The Hotel - 7

Once we'd had dessert, ice cream with Amaretto sauce, most of the group retired to the cocktail lounge. Caitlin, Marsh, and I went to check out the ballroom. Much to our relief, there was one bar hanging from the ceiling, just in front of the stage, complete with several spotlights. Marsh deemed them usable, but said he'd add his own as well then connect everything to the portable lighting board we'd brought with us.   

"These will be perfect," Caitlin said when we discovered that the doors on either side of the stage opened onto a hallway with rooms on the other side of it. "I'll ask Felicia, or Logan, if they can bring in more chairs and two tables and mirrors for doing makeup. It would be great if they have some rolling racks, but if not I'll cram everything into the closets."

"I'll ask Felicia in the morning," I promised. "Are we forgetting anything?"

"Have you made a list of what furniture you need?" Marsh asked.

"Yes," I replied. "It's not much, thankfully." I chuckled. "There's going to be a lot of pacing, not sitting, and the bed will have to stay on stage. Hopefully there's a single one available, with wheels."

"This is a hotel," Marsh pointed out. "They have to have ones to put in rooms for an extra guest."

"True. Is there anything else we're forgetting?"

Caitlin laughed. "Probably. We'll figure it out during the walk-through tomorrow."

With that, we went to join the others in the cocktail lounge.

"This is a surprise," I murmured to Marsh. Edwin Delaney was there, seated at the bar with some of the troupe. He appeared to be enjoying whatever they were talking about. Unsurprisingly, Jenn and Kirby were seated by themselves at a small table nearby.

"What would you like to drink?" Edwin asked when Marsh, Caitlin, and I joined the group. "It's on the house."

"Which is why I ordered a Rusty Nail," Noah said, straight-faced, before lifting his bottle of beer to show he was kidding.

"What's your poison, Austin," Edwin asked, looking directly at me.

"A beer."

"Come on. Don't you want something more interesting?"

"No thanks. I'm not much of a drinker to begin with. Ask them," I replied.

"He's a party killer," Marsh said with a laugh. "We can all get sauced and he's still nursing his first beer." When Edwin lifted an eyebrow, Marsh told him, "I was kidding. We're all pretty sedate when it comes to partying."

"Contrary to popular opinion," Phil added, "most theater people aren't lushes."

"That's nice to know," Edwin said, his gaze lingering on me for a second longer than necessary before he turned his attention to the others. I wondered what that was all about, not certain I wanted to know. He was definitely good-looking with his long, dark hair and deep blue eyes. He was casually dressed, now. A change from the other times I'd met him, when he was wearing a business suit and tie. I recall my thoughts when I first met him were that he had matinee idol looks and would make a great Dracula if he was an actor—which he isn't. He'd told me, then, that he'd inherited the mansion, although he called it 'the house', living in it for almost seven years before deciding to turn it into a hotel three years ago.  

"Did you know there are wolves in the area?" Phil asked Edwin, breaking my train of thought.

"Yes. They keep their distance, however," Edwin replied. "It's a small pack. Only five or six of them as far as I can determine. To be honest, I've done my best to keep them a secret. I do not want hunters up here looking for them."

I glanced at the others. "We won't tell anyone, we promise." I got nods from everyone.

"Which one, or ones, did you see?" Edwin asked.

"A big gray one," Noah replied. "He was quite impressive."

"That was probably the alpha," Edwin said. "He's the one who's around the most. I get the feeling he's making certain no one from here decides to get up close and personal. I doubt he'd attack, but I'm not going to test my theory."

"Believe me, there's no way I'm going across the lake," Jenn said from the table where she and Kirby sat.

"Not without me," Kirby told her, giving her a hug.

"Neither of us is," she said adamantly, kissing his cheek.

Again, I saw Tessa staring at them. She was not happy, although she did her best to hide it when she noticed me watching her. "Maybe I'll get Ramsey to take a walk over there with me," she said, smiling at him. "He's not afraid of anything."

"Not true," Ramsey replied, grinning. "I'm afraid I'm going to miss supper sometime and starve to death." He was kidding, of course, but it broke the tension he'd obviously felt coming off Tessa. I, for one, was grateful.

From there, things got lighter as Edwin began quizzing everyone about how they'd gotten involved in the troupe. An hour later, I played the boss and suggested to everyone it was time to hit the sack. "We've got a busy couple of days coming up and I want everyone on the top of their game."

The party, if you can call it that, broke up as they did as I'd asked. The last thing I saw as I left the cocktail lounge was Edwin looking at me in what seemed like contemplation. I wrote it off to my imagination.