Chapter 5
Chapter Five
More than Revenge
EMILY
W hen I got back to the room, Christine was already sleeping, which was a relief because I wasn’t sure how I’d explain the way I’d passed the last hour. But I wasn’t quite ready to lay down.
I took my laptop to the armchair in front of the big window that faced the back of the resort and pounded out my first impressions of the place. The story Archie had told me played in my head too. The treasure hunt, the eccentricities of his uncle, the love story he talked about. It was romantic and compelling. I wanted to know more.
What if there really was a treasure still waiting to be found? When my editor had mentioned the whole thing, I hadn’t known what to believe about it. It seemed fanciful, like it would be something simple, most likely concluded by now. But talking to Archie had given me a different impression. Of this place, of the scope of the hunt, of the reasons why it might be interesting to help complete it.
As much as Archie’s story had taken up space in my head, so had the man himself.
I searched myself for a reaction to him, some gut instinct that related to the accident that had devastated my family. But I didn’t have one. There was nothing about Archie Kasper that fit the expectations I’d had for years. He didn’t have an evil laugh, he didn’t seem mean spirited. He didn’t even look mean—no hooked nose or constant hand wringing like the villains in the cartoon movies. He was actually achingly handsome, and those eyes! His eyes were the kind that could pull you in and hold you there forever. I didn’t think Archie Kasper was a bad guy at all. If anything...he seemed like a good guy. Like someone to whom something awful had happened. Someone who’d been doing his best to move on from the events of his past. Weren’t we all?
The more disturbing thing was that I found myself thinking of ways to spend more time with him. Not entirely because I wanted to learn more about the resort and the treasure hunt for the article that could make my career and prevent me having to beg for work in the future. Editors would be reaching out to me instead. It was more that I wanted to see if the warm tension I’d felt between us in the elevator would come back. I’d agreed to meet him for a drink because I liked him. I was attracted to him, even.
There was something in the way my body had heated when my eyes had connected with Archie’s...something in the way it had felt to rest my head against his strong chest when I’d thought for a moment that we were about to plunge to our deaths. God, I’d jumped into his arms without a thought. But in the quiet and closeness of the elevator, it hadn’t felt like too much, and part of me was sure that if the doors hadn’t opened right then, he would have kissed me.
A blush climbed my neck as I imagined it. Would I have let him? Would I have kissed him back? My mind reeled at the thought, but every cell in my body made the answer clear. There was something chemical there that went beyond the complex connections between us that Archie didn’t even know existed.
A tiny piece of me felt guilty for the ulterior interest I had in him that had led me here in the first place, and I knew that was related to my family, but as I turned that over in my mind, it was exhausting. I was so tired of hating a man none of us even knew.
Finally, as the resort fell silent all around me and the lights outside twinkled over the empty, still patios, I put aside my computer and went to bed.
“You ready?” Christine asked me the next morning as I came out of the shower. “A full day of learning by fire hose.”
“You think it’ll be that crazy?” Though I wasn’t as interested in the content of the conference as I was in the place it was being held, I knew there were things I could learn by attending. Tips and tricks that would improve my craft, no matter what I planned on writing in the future. I was excited to find out.
“It’s total overload at these things,” she said, sitting on the edge of her bed to wait for me to dress. She was a writing conference veteran, but this was my first.
“Tips, please.” I pulled a pair of soft stretchy jeans from my bag but then reconsidered. Would I see Archie at the bar later? Or maybe around the resort during the day? I didn’t want to be dressed like the post-Covid version of me I’d been trying so long to shake—the one who considered leggings to be a perfectly acceptable stand in for real pants and who had mastered the messy bun but forgotten which drawer her round brush and curling iron lived in. I chose a pair of dark wide-leg jeans and a cropped soft sweater instead.
“You can’t attend everything you want to hear,” Christine said. “So go in person to the ones you really want and pay for the recordings afterwards.”
“Oh, good idea.”
“And if you’re me, you have to pace yourself with the social stuff. Like—” she pulled out the program and scanned the schedule “—today I’m probably going to come back up here for lunch instead of doing this keynote. If I have to do all the small talk and smiling then, I won’t be able to do the happy hour mingle thing.”
“Smart. Okay.” I finished putting up my hair and touched my eyes with a soft shadow and a bit of mascara, and then picked up my own schedule. The cocktail mingle was out on the back patio, but I hadn’t forgotten that Archie had sort of invited me to meet him in the bar around the same time. If most of the conference attendees were out back...I already knew I was going to be in the bar.
I picked up my bag and dropped my conference lanyard around my neck. “Okay, I’m ready.”
As we made our way down the long hallway, Christine asked me about my adventures the night before.
“Oh, I didn’t even tell you! I got trapped in an elevator. With the resort owner!”
She grabbed my arm and stopped us in the middle of the hallway and squawked, “What??”
I told her about wandering the hotel and how I’d come to the staff wing sort of accidentally and then gotten trapped with Archie in the elevator. “He knows part of why I’m here is to write about the resort, and he was worried about what I’d write, so guess what?”
