Me And Mr. I.T. (Kupid's Cove Book 2) (3 page)

I checked my watch for the third time in five minutes. I wanted this meeting to end so I could escape the room, and the eyes of a particular person in it. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Mr. I.T. after the meeting was over, so I planned to feign a crisis in my department and beat it back to my office. I started shoving all my things in my bag in anticipation as Gideon finished speaking. “So that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Flynn is already finished with his part of this new task, but Ellie and Mally, you’re just getting started. I want you both to wrap up your projects, or hand them over to others in your department, and get to work on this immediately. Any questions?” We shook our heads, almost in a daze, and he motioned at the door. “Flynn you’re free to go. Mally and Ellie, I need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

I groaned inwardly. Sure he does. He probably wants to make sure that I don’t run out of here before I talk to Mr. I.T. He knows me too well. We hung back as Flynn left the office and then Gideon closed the door, along with the privacy shades on the long glass windows leading to the hallway. He unplugged the phone from the middle of the table, and took a seat.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on here, Ellie,” he addressed me.

“I’m surprised by the project, and intrigued by the curtains and the phone.”

He laughed a little and leaned on the table, folding his hands. “Someone is stealing from the corporation.”

Such a frank admittance took me by surprise. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because I’m hoping you can help me find out who it is.”

I started to giggle, until I was full out laughing, trying not to, but failing miserably. “I can barely work a computer, how in the hell do you expect me to find someone who is stealing from you?”

“I don’t, that’s Mally’s job. Your job is to do your marketing thing. Go out and talk to people. Make friends. Get close to people. Check out their social media profiles. Look for anything that’s amiss regarding what they’re driving, eating, playing or using that doesn’t jive with what they’re earning. Meanwhile Mally will be hacking our system laying malware for whoever it is that is siphoning cash from the general fund.”

I sat up, suddenly the note of seriousness striking me. “You’re telling me someone is stealing from the resort and you don’t know who it is? They don’t leave a trail?”

“These days you can do just about anything without leaving a trail,” Mr. I.T. piped up. “If you know what you’re doing.”

I rubbed my neck out of nervousness and while I tried to figure out the right questions to ask. “I hate the idea that someone I work with is stealing from the company. That puts all of our livelihoods at stake.”

Gideon nodded, tapping his fingers on the table. “They’ve stolen well over a quarter of a million already. We need to stop them before they cause a real problem I can’t come back from.”

I gasped at the number. In the realm of Gideon’s empire, that’s a drop in the bucket, but that drop would pay a lot of people’s salaries.

I nodded resolved. “Count me in. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Good. You’re going to start with getting your projects cleaned up over the next few days and then you, and Mally, will head to Honolulu.”

I looked between the two of them, trying to ignore the smirk on Mr. I.T.’s face. “Wha…What? Honolulu?”

Gideon nodded. “We think that is where the employee is working from. We can’t be sure, but it’s our best guess. It’s a bigger resort, and they have twice the employees we have here at Kupid’s Arrow. Orchid Reef and Kupid’s Arrow are the only two places where orders come in. We sort them and then send them out to the smaller resorts. The smaller resorts don’t have access to the system at all, right, Mally?” he asked, double checking.

“That’s correct. I’ve set up each resort with a separate reservation system, meaning they can only make reservations for that resort. They can reserve rooms, run credit cards, and email within the corporation, but that’s it.”

“If they can run credit cards, isn’t it possible they could be skimming off them?” I asked Gideon.

“It’s possible, but not a quarter of a million dollars in two months. We’ve done our books and each resort is within ten dollars of their charges versus room usage. I always allow about a one percent error rate, so those resorts aren’t the problem.”

“The numbers for Orchid Reef and Kupid’s Arrow don’t match up then? Maybe it’s someone in the accounting department.”

“The numbers for services in the resort and restaurants match,” he explained patiently.

“But the fact remains we are still hemorrhaging money at a frightening pace, which means someone has figured out a way to steal that we can’t trace,” Mr. I.T. explained.

I shook my head a little as I tried to process everything. “So you want Mally and I to pretend to set up a business center there while trying to find the thief? I’m not sure that’s part of my job description. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

Gideon leaned back in his chair. “You aren’t going to be pretending; you are going to be setting up a business center there. But I want you to do a little extra digging as well. No one will suspect you’re a plant, since your job is to shine the best light on the hotel. It makes sense you want to get to know the people who work there, so you can utilize their time and talent.” I didn’t like it, but he was probably right. It was likely I had the best chance of getting close to people.

