Giselle clapped her hand over her mouth. It wouldn’t do to laugh, especially when that stunt had Bryce written all over it. She remembered the first time he’d seen it done in a movie when he was twelve.
He’d spent months perfecting the technique of balancing a bucket of water over a doorway, tying a string to the knob, and carefully exiting the room. The first person through the door would get doused. He’d quit doing it when their folks threatened to permanently ground him, but obviously he hadn’t forgotten how.
“Cynthia! That wasn’t funny!” Bellowing and dripping, Luke stomped the rest of the way into the room. “You’d better not be here, damn it!”
Stepping over the damp carpet, Giselle glanced down at the hotel ice bucket upended on the floor. She knew Cynthia and Bryce had left. She’d watched her brother create this booby trap countless times, and the last part involved closing the door very carefully.
“Good thing there are towels in this room. At least I can dry off. I suppose I should feel lucky it was only water. Could’ve been tomato juice or maple syrup.” He continued to rave on as he walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light.
“Better not be hiding in the shower!” he called out. That was followed by the squeak of shower rings being pulled along the metal rod. Obviously he’d had to check.
Moving into the room, Giselle scanned it for any other booby traps. “Someone left an envelope on the bed.”
Luke came out of the bathroom, drying his wet hair with a towel. “Oh?” He draped the towel around his neck in a typical male gesture. “Maybe they left us a note.”
“Must be a really big note.”
His eyes widened as he spotted the large manila envelope lying precisely in the middle of the bed. “My name’s on it, and that’s her handwriting.” He finger-combed his wet hair. “After the bucket of water, I’m not sure whether to pick it up or not.”
“It looks harmless enough.” Giselle was dying of curiosity.
“It does. Oh, what the hell.” He grabbed the envelope, and when nothing happened, he blew out a breath. “Sometimes an envelope is just an envelope.” Prying open the flap, he pulled out a glossy studio shot of a little blond girl in a pink tutu. “Oh, shit.” There was a definite catch in his voice. “I should’ve guessed it would be something like this.”
“How old was she in that picture?”
“Three, maybe four.” He cleared his throat. “Her age is probably written on the back.” He flipped the picture over. Someone, probably his mother, had written Cynthia’s name in a flowing script and underneath had added her age, three and a half. Below that, in a much bolder hand, someone had scribbled, You’re all wet, Luke Dalton.
Giselle pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.
Apparently Luke could tell she thought it was funny. “Oh, yeah, that’s hysterical.”
Giselle met his gaze. “It’s clever, pointed, and harmless. And it communicates that she still wants to engage you in a discussion of sorts. If she was determined to defy you and risk causing a permanent rift, she could have gone up to Reno and landed a job up there, or taken off for New York.”
“I guess.” He tucked the picture carefully back in the envelope as if to make sure he didn’t damage it. “I wonder if she swiped any more of these.”
“Where would she swipe them from?”
“The family photo gallery in the penthouse of the Silver Crescent. She has a key.”
“Your family moved to the Crescent?”
“Yep. My father, mother, and Cynthia all lived in the penthouse. They wanted me to live there, too, but a twenty-three-year-old usually doesn’t care to stay in a bedroom down the hall from his folks. We compromised, and I took an apartment one floor down. After Cynthia turned eighteen, she insisted on having the same arrangement I had.”
“Is the penthouse vacant now?”
“No, I live in it. My mom insisted that she wanted me to since she’s now in France. It’s a beautiful place, and it shouldn’t stand empty. Anyway, my father dedicated an entire room to professionally framed pictures of all of us at various ages.” He held up the envelope. “She would have had to cut the backing off to get this out. I hope she didn’t do that to the whole batch.”
“How many had to do with dance?”
“A lot. She took lessons until she left for college.”
Giselle wondered if he realized that this was more than a hobby for his sister. She’d been dancing since she was three, and now that her father wasn’t around to disapprove, she had only to get past her big brother to have the career she’d dreamed of her whole life.
“That’s going to bother me, wondering about those pictures.” He looked over at Giselle. “Would you mind if we went over to the penthouse to check?”
“Fine with me. Unless we get another riddle, we don’t know what to do next, anyway.”
“I know what to do next—eat. I’m starving. How about you?”
Now that he’d mentioned food, she realized she was hungry. “Sure, that sounds good.”
“Excellent. I’ll call Mr. Thatcher and have him bring us something from the main kitchen.” He pulled out his phone again.
“Who’s Mr. Thatcher?”
“Our very English butler. He’s been with the family for years. What would you like for dinner?”
“I’m not picky. Anything.”
“But you’re from ’Frisco. Lots of vegetarians up there. Are you a vegetarian?”
“No.”
“Vegan?”
“Nope. I’m a carnivore. I promise you.”
“You’re doing it again with the little smile. Did I say something funny?”
“Not everyone from San Francisco is a vegetarian, you know.”
“Guess not. You’re okay with steak, then?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you like it rare, medium, or well?”
“Definitely rare.”
“Good. Me, too.” He placed his call to Mr. Thatcher and ordered two steak dinners with all the trimmings, a bottle of red wine, and two pieces of chocolate cake for dessert.
It was a meal fit for a Were, and Giselle could hardly wait. Plus she wanted to see how the Silver Crescent had changed since she was last there. She and her friends must have been guests right before the Crescent became involved in the Cartwright/Dalton legal battle.
“Okay.” He disconnected the call. “We’re out of here. Wait. Hold on a minute. Let me leave a tip for the maid.” He dug in his back pocket for his wallet.
“But the carpet will dry and the room was barely used at all.”
“Doesn’t matter. They count on these tips, and if this room is easy to clean, the next one might be a total disaster. It’s a tough job. They earn their money.”
“You’re right. They do.” She liked the fact that he thought about the maids and thanked them. She was starting to like too many things about Luke Dalton, and that wasn’t a good idea. No matter how much he appealed to her, he was still very much a human.
Chapter 5
“I’m grateful for the private elevator,” Giselle said as they rode up to the Silver Crescent’s penthouse. “And the wood paneling is gorgeous.”
“You can thank Harrison Cartwright. I don’t know if he had a private elevator when the building first went up, but he installed all new elevators throughout the building before he finally turned it over to my dad. If he went to that kind of expense, he must have thought he’d get to keep it, after all.”
“Are all the elevators this nice?”
“Not quite. This one has genuine hardwood. The others are laminate.”
“I know you don’t think much of Harrison Cartwright, but he had good taste.”