Alex O'Donnell and the 40 CyberThieves (The Fairy Tale Novels) Read online

  This was a disappointment. He decided to make one last try, putting on his most wistful expression. “Well—can you stay till Monday? At least?”

  50 Alex O’Donnell and the Forty CyberThieves Kateri pushed back her hair, and looked at him resolutely with her dark brown eyes. He became sadder, and saw her resolve waver. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to leave on Monday.”

  “Okay!” He opened the car door, wanting to change the subject before she could change her mind. “Let’s go inside and see if the kids are still alive.”

  Sam and David greeted them affably enough. As usual, they were in front of the TV. His parents were gone.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” Alex asked.

  “On their once-a-month date,” David said.

  “Aha.” Alex knew his parent’s routine. “When did they leave?”

  David shrugged. “Sometime this morning, right after you two did.”

  “Long date,” Alex remarked. “Did you two eat dinner?”

  “We did!” they informed Alex.

  “No one cleaned up the kitchen,” Kateri growled, inspecting that room.

  “We’ll do it later,” Alex said, but catching her glowering glance, he changed his mind. “Like I said, we’ll do it now.”

  Kateri had wiped the last counter and he had just put the last dish into the dishwasher when the front door opened and the kids shouted, “Dad and Mom are back!”

  Alex looked around the jamb. Dad was helping Mom through the front door. They were both gleeful, as though bursting with some guilty secret. Dad looked happier than Alex had seen him in a long time.

  “Their ‘day away’ sure works magic,” Kateri remarked.

  But Alex knew that something more was going on. Suspicious, he planted himself in front of the faded purple couch and folded his arms. “Mom—Dad—what’s up?”

  His mom adjusted the plaid pillows, and looked at his dad, who had just sat down heavily beside her. He grinned, and spluttered. Then all at once, both of them were laughing, rolling back on the couch and throwing pillows at each other.

  “Come on you two, cut it out! You’ve gone and done something. What is it?” Alex demanded.

  Finally his mom stopped giggling long enough to burst out, “We bought a hotel!”

  A hotel? You bought a hotel? What is this, Monopoly?” David said, scrambling to his feet and getting caught in the wires from the video game console.

  “We bought a hotel,” Dad said, wiping his glasses. Alex noticed that he looked both resigned and relieved at the same time.

  “So—you decided to use the Mystery Money after all,” Alex said.

  Dad shook his head, and put an arm around Mom. “No, thanks to this financial master-maiden I married.”

  “I figured out a way to use the money as leverage to help us qualify for a business loan,” Mom said, wiping her eyes—she almost always ended up crying when she laughed. “All we need to do is come up with a down payment of two hundred thousand dollars.”

  David was untangling his foot. “Um, but Mom, if we’re not counting the Mystery Money, we don’t have two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Alex had already figured it out. “We’re going to sell our house,” he said.

  Mom nodded. “Which, according to my old college roommate, who does appraisals, is worth at least two hundred and seventy-five thousand. We’ve listed it with a real estate agent already.”

  “O—kay. So we’re moving,” Alex said, feeling the need to sit down on something, and lowering himself onto a footstool covered with newspapers.

  “Uh—what hotel did you buy?”

  With a sigh, his mom threw herself luxuriously into his dad’s arms and he put a pillow on her head. “We bought the Twilight Hills Hotel.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Just the place where we spent our honeymoon,” Dad said, causing the younger boys to yell, “TMI! TMI!” and clamp their hands over their ears.

  “We were just back there for our twenty-fifth anniversary a month ago,”

  Mom told Kateri, who was standing in the kitchen doorway, open-mouthed. “It’s a wonderful place.”

  Alex was putting this all together. “Wait a second. This is the place down south in Virginia.”

  “Yes,” his mother said dreamily, running her hands through her blond hair.

  “The place in the mountains near Roanoke. The place you two are ga-ga over.”

  “Yes,” Dad said. “That’s the place. Remember when we went on our anniversary trip? The old couple who’ve run it for the past fifty years told us they were going to sell it and retire.”

