Frequent Traveller (Cathy Dixon #1) (19 page)

“Cathy ... Ms. Dixon, I’m not really sure if the cameras are placed for a specific reason other than to spy on the guest and to take opportunity of whatever information can be obtained and sold. The videos online show couples having sex, others have been edited to show a guest picking his nose or women applying makeup ... getting dressed, it’s a whole new take on voyeurism,” Rodney said.

So far only the General Manager and Security Manager had seen some of the sites. Corporate had insisted that the sites must never be shown to the other departments, for fear of someone leaking the information to the press, making it public. While the people were not identifiable, the guest rooms were. The MoonStar logo was seen on the menus, the television trailer and in one video on the bathrobe.

A long silence settled on the room as each Head of Department remained uncertain and terrified about how deep this issue really was.

“I know it’s going to be hard figuring out which floor and who the guests were but can we try something else? Can we look at the earliest video you found and look at the main security logs to find out who had accessed those floors at that time? The master key is assigned by department and employee number, correct? And your department prints out these logs and hands it to Security on a quarterly basis? I know its going to take a while but it’s worth a shot, I think,” Cathy said.

“Sure, we can do that. My department stores the master log while Security keeps the back up. Whoever put the cameras in had to go back to take them out. When Security checked the rooms yesterday, only the rooms on the thirteenth and seventeenth floors still had the cameras. Either the idiots recycled their spy gadgets or knew we were suspicious about something,” said Rodney.

With Cathy at the property and the Heads of Departments in a bad mood, most of the MoonStar associates knew that something was brewing but very few suspected that it was an employee matter. Most of them assumed it was an advertising or budget problem and most certainly never suspected such a big issue, as intrusion of guest privacy.

After the meeting at the Churchill Room, it took Rodney more than two days to finally have a clue as to who was behind the spy cameras. After going through employee and security logs, three names kept popping up frequently. All female. All employed with the property for less than a year.

One of them had entered a particular room with the Housekeeping master key four times and as early as 7:00 a.m. Housekeeping only started doing their rounds for daily cleaning at 10:00 a.m. All three girls were fresh school leavers, hired as interns and the last one had left the property two months ago. They might be involved or not, but their employee files showed they had barely passed middle school, let alone possess enough skills to master-mind an illegal data collection operation.

What was strange about the situation was that all three girls had listed the same emergency number and person. Cathy looked at it several times before she could even acknowledge it.

“Well, we’ll have to lodge a police report to protect the property and they can deal with him however they like. The Corporate Legal team will speak to them on whatever charges they want to pursue and the property will issue a termination letter for misconduct. This was his act and his act alone and our job is to make sure that people will know this, if it ever goes public. I don’t get it though, as the Engineering Manager I’m sure Simon was getting paid enough,” Cathy said as the Security Manager and Rodney informed her that Simon had admitted to placing the cameras when confronted by the General Manager and IT.

“Maybe it wasn’t the money. I think it was just the thrill of it. Sweet talk the school leavers into doing his bidding. He can have fun with them while making a quick quid or two at the expense of our guests,” Rodney suggested, still reeling that someone could have been so bold and reckless.

“Yes, and look at where that has landed him,” Cathy said.

DUBLIN, IRELAND

December 2009

With history that dates far back into prehistoric times, “Black Pool” or commonly known as Dublin has evolved into one of the fastest growing cities the world has seen. To date, it has been voted as the third richest city in the world and the tenth most expensive city to live in, by European standards.

Centuries earlier, it had been well-known as one of the cities who had most of its residents fall prey to the
Yersinia Pestis
plague brought on by rat fleas, otherwise known as Black Death and responsible for reducing Europe’s population by millions. Conquered by the English in the sixteenth century and duly incorporated into the English crown, the city suffered religious conflict when it was forced by Queen Elizabeth I to become a Protestant city instead of continuing as a Roman Catholic state.

Even as the city attempted to recover and make significant progress in linen trade, it was dealt a series of setbacks, in the form of the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Civil War and social unrest which tore at the city’s development in various stages from 1922 to 1999.

Nevertheless, the city has made significant contributions towards arts and literature, to the point of becoming a UNESCO City of Literature. It is home to three Nobel Laureates, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett alongside numerous other well-known figures such as Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and Bram Stoker. Cinematic hotshots such as Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Gabriel Byrne also call Dublin home.

It is currently estimated that more than 50% of Dublin’s population is aged below twenty-five years, allowing it to have a bustling nightlife, fast paced work style and a wide range of competitive businesses. Every other corner of the city is lined with designer boutiques, shopping arcades and high scale restaurants. The local government is set to spend $920 million towards further developing the city centre and its surrounding areas, welcoming the opportunity for foreign investment from corporate giants such as MoonStar, amongst others.

Located at the newly developed Point Village of Dublin, Moonstar Dublin was an upcoming property for the chain. Only recently completed, it would be open to public from New Year’s day onwards. As they made final preparations to their outlook and feverishly added finishing touches towards the excellent service standard expected of them, the property currently housed selected senior MoonStar management and their guests.

As the moonlight threw itself across one of these bedroom suites, two figures were seen lying in bed. One was trying to sleep, tossing and turning while the other looked on, torn between the urge to interrupt a bad dream or to let her sleep uninterrupted. Thomas gently put his arm around Cathy and squeezed her as if to say, ‘Wake up, you’re not alone.'