“What?” she asked with a grin.
“Our room is comped.”
“Are you serious?” Christine’s face lit up and she did a little bounce on her toes.
“I think so. I’m meeting him later to get some information for my story, so I’ll see if I can confirm it.”
“That’s amazing,” she said, and we began moving again toward the elevators. “So he agreed to be interviewed?”
“I think so,” I said, thinking about the way Archie had suggested a drink. “But there’s a tiny chance maybe it’s actually more like a date.”
Christine pulled us to a stop again. “A date.”
I nodded.
“So, this guy... is he hot? He’s obviously successful and wealthy.”
How much did I tell her? She didn’t know anything about my history with Archie Kasper. Not that Archie knew about that either. I decided to keep things simple. “He’s hot, yeah.”
Christine squealed. “Ooh, I’m excited for you!”
I was excited for me too.
Christine wasn’t wrong about the pace and content of the conference. It was as if every craft book and expert I’d contemplated studying was being simultaneously downloaded into my head, and by lunchtime, I was exhausted. I watched Christine head upstairs to recharge while I walked with a new friend toward the cafeteria, slightly envious but too hungry to eat a protein bar and call it lunch.
“What are you doing for the activity block tomorrow?” Payton asked me as we went through the lunch line.
The second day looked to be slightly less intense, with time off for breakouts and various activities. I hoped it might give me a chance to find out more about the Kaspers, the treasure hunt.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Part of me wants to take the hike, but I know I should probably stick around and do the plotting breakout or learn how to be a good critique partner.”
“That one does look good,” she agreed. “But I also think we need long breaks during this kind of info dumping to let our brains assimilate everything we’re learning. A hike isn’t the wrong answer.”
“Yeah. It’s just hard feeling like I’m missing important stuff.”
“Totally get it.” She lifted a hand in response to a group at a far table next to the window waving us over and I steeled myself for more introductions.
It was strange being among so many writers. They looked like the most regular people in the world, people you wouldn’t glance twice at in the grocery store or the gym. But then you got introduced and realized that this completely normal person was actually one of your biggest idols, someone you’d read and admired ferociously for years. It was humbling and reassuring at once.
The conference marched on after the meal, but the sessions were beginning to thin out just a bit, making seating and asking questions a little easier. It seemed that everyone’s tanks were emptying. By the time most of my new friends were heading outside for cocktails, I was relieved to duck into the wood-paneled bar near the front of the resort and secure a spot toward the end of the long wooden bar with a little spark of anticipation glowing inside me. The place had an old-school feel, and the walls were covered with images of movie stars, sports icons, musicians, and more. In each photo, there was also a white-haired man grinning, and I realized that must be Marvin Kasper, Archie’s uncle. As I settled, I let myself acknowledge that I was both nervous and excited. I’d been thinking of a certain set of deep blue eyes, a shock of dark auburn hair all day. I smiled at the bartender as I settled and then looked back around at the photos.
“He used to attract all the celebrities up here,” the bartender said, following my astonished gaze to the wall. “This was an escape for them back then, I guess. Hard enough to reach and just luxurious enough to be the perfect getaway if you were famous.”
I turned to look at the man speaking, who wore an easy smile beneath his shock of dark hair. “The photos are pretty incredible,” I agreed. “Do you still get a lot of celebrities up here?”
The man stood up straight and shook his head. “Not yet, but I’m guessing we will. Archie’s remaking this place the way his uncle would’ve wanted, and we’re still just enough off the beaten path to give people some privacy,” he said. “Though everything’s a little tougher in that department with the internet and speedy Wi-Fi.”
“Right,” I laughed.
“What can I get you?” he asked, sliding a coaster with the resort logo on it in front of me. “Another Half Cat?”
I met his friendly eyes, charmed that he remembered me despite the enormous crowd here right now.
“Thanks, no, I think something a little less serious. A draft beer, maybe?”
The bartender, whose name tag said Wiley, talked me through the options, most of which were local craft brews. I chose one that sounded good, and just as he slid it onto my coaster, Archie’s voice came from behind me. “That’ll be on us, Wiley,” he said. “Pretty much anything she wants is on us or else the whole world will hear how Kasper Ridge locks guests in elevators and makes them climb out on ladders.” Archie’s voice rang through me, startling the butterflies who’d relaxed since the night before and making me just the tiniest bit nervous.
Wiley’s eyebrows shot up, but the easy smile never left his face as Archie took the stool at my right.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to face him. He looked just as handsome today as he had the night before, the dark blue eyes sparking in slightly ruddy cheeks. He wore a dark collared shirt that looked like flannel, or something equally soft and warm, and a pair of dark jeans. And though he smiled at me, that glimmer of caution was there in his eyes too, the haunted look he’d worn the night before.
My stomach twinged as I dropped his gaze, Jake’s face flickering through my mind. This man had known my brother.
