29. Learn The Hard Way

29

LEARN THE HARD WAY

T he next morning there was a knock at their door before eight. They were getting ready to leave to catch the ferry at ten.

"I've got it," Van said, moving to the door. He opened it and saw Christian standing there looking rough and ready.

"Why didn't I know you were in the hotel?" Christian asked.

He frowned. "I wasn't aware I had to tell you where I went or what I did in my life."

"If it involves the running of my hotels, then I'd like to know," Christian snapped.

This guy forgot who he was talking to. "Your hotels?" he asked.

"You know what I mean," Christian said. "You think you can walk in here and just take over like that because you're Barry's grandson? You don't know shit about running a hotel. What you did was irresponsible. I've spent all morning trying to talk to the guests that you threatened and comping them."

"What?" he asked. "Comping them for what? They are lucky they were allowed to even stay in the hotel."

"For having their night end early."

He growled. "There were signs posted on the noise level. When I called at eleven to ask nicely for them to be told to lower it down outside, I was informed I was the fifth person calling and they couldn't find security. Funny, considering you were supposed to be getting a handle on this."

"I can do my job," Christian said. "Without interference from you. Carl was on a break and didn't get the calls. He must have been in the bathroom or something."

"Is that what he told you?" he asked. "Because I'm pretty sure it'd been over thirty minutes since he showed up. At least fifteen since I called. Unless he had a stomach bug, in which case he shouldn't be working, then he should have gotten his ass down there and dealt with that before it escalated."

"It only escalated when another guest tried to take care of it instead of having us do it," Christian said.

He had no idea why this guy was arguing with him.

Why Christian even felt as if he had the right to do it.

But Van was letting him dig a hole and see how far he'd get before the shovel broke.

"A guest had to go out there because no one was dealing with it here."

"I was told staff had gone out a few times and talked to them," Christian said.

"Yep," he said. "I saw at least one. Obviously, it did nothing. On top of that, the staff was treated poorly and that isn't going to happen. I don't give a shit about the customer is always right crap. No one is going to be treated the way that staff was. She went out there to deliver a message nicely and was screamed at and another person threw an empty cup at her."

"No one told me that," Christian said.

"Did you even ask? You've been down there trying to deal with the group causing the issues and not the ones that called to complain. I doubt you've got all the facts because you'd have to talk to everyone to get them."

"Not everyone is available that was here last night," Christian argued. "Sometimes you've got to make decisions based on the information you've got at the moment. But you don't know those things. You don't understand customer service. You're used to throwing your weight around in law enforcement. Things are different here. You're making a mess of shit and your grandfather would be pissed off."

"Don't you dare throw those words at me," he said. "You just said exactly what I did. Made a decision in the moment based on the information at hand. I handled a situation before it escalated even more. What I want to know is why you weren't called last night when I stepped in. No one told you the owner was here last night?"

"I was told this morning," Christian said.

"Then maybe we need to find out the rules of when an owner or manager is informed," he said.

"The night manager is the one that went out there to calm them down the first time. It hadn't happened. They were trying to find Carl."

"We'll deal with Carl another time," he said.

It hadn't escaped his notice they were having this conversation in the doorway of his room. That though Christian wasn't raising his voice, he was still giving Van shit.

He was positive Kelsey was listening to it all too.

No way Christian would talk to Kyle like this and it amused Van it was happening to him.

"I'll deal with it," Christian said. "Just like I've been dealing with this mess you created. I'll make sure Kyle is informed on how it all went down too. That maybe you should just be looking at things behind the scenes rather than getting involved. I'm sure he's going to listen to my side of it once I've got everything gathered. The last thing anyone wants is someone unfamiliar with how hotels are run to be damaging what was working just fine."

Kelsey started to laugh and Frankie barked and the next thing he knew the dog was next to his leg and wanted to make a dash for it.

Van reached down to get the puppy and picked him up before he became a fugitive again.

"It's fine, Frankie."

Christian frowned. "I didn't know you weren't alone."

"Because like everything else you've done this morning, you've assumed rather than gathered all the facts."

He turned when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Good morning, Christian. I'm not sure if we've officially met or not. I'm Kelsey Raymond."

Christian stopped and just stared at the hand Kelsey had extended. "No," Christian said. "We haven't met."

"Now we have," she said. "Maybe you should gather all those facts of yours and get them lined up before you talk to my father since we witnessed the whole thing from our room last night." She took Frankie out of his arms. "Come here, Frankie. Mr. Franklin thinks he knows it all. Some people just have to learn the hard way." She was talking to the dog as she walked away and he had all he could do not to burst out laughing.

When they were back on Amore Island a few hours later, Kelsey flopped down on the couch in her living room.

"Sorry about this," he said. "I hadn't expected it to turn out the way it had."

