Chapter 1 #2
‘Passion Project?’ What an odd way to phrase it.
The resort was something Marc alone had poured untold money into the construction of, not to mention the cost of upkeep in the beginning before we’d gotten outside funding and donations from other sources that weren’t his personal bank account.
He’d refused to tell me how much money he’d put in, shooing me off the subject anytime I tried to bring it up.
I knew he came from good money, though he rarely talked about his family or his childhood, and I knew he had made good money with a few businesses in the past, so it wasn’t like he was anywhere close to poor.
Or at least, he probably wasn’t anywhere close to poor…
at least not by the standards of someone like me.
I had thrown my entire life into the place once I had a green light to be enthusiastic about what we were doing.
I had met Marc through my late husband; they had been good friends though their contact was sporadic as life took them in opposite directions, and although he and my husband talked frequently on the phone, I had only seen him a few times in the years I’d been with Malcolm.
The first year after Malcolm’s death, I had been lost. It had the ironic effect of bringing Marc into my life more often; he had been suffering guilt over Malcolm, mostly because he hadn’t been a part of Malcolm’s life as much as Marc believed he should have been.
When Marc presented the idea that quickly blossomed into Arete, I had been all for it.
It was the first time since Malcolm’s death that I felt anything close to enthusiasm for something.
When I realized he was serious, I threw myself into it.
I had ideas aplenty once the juices in my brain were pouring through me, and while he had to curb some of my more, uh…
outlandish and cost-prohibitive ideas, we quickly found ourselves with a solid plan for the future.
Years later, we had what could be called the only baby we were going to have, and were facing some serious issues for the first time since we fought to get Arete built.
“Anyway,” I said, walking toward the back of the dormitory section where I knew Brendan was, hopefully asleep and completely unaware of what was going on. “Brendan is cute enough; he could get laid if he wanted to.”
I could hear the frown in Marc’s voice. “Fine, but is it a good idea to be so laissez faire about a guest and a Guide having that sort of relationship?”
It was a valid question, and one I had run through my head several times since I realized this place had an absurd number of men willing to sleep with one another.
I knew at some point a Guide and a guest would find their way into each other’s beds.
It wouldn’t fly in other facilities; having that sort of power dynamic was a breeding ground for disaster and toxic imbalances.
But our Guide program worked differently.
I didn’t like the idea of restraining how a Guide and guest bonded, but I wasn’t overly fond of a guest and Guide sleeping together either.
It had never become a problem, thank God, but I was always afraid it might.
“My point,” I said, knowing full well I was avoiding answering his question. “Is that if he wanted to, he wouldn’t need to use money, coercion, or pills to do it.”
“We both know some people don’t need a reason to use coercive or manipulative means to get what they want. Some even want those methods.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d let me enact my other hiring policies, we might not be in this situation.”
“So, you’ve switched from melting down and blaming yourself to blaming me?”
“Yes,” I told him as we reached the door to Brendan’s room, and I turned to face him. “Do you have a problem with that?”
He ducked his head, his serious expression breaking as he tried not to smile. “No, but it tells me you’re more than ready for this confrontation. Nice to see you with your Reggie hat sat neatly atop your head.”
“It’s a very pretty hat,” I said, considering paging the room to wake Brendan but decided that if he was going to violate not just the rules but the moral guidelines of Arete, a lack of courtesy was expected.
Instead, I tapped the panel outside his room with my personalized key that gave me access to every part of the resort.
The panel beeped softly, and I walked inside. I saw movement on the bed, and Brendan sat up, blinking in confusion as he ran a hand through his messy hair. “Reggie? Uh…Mr. Shepherd? What…what’s going on?”
“Oh good, he realizes that us coming into his room without warning at this hour isn’t a good thing,” I said as I saw worry creep into Brendan’s expression. “That saves us having to announce that we have to talk.”
“Reggie,” Marc said in a low breath, and then turned to Brendan. “Get dressed.”
Brendan was still eyeing us warily as he put his feet on the ground and hesitated, looking at the pants draped over the chair near Marc.