“Okay, but what about the police, wouldn’t they be better at this?”

“We want to keep it internal, for now,” Gideon said. “It’s hard to catch a thief when they know you’re onto them. If cops started sniffing around word would get back quickly to whoever he or she is. All I want you to do is find some possible leads, and I’ll make sure the right legal channels are covered.”

I stared at the two men for several silent moments. “I guess I’m going to Honolulu,” I said resigned.

Mr. I.T. did a fist pump, which I tried to ignore, and Gideon dug around in his wallet. He came out with two swipe keycards and laid them on the table.

“These are the keys to the penthouse suite at Orchid Reef. You can room there for the duration of your stay. Anything you need should be there, but don’t hesitate to call the front desk if you need anything. They’ll send me a bill for any laundry or dry cleaning you may need, meals, cabs, etc.”

I picked up the keys and handed one to Mr. I.T. “I’ll try not to let you down, Gideon.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “All you can do is your best. The fate of this entire business rests in your hands.” I scrunched up my nose and he laughed, his sudden seriousness gone. “I’m messing with you, Ellie. I know we’ll find the person sooner or later, I would just rather it was sooner. There will be a nice bonus for both of you, half for getting the business center up and running, and half for being willing to stick your neck out for the better of the business.”

“Not necessary, Gideon, but thank you,” Mr. I.T. said.

Gideon opened the door and pointed at me. “You, stop being afraid of that guy and get your computer situation figured out before you leave. You’re going to need one, and it’s going to need to work.”

He saluted as he walked out of the boardroom and I groaned at his words. I couldn’t help but notice Mr. I.T. looked like the cat who swallowed the canary. It only took me a moment to realize I was the canary.

Chapter Two

The breeze coming off the ocean was cool and I could feel the stress draining from my shoulders the longer I sat on the sugar sand beach. All I heard was the sound of the surf as the waves broke close to the shore. There were no phones ringing, no fax machines beeping, and no error messages popping up at me with lightening speed. I was in heaven. I loved this beach because of the privacy it afforded. All beaches in Hawaii are public beaches, but the majority of the people using this one were guests of Kupid’s Arrow. There were always one or two local surfers riding the waves, but for the most part, we don’t have to share it like some of the more popular beaches. I don’t have a problem with sharing, unless it’s with Mr. I.T.

I drew a picture in the sand where I sat with my feet in the surf. It was a crude laptop with a big X angrily slashed through it. Our meeting had gone in a direction I didn’t see coming, and I wasn’t all that happy about it. Added to my displeasure, was the uncomfortable fact that I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything when
he
was around. I fumbled my PowerPoint clicker more than once during my presentation and spilled my coffee cup during his. The liquid seeped into the conference call thingamabob in the middle of the table, leaving yet another job for Mr. I.T. to do because of me.

I ran my hand across the drawing in the sand until there was no picture left, only rumpled, wet sand. I had to get it together, but for some reason I was a hot mess, and I couldn’t explain why. It didn’t help that every time I looked at Mr. I.T. that horrible night in my apartment played through my mind. The night I threw myself at him and he’d refused me. I wasn’t blind to the truth. He was hot and I was not. I was big breasted and the least muscular person in that conference room. I was anything but a surfer girl or workout girl. Unless you’re talking about working out a bottle of wine, then I’m your girl.

To add insult to injury, now I had to spend hours with Mr. I.T. for this new project. I scolded myself for calling him that and then snorted aloud to the empty beach. He would always be Mr. I.T. to me, even if he did force me to call him Mally to his face. Mally is a terrible nickname for a guy, but I wasn’t going to share that opinion, especially considering the amount of time we were about to spend together.

The new project involved marketing the resorts toward the business crowd, and utilizing the empty ballrooms during the week as conference halls for businesses to hold events. It didn’t sound that hard on the surface, but the amount of marketing, and technology changes it would require, did make it a full-time job to get it off the ground, at least in the short term. The head electrician, Flynn Steele, had already installed what Kupid’s Arrow needed for electrical needs and had nearly finished the work at Orchid Reef as well. Considering their ballrooms usually held large wedding parties, we shouldn’t need too much added to make them useful for business events. Truth be told, Mr. I.T.’s part of this would take a lot less time than mine. Furthermore, I had to try to find a thief while doing it all, which had me freaking out, a lot. Oh, and let’s not forget, sharing the penthouse with him for weeks.

I felt the impending anxiety attack and took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. “You’re being ridiculous, Ellie,” I said aloud to the breaking waves. “So what if you have to work with him. He’s pretending it didn’t happen, and so can you.”