With a slight jump, Cathy woke up, her body trembling. Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of her face. She peered into Thomas’ concerned face.

“Hey Sweets, I’m sorry ... I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, it’s fine. I was having a bad dream.”

“I didn’t know what else to do ... how else to help. How bad was it?

“I don’t know ... it was the same thing over and over again. Dad in my room. Me fighting him off ... and the way he always came back no matter how or where I stabbed him,” Cathy said.

More relaxed now, she welcomed Thomas’ interruption. As untrue as the frequent bad dreams were, she often felt a stabbing fear that one day her dreams would give way to reality and she would find herself back where she had started, in her bedroom with her father.

“You know that’s not true. He’s gone Cat, for good. As sure as the summer sun, he’s gone.”

“I know, Tom Tom ... just tell me that you love me,” her voice was soft, her eyes pleaded with his as he looked down at her.

Thomas pulled her closer towards him, his nostrils drowning in the mixture of her scents.

“I love you very much and you already know that. Nothing will change how much I love you.”

“I love you too, Tom Tom.”

After a long deep breath, Cathy paused, comforted at having his arms around her.

“Hey, do you think we would make good parents?” she asked.

“Wow ... where did that come from? I guess, I mean it won’t be perfect but we’d cope. We always do.”

Thomas looked at the woman curled up next to him, his chin rested on her forehead as her fingers drew imaginary patterns on his chest. It was a rarity for Cathy to ask a question without any particular intention. At the same time, he knew if he pushed too much, he might never get an answer.

“You’re afraid I’ll become him, aren’t you? That if we have a daughter, I would do to her everything your father did to you,” he said. His voice was a mere whisper but his words slowly captured Cathy’s worst nightmare.

“I never said that,” came the abrupt reply.

“I think you just implied it, Sweets. We have been together ... as a couple for almost seven years. I have known you all my life and yet you still hesitate to love me completely. There must be a reason Cat and I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.”

“What if you’re not the reason Tom Tom? What if I’m scared about whom I will turn out to be? What if my daughter came to me for help and I turned her away because I wasn’t bothered to make the effort or didn’t care to listen?”

He felt Cathy shiver slightly as tears slowly streamed down her face. Her past was a difficult one for either of them to deal with and these were the times he wished he could have done more.

“I would never have wished all of this on you or anyone else and I know life seems more complicated than it should be but like I always keep telling you ... I’ll take this journey with you. Let me be strong for you, Cat. God knows you’re strong enough for everyone else.”

He felt her soft lips on his, as they embraced. Her arms wrapped tightly around him. She continued to lay awake as he ran his fingers through her red locks.

“When you first came back to me, I was just so excited to have you in my life again that nothing else mattered. But I do have questions, Cat. You have ignored them for so long and even if you can’t answer all of them, one at a time would be great. I know its beginning to sound like a chorus but ...”

“Ummm ... I sense you already have a question in mind.”

“I came to visit you when you were in pri ... when you were away. Every few months, our birthdays, Christmas ... and always they would say that you were not allowed visitors. But this one guard slipped and he said you had been taken away about two years after you had been arrested, where did you go?”

As he waited, he saw her shift uneasily. Cathy sighed.

“Mostly it was training. Different countries for language training, they checked our mental strength with numerous tests and exercises, sometimes we were joined by other trainees, mostly I was alone ... I finished school, did my degree while working as an intern with MoonStar Corporate and then I came back to you. After that you know what happened ... it’s really hard to summarise all of it into just one sentence or one particular incident, Tom. I went everywhere I was told, sometimes barely realising where I was.”

“And were there others? ... you know? ... other men?” His voice had a slight break but even if it made no difference now, he needed to know.

“Yes ... there were. It wasn’t love or anything remotely close, it was as though I just had someone I could call or be with without explaining my past ... and you ... were there others?”

Deep down she had always loved him, the day he had kissed her on her thirteenth birthday and had promised to take care of her for the rest of her life, she knew he was different from her father. She knew it was more than a childhood promise but life had intervened, initially offering doubt and then clarity. And now, she could think of nothing that could tear them apart.

“Yeah ... two, maybe three but no one special. I would come so close to thinking I had found the right person then I would think of you ... I don’t know ... None of the pieces seemed to fit until you came back. And somehow I knew you would always come back,” he said as he bent to kiss her forehead.

“You know, we can’t go on like this forever. We have given a whole new meaning to the concept of commuting couples. I want to be there for you every morning when you wake up,” Cathy said, slinking closer to him.

“Cat, I am where you are. I don’t like our current arrangement as well but it’s up to you. If you don’t want us to stay at your apartment at MoonStar Vegas, we can always work something out.”

“Arrrgghh, sometimes I wish I could just leave MoonStar and stay put in one place. All the travelling really gets to me and can you imagine it when we have kids and their schooling ...”

“Okay Sweets, I think you’re getting way ahead of yourself. All this talk of kids is getting to me. Is there something else you’re trying to tell me?” Thomas interrupted her.

“Like what? I’m pregnant? Of course not. I was just thinking about the future I guess,” Cathy giggled.

A long silence passed between the lovers as they each comforted themselves in the simple knowledge of the other's presence. Yet each was engrossed in numerous questions, darting in their minds trying to steer clear of the future, focusing on the present and somehow always ending in the past.