  “—so you drove down there today and told them you would buy it.” Alex guessed.

  “You never saw a happier couple,” Dad said, swooping Mom into his arms again and kissing her.

  Kateri was clearly more stunned than any of them. She folded her dishtowel over and over. “What are you going to do with a hotel?”

  “Run it. As a business,” Mom said, pushing herself out of her husband’s arms.

  “Do you know how to do that?” Kateri asked, her brow furrowed. “I mean, it’s not like being on a permanent vacation or anything…”

  “Kat, I guess you don’t know this, but my grandparents, God rest their souls, used to run a motel,” Alex said. “They ran the Red Roof outside Manassas.”

  “I grew up doing the accounts and helping to run the business,” Mom said.

  “Every day after school I used to fold sheets and make beds and wash dishloads of coffee cups—Of course, the little Red Roof was nothing like the forty-room resort hotel we just bought, but still, I sort of know the business.”

  “And we’ll help out, right boys?” Alex said. “I guess you don’t remember Grandpappy’s Red Roof, but I do.” He had vivid recollections of running races in the laundry cart down the long hallway, helping to strip beds every morning, and sitting beside his grandfather at the desk, watching him take down reservations.

  “The hotel we bought isn’t really a very posh place,” Dad said to Kateri.

  “Big, but not fancy or anything. Still, we’ll be living in one of the most beautiful locations on earth. The mountains of Virginia. Canoeing, fishing, hiking…”

  “Will it be like a permanent vacation?” Sam wanted to know.

  Alex winked at him. “Jogging my memory,” he said, “I think it will be almost the complete opposite of a permanent vacation. But that’s all right. You’ll build character.”

  Kateri was nearly in complete opposition to the Mad Hotel Adventure, as she called it. “This can’t be good for your mom’s health,” she confided to Alex Monday morning, while his mom busily worked over charts and graphs, writing a business plan. “There’s no way she can do this. Hotel work is exhausting.”

  “You don’t know my mom,” Alex said positively. “I think it’s good for her to have something she can do. I like seeing her so energized.”

  “She’s going to need lots of help,” Kateri frowned. “It’s not prudent.” They were cleaning the kitchen together after supper. “Yes, your mom might know how to do the books—”

  “My dad will be CEO of the company and night manager, I’ll be the day manager, my brothers will be the wait staff and cleaning staff. We’ll hire out what we can’t take on ourselves. My mom’s budgeting it all out. If we trim our personal expenses, live on the interest, we can put all the profits back into the business and make it work, even if we eventually do lose the Mystery Money. It’s all figured out.”

  “But so many things could go wrong—at any part of that equation! Starting with your mom’s health. Suppose she takes a turn for the worse? It’s a terrible risk—and you have no backup.”

  Alex pushed away his annoyance with her. He could see that it wasn’t in his interests to quarrel with Kateri right now. She was due to leave this evening, and he had a feeling that if they parted on bad terms, she would use the opportunity to break up with him. And under no circumstances did he want her to do that.

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p; He tried to broker a compromise. “Okay, you’re right. It’s probably not very prudent. But you have to admit it’s clever. It’s about the one thing you can do with a million dollars without spending any of it.”

  “Yes,” Kateri agreed. “It is clever.” She shook her head, washing silverware.

  “It’s completely unfair of you, Alex. Playing on my pro-life sympathies like this.”

  “Pro-life sympathies?” Alex asked, stacking plates.

  “You know I’ve run protests all through college in defense of the most vulnerable—unborn babies, the sick, the elderly—you must have known that I’d find it impossible to leave your mother, suffering from MS, and under threat from mysterious money and mad hotel adventures.”

  He chuckled. “Genius that I am, I never considered that,” he said. Suddenly wary, he leaned against the stove. “Wait a minute—are you saying that you’ve been extending your stay because of my mom, not because of me?”