My father’s voice rang out inside me: this man killed your brother.
“How’s the conference?” Archie asked as Wiley placed my beer in front of me and dropped a glass of whiskey in front of Archie without being asked.
I let out a tired laugh. “It’s a lot. So much information, and you kind of sit there trying to figure out if taking notes is even worth it or if you should just absorb. Plus, half the people around me are basically famous, so there’s a whole fangirl element to it too.”
“Really? Famous?”
“I mean...if you’re a big reader, yeah. They’re names you’d know.”
“I haven’t read much in a while, I probably wouldn’t recognize them. But that’s really cool. I understand how you’d be torn in a few directions then.”
I nodded. Plus, I thought, I had to figure out how to get him to let me in on the hunt and see if I could actually deliver the article I hoped I might. “Can I be honest with you?” I asked, meeting his dark blue gaze.
Surprise lifted his brows and that half smile cocked up the full lips. “Might as well be.”
“I have an ulterior motive for wanting to meet you, though I promise I didn’t arrange that whole elevator thing.”
“I know you didn’t,” he laughed. “And I’m not sure if I should be flattered or worried about you looking for me specifically.”
I dropped my eyes, tracing condensation down my glass with one finger as I decided how to broach the topic of the hunt again. Straightforward, I thought. That would be best. “I told you I was probably going to write about the resort.”
“Yes.”
“My editor asked me to try to write a very specific story, but to do it, I’d need a lot more information than I can get just wandering around.” I looked up at him, his warm expression sending the butterflies spiraling around again. “It’s the treasure hunt.”
Archie’s smile widened, and I wondered for a second if he’d thought I was going to bring up something else. If he had any idea who my brother might be. I felt a pang of guilt at keeping that secret hidden, but there was no reason he needed to know. That part of my agenda was mine alone. Mine and my family’s. Maybe I’d tell him eventually, but I didn’t need to mention it now. This thought caused the slightest echo of guilt within me—I already knew Archie would want to know this. Keeping it a secret felt like a slight betrayal. But we barely knew each other, and assured myself I could tell him later.
“What would you like to know? I gave you the gist last night.” He sounded friendly and open, like he didn’t mind sharing the details. That was good.
I took a breath, contemplating how to phrase what I really wanted to suggest. Tension gathered inside me and I felt my shoulders rise. I thought of my career, of what it would be like to actually travel to write—to live my dream. It was worth whatever response Archie might give me here to shut me down. “This might be too forward,” I went on. “But I wondered if you’d let me help you solve it.”
The eyebrows shot up at that, and he chuckled before taking a sip of his whiskey.
He put the glass down and then met my eyes again. “I told you last night, I think we’re at the end of it.”
I nodded. “The scripts. Revenge.”
“Yep.”
“What if that’s not it?”
“What makes you think it isn’t?”
I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “The things you told me about your uncle. He just doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d set that all up for money, you know?” I’d thought about this all day, the story winding through my head and feeling somehow incomplete. “If Marvin was a storyteller, there was no way he’d be satisfied with an ambiguous ending to his life’s final tale, would he?”
“I guess not.” Archie considered that for a minute. “Yeah, you’re right, actually. But that’s kind of where everything has led us.”
I tilted my head, excitement growing as I saw him considering. “What if you missed something?”
He frowned at me then and let out a long sigh. “We might have, I guess. I mean, we were building a resort while picking up the clues. But I’ll be honest. I’m kind of ready to let it go. I think it’s run its course either way.”
“Even if there’s a real treasure at the end?” If there was a chance for finding it, it would literally make my career. But it wasn’t my treasure. I had to convince Archie to let me help, to keep the hunt going. Maybe I could solve it.
Archie didn’t look wholly convinced.
Time for the big guns. “How bad do you feel about that elevator thing?”
“Pretty bad,” he said, his voice lowering.
“Well, if you’ll let me write about the hunt, and maybe help you finish it, it will all be forgiven.”
“Plus the comped room.” He smiled as he said this, his eyes sparking as they met mine.
“Well that’s nice too,” I agreed. “It’s in the name Christine Werner, by the way. My roommate.”
He reached over the bar for a pen and wrote Christine’s name on a coaster. “Got it.” And then his eyes met mine and warmth rushed through me, some of that tension from the elevator making the space between my body and his feel charged, electric. Archie was quiet for a minute. I waited while he considered. “You know what? Yeah. Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Relief sang coolly through my veins—that was one obstacle removed. And I couldn’t pretend the idea of spending more time with Archie Kasper wasn’t part of the appeal. My stomach tightened as I thought about that.
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking it might be time for me to move on anyway, and the hunt is the one thing that needs wrapping up before I go.”
“Go where?”
The blue eyes darkened, and his expression dimmed. “I don’t know. Just time to find something else, I think.”
The sadness in his statement pulled at my heart. I wanted to dig into it, to learn more, but I needed to focus on my objective first. He’d agreed to let me in, and the next step was getting what I needed to secure my career. “When can we start?”