His face was turning red, and it took me a minute before I realized what the problem was.
I snatched up the pants and tossed them to him as Marc looked on in confusion.
It was only when he watched Brendan tug on the pants, carefully keeping the blanket wrapped around his midsection, that I saw understanding and mild embarrassment in Marc’s face as he turned away.
I, however, wasn’t nearly as nice and even got a little amusement out of watching Brendan struggle not to flash us, although most guys here were comfortable with nudity.
I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of just how comfortable everyone here was or if it was something about a group of guys all sharing the same space.
Whatever the reason, while there wasn’t any nudity allowed in most areas of the resort, there weren’t many guys who didn’t use the springs butt naked although they could use clean swim wear if they wanted, and the locker rooms had enough dicks swinging around during busy hours it was practically a meat market.
Then again, I suppose nudity was for the comfortable, and Brendan was anything but at the moment.
“What’s going on?” he asked, now he had his pants on and was groping for a shirt that was bundled on the floor. “Why are you guys here?”
“I’m going to spare us a lot of unnecessary hemming and hawing, and hope you spare us any unnecessary lying,” I said, ignoring the look Marc shot me.
“The short of it is, we know someone has been providing Mitchell with painkillers. We also know that said painkillers were in another guest’s room, Rowan’s, as a matter of fact.
And we also know that despite having no relationship with Rowan, you have accessed his room several times in the past month.
So, if we put the numbers together, what do we get? ”
“Why would I need to go into his room?” Brendan asked, eyes darting nervously between Marc and me.
I sighed. “Right, skipping the hemming and hawing, remember? Have you or have you not been accessing Rowan’s room to get your hands on his pills to give to Mitchell?”
“Why would I do that?” he asked. I never understood the desire to stall for time when someone was already caught, maybe not in the act, but I knew what I’d seen in the logs.
The computer system was my baby, and I had toiled over it repeatedly to make sure it was easy to use and helpful for anyone who wanted to access it.
The system tracked who went into rooms that required a pass to access, and while guest access was limited, Guides could easily go into another dormitory room, sending no alert to the system.
It logged access, though, and a quick scan of Rowan’s room’s logs told me Brendan only accessed Rowan’s room when it was empty.
“Look,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’m not going to pretend that you’re not in deep shit for what’s gone on. I also won’t pretend that pretending this isn’t at the very least suspicious, if not outright indicative of your part in this debacle, won’t end up with you in even worse trouble.”
“What, like the cops?” Brendan asked sullenly. “Rowan would be in the shit too, since they’re his pills.”
Marc cleared his throat. “His prescribed medication would get him in trouble?”
It was a lie, but I noticed the surprise that flashed over Brendan’s face, and the way he looked at me and immediately shut his mouth before he said anything else. I snorted. “You almost protested that, didn’t you? Why?”
“I wasn’t,” he said stiffly, looking between us. “But last I checked, guests aren’t supposed to have that sorta thing in their rooms.”
“I’m going to put this plainly,” I said with a shake of my head.
“While I haven’t poured over everything, I’m going to guess that every single time your pass was used to access Rowan’s room, he and Luka were absent.
And I’ll bet you were using your pass at other places in most of those cases, and in places you normally would. ”
“My pass has gone missing before,” he said with a frown. “I’ve reported that.”
“Not in the past month,” I said, raising a brow. “So, either you’ve been losing your pass repeatedly in the past four weeks without mentioning it, which is not a great look for you, or you’re continuing to lie despite the evidence hanging over you like a neon, guilty sign.”
“We will comb over everything,” Marc said firmly, his voice steady but not harsh. “The more evidence that mounts up, the worse it could be. How we handle Rowan is not part of this discussion, but if we have to involve the authorities, we will.”
“Mitchell is higher than a kite right now,” I said with a growl. “So, he’s doubling down on not giving away who’s been giving him the meds, but when that high goes away, and he remembers he’s supposed to be sober? Do you think his guilt won’t lead him to tell us who our problem is?”
Brendan stared at me. “What, like if he goes into withdrawal? That’s cruel.”