  “Sort of,” she muttered, throwing down her sponge. “Oh, Alex! I can’t help how I feel! Don’t make me—”

  “Wait,” he said, putting a finger on her lips. “Just wait right there. Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.” He put his arms around her. “This will all work out.”

  She tried to push away from him, but he didn’t let go. “How can you say that?” she complained. “It’s not working out! It’s completely illogical. You’re thinking with your feelings!”

  “Thinking with my feelings?” he gave a small laugh. “How illogical is that?

  You can’t think with a feeling. First law of logic: A is not B. You must be a girl.

  But seriously—” he released her but still held her hands. She doesn’t think it’s working out. Between us.

  . . .But she likes my mom.

  Very well, he could use that to his advantage—Kateri had just told him how to get around her. “You’re right, it’s a foolish, mad thing that we’re going to put my mom through.”

  Kateri looked almost as though she were going to cry. “And I’m sorry, Alex, but I just don’t believe that you and your dad and brothers are going to be able to do everything that your mom needs done in order to run a business and get the rest she needs. The details! The little things around the house women see that men don’t! And now you’re adding a hotel into the mix—I don’t see how you can do this alone.”

  “Exactly so,” Alex said, allowing a slow, inviting smile to spread over his face, trying not to feel wicked. “Which is why, of course, that we’re going to hire you to come with us.”

  The expression of shocked bewilderment on her Asian face was precious.

  Then her brows, eyes and lips shot down with adamancy. “No.”

  “You are, Kateri,” he said, drying his dish placidly. “You are your own worst enemy. You know you’re coming. You almost can’t help yourself.”

  With a grin, he tossed the towel over his shoulder. “And I know you’ll be our most valued asset.” Whistling, he stepped into the living room. “Ahem. May I speak to the CFO of the Twilight Hotel Corporation? Mom? Make sure you include an item in that business plan for an Assistant Manager. And make sure you include a generous starting salary.” He returned to the kitchen and confronted her.

  “This is bribery.” Kateri was still struggling to regain power of speech.

  “Call it what you will. You need a job, and I’m offering you one you’re perfectly suited for. You can’t refuse.” He drew himself up. “And if you require it, I can even relate to you on a strictly collegial basis, if that’s what you need to feel more comfortable.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “So you’re saying I can break up with you, so long as I work for your family?”

  He inclined his head. “Of course,” he said. “It won’t be so much fun that way but. . .”

  “Oh!” she threw up her hands. “Okay. I accept.”

  “Fantastic!” he exclaimed, but caught himself. “Wait. Do I get to kiss you, or should we just shake hands?”

  “Hands,” she said, her face still guarded.

  A little stung, he nevertheless grinned and shook her hand. “Welcome to the company.”

  On the bus, Kateri burrowed her head in her hands and closed her eyes. She could still see the receding figure of Alex in her mind—all in black, wistful, smiling, waving goodbye to her as she looked out the huge plate-glass bus window. How had she gotten herself into this? Every time she had steeled herself to have a serious talk with Alex about their relationship, something had happened to distract her from the topic.

  No, she realized: Alex had happened. He’d change the subject, asked her about something else, or just kept up a stream of what her dad called Irish blarney—the gift of the gab—to keep her from pursuing the issue.

  So now she was leaving Virginia, and the big item on her to-do list— Break Up With Alex—was still undone. Not only that, somehow she had promised to come back. To work for the O’Donnell family and the Twilight Hills Hotel.

  Only Alex could have machinated this.

  Not only done this, but done it in such a way that somehow she wasn’t mad at him. Part of her was relieved to get a job, and thankful to have some life direction. And, she had to admit that Alex was right. No, it didn’t make sense for her to do this. But it would probably be fun.

  Fun. Alex used that word a lot, and she didn’t like it. Fun didn’t necessarily lead to happiness. And she doubted that God’s plan for her life hinged on it being fun.

  And then there was the whole matter of where the Mystery Money had come from in the first place. . .

  Leaning back in her seat, she pulled out her rosary. Might as well pray for some discernment. With Alex O’Donnell’s family as her employers, she was going to need it.