The only way I was going to be able to pretend it didn’t happen was by getting drunk every morning. Okay, so that probably wasn’t the greatest idea either, but I hadn’t come up with a better one. I watched as the sun dropped lower in the sky, and sighed. Our first meeting together would be happening in just under an hour when we planned to head into town together to find a computer better suited for marketing, and undercover, clandestine social media hacking. I rolled my eyes a little and leaned back on my hands. I had planned on going online shopping tonight once Gideon gave me the go ahead, but his parting statement from the boardroom left me no choice but to explain the problem to Mr. I.T.

I pushed myself up off the wet sand and wiped my bottom off. My long white swing dress was officially wet and I was glad I had a spare outfit in my private bathroom back at the resort. I had plenty of time to head back to the hotel, grab it, clean up and be ready by six, if I left now. I forced my feet forward, holding my shoes in one hand, letting them swing against my thigh with each step. I saw a woman walking toward me, pushing what looked to be a stroller on steroids, through the sand. As I got closer, I recognized the woman, and the baby. It was Katie Armstrong and she was pushing her mini-me, Katie Steel, in a jogging stroller. I waved as I approached and Kate grinned, waving back.

“Aloha, Katie, I see you have your helper again,” I said when she stopped the stroller in front of me. The wheels were huge, reminding me of the back wheels on the old Big Wheel I used to have. Inside the seat of the beachcomber was a smiling six-month-old baby girl.

“Aloha, Ellie. My helper was fussy and wanted a walk while we waited for her daddy to get done with work,” she explained, handing the baby a dropped toy after wiping the sand off.

“Where’s Winifred?” I asked, tickling the little girl’s chin. Katie’s best friend, and Mini-Katie’s mommy, happened to be married to Flynn Steele. She recently started a publishing agency when they moved to Hawaii after Kate and Gideon got married.

“She’s on the mainland for a few days meeting a couple of authors. I promised to take care of Katie-Bug while her daddy was working. I needed some auntie time, anyway. Winifred will be back tomorrow if you need something.”

“No, just curious,” I answered watching the way she was looking at the little girl. The only word I could use to describe it was pure sadness. Before I could ask if she was okay, she broke into my thoughts.

“Do you have the invitation finished yet? I’m on pins and needles waiting to see it.”

“It’s done, but my computer bit the dust, or rather it bit the floor.” I grimaced and she laughed knowingly at me. It wasn’t a secret how terrible I was with technology. “I’m going to buy a new laptop tonight and once I get it set up I’ll email it to you.”

She frowned. “I was really hoping to see it printed on card stock.”

My heart and gut didn’t like how disappointed she looked so I held my hand up. “That’s no problem. I’ll drop it by tomorrow morning on a few different colors of stock, so you can decide on the best one.”

Her frown deepened. “I don’t want to make extra work for you. You’re already doing all this on your own time as it is.”

“I don’t mind, Katie, really. I’m sure Mr… errr… Mally will help me take it off the flash drive, and load it onto another computer, to print the samples. Have you decided on a color scheme for the event yet?”

Katie was spearheading a fundraising dinner and dance to benefit the local free law clinic where she volunteers. She was a family lawyer before she came to Hawaii, and she wanted to continue helping people. After moving to the islands with Gideon, she found her true calling helping islanders. But, free legal care isn’t free, even when the lawyers volunteer their time. There are always court costs and the costs of keeping a small building open a few days a week. I volunteered to help as soon as she asked about the invitations.

“The theme is A Lover’s Island Soiree, so I’m thinking we should go with shades of pink and white as an accent. I want to avoid a harsh red if we can.”

Katie-Bug giggled at me and I giggled back, her laughter infectious, but apparently not to her auntie.

“How about a nice raspberry color with scripted white font?” I asked the rather somber woman.

“Sounds lovely. I’ll make sure Gideon reimburses you for your time on this, Ellie.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. They were a little bit red and a lot sad. “Katie, I told you all my work is free. I’m happy to help and this is a good way to give back to the community. I have some great promotional gigs lined up and if you don’t want to do them all, I’ll stand in for you. Once my computer is up and running I’ll email you the specifics.”

She nodded as her shoulders slumped forward. She grasped the handle of the stroller. “Sounds wonderful, Ellie. Thank you again, so much. I want this fundraiser to be an annual event and it’s important we raise enough cash flow to keep the clinic open for the next year. All your efforts are so appreciated by all of us.”

