The Chosen

Some impulse—she didn’t know what—impelled her to open it further. And when she did so, she noticed the strangest thing.

The gun.

The gun she’d seen in Feldspar’s desk some time ago now sat plainly in Kyle’s drawer. She knew it was the same one; it looked large and clunky, unusual, like an antique.

“Hey, Vera, if you want to go through my drawers, that’s okay by me.”

Vera looked up, outraged. Kyle entered the office with a loping, arrogant stride, grinning at the fact he’d caught her invading his managerial privacy, which she easily ignored given comment regarding his “drawers.”

“Why do you have a gun?” she demanded.

Kyle shrugged, along with his pectorals. “In case we get robbed. Hotels do get robbed every so often.”

Fine! What could she say? That she’d seen the same gun in Feldspar’s desk? Then some weird mental fog cleared in her head. The dream, she thought. Despite the usual demented sex, hadn’t she dreamed of hearing gunshots?

She’d sound ridiculous voicing it. So she voiced the next outrage. “Dan B. told me Lee’s gone.”

Kyle nodded, arms crossed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah?” Vera nearly spat.

“If you were anything close to a decent personnel manager, you’d know what’s going on with your personnel.”

She wished she could kick him, or slap him, or—something. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Lee got fired. Drinking on duty. Shit, Vera, I gave the guy as many breaks as I could but never got it in his head. Last night the guy was blotto cleaning up. I had to fire him. He packed his bags this morning, got a cab to the bus station in Waynesville. ”

Bullshit! she felt inclined to say, but then she had to admit that Lee had been known to drink a few beers while working the dishwasher. She’d never known him, however, to be drunk. “Lee was my employee. How come I wasn’t consulted about the decision to fire him?”

Kyle, again, shrugged. “You were asleep. I guess you gals need your beauty sleep.” Then he offered the faintest chuckle. “You knew the guy was tipping the bottle on duty, don’t tell me you didn’t. If you cared more about your employees than your sleeptime, then this might never have happened.”

What could she say to that? Vera felt a pang of guilt, but her anger still fumed. Lee was a lot of things, but impulsive wasn’t one of them. Would he really leave without even telling me? She just couldn’t accept that. “And what’s this crap about The Inn being closed?”

“The Inn’s closed,” Kyle responded in his usual smart-ass manner. “What am I? An information desk? The Inn’s closed for the rest of the week.”

“Why?”

“Plumbing problem. One of the domestic waterlines broke, I think.”

“What do you mean, you think?” Vera seethed. “When did this happen?”

“Last night, while you were beddy-bye. A main froze up and broke, so the out-water line backed up.”