"Are you kidding me? That was awesome. I don't often throw my name around. It could go to my head."

He frowned over that. He hated that she'd come in and almost saved him when he had it under control.

"I didn't need you to do that," he said. One more thing for Christian to think, that Van needed a woman to save him.

"Then why did you fight back the laugh? You think I didn't see that?"

"It had more to do with you calling him a motherfucker."

"I didn't call him that. I said Mr. Franklin. Only you know what I meant."

She had a point. "It doesn't matter. I wanted to see how far Christian would go talking to me the way he was. Once he saw you, he stopped."

"Sorry about that," she said. "It wasn't my intention. Frankie got away from me and I figured I might as well make myself known at that point."

"You sure you didn't let him go?"

"Nope, I didn't," she said. "I held onto him as long as I could. You know he likes to meet people. What's the big deal?"

"I'll talk to your father," he said. "But I'm not going to until Monday. No reason to bother him now. I handled it."

"I don't think Christian is going to go running to my father to tell his side of it first. And if he does, that will piss my father off. My dad will feel like you're the owner. You're the boss. My father is a silent owner as it's been pointed out by more than Christian and that what you said should go."

"Exactly," he said. "I don't need someone to hold my hand on a decision that I know was right."

"Good for you," she said.

He didn't need her praise either but knew if he said that they'd get into a fight.

"I'll figure things out on Monday and talk to your father then. I don't even want to worry about it now."

Which was hard to do knowing he owned the business and got involved in it the way he had.

How was he just supposed to walk away?

Though he did tell Christian to get all the facts and then when he was checking out asked the front desk to get him the names of the people who called and complained about the noise.

He'd had to show proof of who he was and Kelsey had to say who she was to get the staff to believe he owned the hotel.

He supposed that part pissed him off more than anything.

Christian should have made them aware of who the owners were by now. Especially after he'd been to the other two hotels already and they hadn't been notified before he'd introduced himself either.

The guy didn't learn it seemed.

Maybe Kelsey was right and if he took an interest like this, he had to do it full time. He had to work tomorrow and it's not like he had enough free time to conduct business while he was there if he got a call or a simple text.

He'd have more than one decision to make soon.

It'd been two weeks now since he'd gotten the journal and watched the video.

He'd read the journal through. He was starting to understand his grandfather more based on the entries written.

That the man loved his wife and daughter and had a lot of regrets in life for not letting them know how he felt or putting them first.

Maybe the way things were handled weren't the best. It surprised him that his mother never gave her father another chance though.

Which told him it had more to do with his father because there were comments in there too that maybe his father had convinced his mother to not forgive his grandfather.

If he'd learned one thing about being a detective, it was to not make judgments without all the facts.

Yet that was exactly what he'd done with his grandfather before he got all this information.

He turned to look at Kelsey on the couch, her head back and her eyes on him. "What are you looking at?"

"Your mind battling itself," she said. "It's kind of sexy."

"But not sexxxxxyyyyy like me breaking up a fight last night?"

"Oh my, Van," she said, sitting up. "Did you just crack a joke?"

"A bad one by the looks of it if you didn't get it."

"I'm so proud of you." She got up and moved closer to hug him.

"Thanks."

"You're still grouchy, but I love it like I love you."

"Didn't you say you had things to do today? Errands or something?"

"I need to do laundry and get some groceries. I'm lucky I've got bread and milk. And now you're trying to change the subject and I'll let you."

"Why don't you go do that and I'll stay here with Frankie?" he said. "Unless you want me to go home."

"Nope," she said. "You can stay. What a sweet offer. If you don't mind, I'll start laundry now and run out. Frankie will mostly sleep. He didn't sleep well last night. He needs his beauty rest."

"I'm going to chill out. Maybe I'll take a nap too."

She squinted one eye at him. "Can you be waiting for me in bed naked when I get home?"

He laughed. She really did have a way of lightening the mood.

"I'll think about it."

But twenty minutes later, he wasn't doing a lot of relaxing as he was trying to pull the burdock out of Frankie's hair.

The dog started to run laps in the yard and went into some bushes to get the ball that he'd thrown.

He'd heard the yelp and went running and saw the tangled mess in the hair.

No amount of gently pulling got it out.

The last thing he wanted to do was cut it.

He ran the tub knowing the dog liked baths.

"Do you want to play in the tub?" he asked the puppy who was looking panicked over having something attached to its fur. He felt like a fool talking like this, but it was a shitty feeling the puppy was scared on his watch.

When the water was filled up enough, he picked Frankie up and put him in, but the puppy wanted nothing to do with it.

He was the one starting to panic and more so when he heard Kelsey moving around the kitchen and calling their names.

His first time babysitting and he'd made a mess of it.