn’t spot Abigail, but Zach sat at a corner table with a redhead and a brunette with a loud laugh.
Emmett pulled out a chair and straddled it backward. “Ladies, coming to the party tonight?”
“We wouldn’t miss it.” Redhead licked her lips.
Emmett glanced at Zach, searching for a sign he wanted him to leave. Zach looked slightly irritated, but not in a “get out of here right now” way. His half-eaten salad still had the fork in it, as though he’d been interrupted mid-meal.
Emmett flashed a grin. “Would you l
adies mind if I talked to Zach alone for a moment? Business.”
Disappointment flooded their features as they rose. “Will we see you tonight?” asked the brunette.
“You bet.” Emmett watched her ass sway as she walked away. Cute, but it couldn’t hold a candle to Abigail’s.
“Thank you,” said Zach, stuffing a forkful of salad into his mouth.
“Yeah, you had that trapped look. Listen.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Abigail wandered into the library last night, and she saw a photo of us with the others.”
Zach paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and his eyes wide. “How the fuck did that happen?”
Emmett recounted how Rose had left the library door unlocked when she went outside, and explained to Zach what he’d seen on the security tapes. He then relayed the conversation Tiffany had with Abigail this morning.
“What should we do?” asked Zach.
“I think we should tell her, but I want to do it before the party. She’ll have questions.”
“Questions? Emmett, she’ll flip out.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think she will. If she were going to do that, she’d have confronted us this morning, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Zach pushed his salad away. “Shit. I was hoping we’d have more time with her before we had to tell her the truth. Actually, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to at all.”
“We’ve had to do it before.”
“And one day it’ll come back to bite us in the ass.”
Emmett grinned. “You worry too much. Ninety years and not once has it come back to haunt us. There’s no reason to think it will now.” He pointed at the salad. “If you’re done, let’s go find her right now.”
Zach stood. “That’s the spirit. Waste no time, take no prisoners.”
Emmett clapped him on the back. “Relax.”
* * * *
After ordering lunch in her room, Abigail searched the Lake County Clerk of Courts site for current or past civil cases, using Zach and Emmett’s names as key words. If she couldn’t find any public records on them, perhaps someone had filed a complaint against them? Tiffany said they’d been in business for ninety years. That’s a long time to go without at least one nuisance lawsuit.
Spanked by an Angel [Notorious Nephilim 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 8
