“Ah,” Liam nodded. “Jenna doubles as our IT support for it as well.” He smiled at Jenna. “I hope there were no problems with moving the guests’ bookings to their new rooms?”
“No, sir,” Jenna assured him. “All went through smoothly. We also put new complimentary welcome baskets in each room to apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Great, thank you,” Liam said, nodding and looking at Dawn. “Can I steal you for a moment?”
“Sure,” Dawn said with a nod and excused herself from Jenna.
She walked out from behind the desk with Hicks by her side.
“Hey, boy,” Liam laughed, patting Hicks’s head. “I see you have a new sidekick.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Dawn said. “I couldn’t leave him alone in the suite.”
“Not at all,” Liam said. “I’m glad he’s here looking out for you.”
Liam and Dawn walked to his office, where he opened the door and stepped back for her to enter before he followed her, closing the door behind him. Dawn took a seat in front of his desk, and Hicks flopped down beside the chair.
“How are you today?” Liam asked as he sat in front of her in his office chair.
“Full of ideas for a new script,” Dawn told him, grinning. “And dying to get stuck back into researching those journals and everything we found in the secret room.”
“Yeah, we need to get through those as quickly as we can,” Liam told her. “We’re going to have to hand them over to the police at some point.”
“And hope we don’t get into trouble for withholding evidence,” Dawn said, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“You’re enjoying breaking the law a little too much,” Liam teased. “But I have to agree that I’m also eager to get stuck into the research.”
“I can order the pizza and wine tonight if you’re not busy?” Dawn invited.
“Ah!” Liam said, sitting forward and leaning his elbows on his desk. “That was why I wanted to talk to you. Aunt Betty called and asked if we could take Lila and Harper ice skating.” He smiled as her eyebrows rose. “I thought that we could have an early dinner and ice skating evening. Then drop the girls at Aunt Betty, who has agreed to look after them until things are under control here, and come back to go over all we found.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Dawn agreed and glanced at Hicks. “I can ask my brother to look after Hicks.” She looked at Liam, and something flashed in her eyes. “The one thing a person can rely on Wade for is looking after animals. He tends to value them more than anything else.”
Liam’s brow furrowed at the catch in her voice. “I’m sure Hicks won’t mind staying at my house if you’d rather not have to ask Wade for help.”
“No.” Dawn shook her head. “I trust Wade with animals.” She gave a soft laugh. “And it will give me an excuse to check up on him.”
“Ah!” Liam nodded. “That’s settled then.”
“What time do you want to leave?” Dawn asked.
“I should be finished here at around five-thirty, so let’s say six?” Liam looked at her questioningly.
“Perfect,” Dawn agreed. “Oh, and I have some information about the staff for you.”
“Already?” Liam’s brows rose, impressed.
“Yup!” Dawn grinned. “I’ve been working with them this morning. Helping them move the guests; I even had lunch with some of the staff.”
“You’re already integrating yourself nicely,” Liam chimed, smiling.
“My father always said that pulling up your sleeves and showing your staff you are just as invested in getting things done as they are building a good rapport,” Dawn told him. “He believed that it was imperative that as a boss, you knew what it took to do each job in the company.”
“Your father sounded like a great man,” Liam said.
“He was.” Dawn nodded, and her eyes misted over before she took a breath. “Anyway, I learned that last night was one of the waiters’ birthdays and nearly everyone went to his party after work.”
“Which staff members weren’t there?” Liam asked. “Were you told?”