  Alex missed Kateri. The nagging uncertainty of whether or not she would actually return was an ache in his stomach that woke him up early every morning. Fortunately, things were moving so fast now that he didn’t have time to dwell much upon it once he actually got out of bed.

  Their house sold. They signed the seller’s contract, agreed to vacate in a week, and then the next day drove down to the town of Hunter Spring where the Twilight Hills Hotel was located, and crowded into the cramped office of a mountain realty company to sign reams of paperwork that began and ended with a handshake.

  Afterwards all the O’Donnells and the real estate agent went out to a local steakhouse to eat prime rib and clink glasses with the former owners, an ancient couple from India, Mr. and Mrs. Bhatka. The Bhatkas had immigrated to America as newlyweds and sunk all their family money into the hotel until it had become a successful and steady, if not a booming, business.

  The two families spent the evening trading stories and sharing wisdom. Mr.

  and Mrs. Bhatka were moving to Florida to be near their children and grandchildren, who had gone into the tech industry. They were tickled at the reverse movement of Mr. O’Donnell leaving the tech industry for the hotel business. The Bhatkas insisted that they would be delighted to stay on for a week or two after the O’Donnells finished their move to help them transition into full owners of the hotel.

  The Twilight Hills Hotel was, fittingly enough, perched upon a hill—a hill so high it could have been called a mountain, but since the hill was surrounded by mountains, the competition had disqualified it. It was a three-story modern block structure in the typical mold of windows-and-balconies along two sides. It had a wide front lobby in retro 70’s décor, a pool, a sauna, a weight room, a hot tub, a small breakfast area that overlooked the view of the south side, a conference room, and on-site living quarters for the owners. As a hotel, it was small-to-middling, but for the O’Donnell family, and Alex in particular, it seemed like a big job.

  Nothing like a challenge to take your mind off things, Alex told himself. He spent practically the entire next day talking with Mr. Bhatka about what it took to run a hotel, trying to gather as many pearls of wisdom as he could.

  “As day manager,” Mr. Bhatka said, indicating Alex�
�s t-shirt, “never in your shirt sleeves. Always the jacket. It tells people that this is a quality establishment. Some things you always have consistent. No fingerprints on the countertop and front door. Always gleaming. The things the guests first see must always be beautifully clean. Even if you clean them twenty-six times a day!”

  Mr. Bhatka was shorter than Alex, but he had an energetic stride. Alex had a hard time keeping up with him as he followed him up and down the hallways, which were papered in beige linen and carpeted with huge overblown abstract flowers, vintage 70’s. The hotel owner pointed to the bank of cabinets in the breakfast area. “See scratches on the doors? Just old. You should replace. Soon.

  Too noticeable.”

  He swung through the door that led to the hallway of first floor guest rooms and guided Alex past the rows of identical blank doors. “Make sure there are no fingerprints on the doors,” Mr. Bhatka instructed. “First thing the guest sees.”

  He indicated the door, which opened with a regular key. “Needs to be upgraded.

  Most hotels now have key card locks. Upgrade soon!”

  “I’m sure my dad will. He used to work in security systems,” Alex said.

  Mr. Bhatka unlocked the door with a brass master key, and threw it open.

  “What do you see?”

  Alex took in the neat double bed with the floral spread, the mountains beyond a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass. “The view.”

  “What do you NOT see?” Mr. Bhatka paused for an answer, then smiled.

  “The window! They must NOT see the window!”

  “Ah. Right. Of course. Let me guess—no fingerprints?” Alex said.

  “You catch on quick,” Mr. Bhatka nodded. “The guest cannot see the gorgeous view if there are fingerprints, correct?” He yanked a gray flannel cloth out of his pocket. “Always on hand. Polish, polish!”

  He rubbed what seemed like a non-existent spot on the glass, then turned and solemnly handed the cloth to Alex, as though it were even more precious than the master key to the hotel. “Yours. Never walk the floors without it.”