I gave her a short hug and noticed how weak she seemed. Something was definitely wrong. “Not a problem, Katie. We’ll get it done. Listen, I have to scoot. I’m meeting Mr. I.T. at six to go buy a new computer.”

“Mr. I.T.?” she questioned, laughing a little.

I tried not to roll my eyes at myself. “Sorry, Mally. Maltrand.”

“You’re blushing, Ellie.” Her laughter, and genuine happiness, made me smile, so I didn’t deny it. Anything that made her happy right now was worth any amount of discomfort for me.“Do you really call him, Mr. I.T.?”

“All the time, but I try not to address him that way. He gets all bent out of shape.”

She continued to snort with laughter as she spoke, “I can’t imagine why.”

I grinned and patted her on the back. “I’ll let you ladies get back to your walk and I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

She waved and pushed the stroller forward through the sand. I walked the opposite way toward the resort just as the sun was almost below the horizon. Sunset was early in Hawaii during February, and I was late so I had better get a move on if I was going to be on time for my computer buying date.

It’s not a date, Ellie. It’s a horrible, interminable, likely to make you look like an idiot, computer buying trip. I approached Kupid Arrow’s Resort, the twenty-one floor hotel and convention center looming at me as though it had a life of its own. Maybe it did, maybe that’s why we were all drawn to the hotel and made it a way of life rather than just a job. My apartment was on the twenty-first floor, along with twenty-three other employees of the hotel. Gideon turned the top floor of the hotel into employee suites, small one-room studio apartments with a functional kitchen, sitting area and TV, chic half wall to partition off the bed and a luxurious bathroom. The rent is less than the little hut I used to live in, and everything is clean and new. I sold all my furniture, and moved in with a huge smile on my face, until I discovered that Gideon had put Mr. I.T. next door to me. I swear he did it on purpose, but I couldn’t prove it.

I walked across the grass style artificial turf Gideon had installed from the beach to the doors of the hotel. It worked wonders to grab all the sand off your feet before you dragged it into the hotel and made more work for the cleaning staff. I slipped my sling-backs on and patted Todd on the shoulder as he opened the door for me. Kupid’s Arrow Resort had doormen at every entrance, valet parking, and luggage service. Todd was one of my favorite guys. Already past retirement age by ten years, he loved working here, so he doesn’t care about the number of candles on his birthday cake. Todd and his wife live in a suite on our floor, rent free, for as long as they want to. Gideon is just that kind of guy. If you work hard and are loyal to your employer, he rewards you in big ways.

I grabbed the elevator, sticking my hand in the door to keep it from closing. I knew I looked a mess as I stepped onto the elevator with a family of three, and hit the button for the lower level, where the offices, business center, and restaurants were located. I smiled at the little girl holding her daddy’s hand as she eyed my dress, wet with sand.

“I like your dress, cutie,” I said, motioning at her little shift dress with small Hawaiian flowers all over it. It was a muumuu for children, which was awesome. I had to find one for Katie-Bug.

She looked down at the dress and smoothed it a little. “Thank you. I like your dress, too,” she said in a sweet little girl voice.

I held it out a little and wrinkled my nose. “Thank you, but it’s awfully wet and sandy. You should see it when it’s not though.” I winked and she giggled. “Whenever I go to the beach I forget I’m not supposed to sit in the sand and build sand castles.”

“Maybe when you want to build sand castles you should put on a swimming suit; that’s what they’re made for,” she scolded and her mom tried to hold in her laughter while I hit myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand.

“I didn’t think of that. Great idea! I’ll be sure to do that next time.” I winked at her again just as the elevator doors opened. I stepped out onto the polished tile floor and went left toward the offices while they went right toward the restaurant. I could have gone up to my apartment to get a change of clothes, but I was afraid I would run into Mr. I.T. Other than the night I was drunk, I’ve managed to avoid accidently running into him since I moved in, and I would like that to continue. I snorted. You’re such a chicken, Monroe, in case you’ve forgotten, you’re going out with him in less than thirty minutes.

Even the lower level of the hotel was opulent. Gideon spared no expense when he renovated this particular hotel and he was reaping the benefits now. I noticed a light on in his office as I passed and I paused by the door, watching him. He held a picture of Katie in his hands while staring at the wall, as though deep in thought.

I rapped my knuckles against the door twice and his head snapped around to face me. “Aloha, sir,” I said stepping into his office. You would expect it to be a large room and filled with an ostentatious desk, as well as a big uncomfortable couch and puffy chairs, but it wasn’t. His office was the same size as all of ours, and utilitarian to the core.