Chapter 3 - The Price of a Rescue
“Where is the second page?” I asked.
Daniel looked at Margaret before answering. She sat on the edge of the sofa, my jacket still around her shoulders. She had told him she was done speaking for the night. I would not make her sit through another argument.
“Vanessa has the complete proposal,” he said. “I saw the source list when her family put it together. Your copy stops after my name.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you saw my copy?”
“I thought you’d found enough.”
Margaret turned toward him.
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“No,” Daniel said. “It wasn’t.”
I kept my hand on the envelope. Three weeks earlier, Simone Harris had warned me about figures in the bid. Since then I had imagined explanations for how they got there. Daniel had removed most of the uncertainty himself. I still did not know precisely what he had sent.
“Did you give them employee records?” I asked.
“I sent labor totals. Occupancy figures. Forecasts I’d worked on with you.” He swallowed. “Not a list of people’s names.”
“That answer will have to be checked.”
“I know.”
He leaned forward, as if he could still persuade us by making us understand his fear.
“The building needs work, Dad. Their offer brings in money for that. I thought if you saw a way through, you’d forgive how I brought it to you.”
Margaret’s hands tightened around the edges of my jacket.
“You’ve talked about the hotel since you came in,” she said. “I understand why you were afraid for it. I don’t understand why, when I asked you for help downstairs, you stood there.”
Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it.
Margaret waited. He had no answer to give her.
“I’m tired,” she said. “Please go now.”
He stood. At the door, he looked back at her, but she was looking at the floor. I let him out and returned to the sofa.
For a while Margaret said nothing. Music from the reception reached us faintly through the windows. Someone downstairs was still celebrating a wedding.
“Do you want to go home?” I asked.
“Soon. First, tell me something honestly. Is the hotel in trouble?”
“We need to pay for improvements. I don’t know yet whether this offer is a good way to do it.”
“That’s different from saying we don’t need help.”
“Yes.”
She nodded. We had spent years building a place where people expected us to tell them the truth, even when it cost us. I had nearly given her a comforting answer that I could not support.
“In the morning,” she said, “find out what this offer would mean for the people who work there.”
“I will.”
“And call the photographer.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
She stood, and I offered my arm. She took it for the walk across the room. At the bedroom door, she handed back my jacket.
“You can be angry with Daniel,” she said. “I am. But don’t make a decision about the hotel just to punish him.”
I hung the jacket over a chair after she went in. The envelope lay on the table, its flap bent from being opened so many times. Whatever I decided, I wanted to be able to tell her I had read every page.
The next morning, I called the wedding photographer before I went to the hotel offices. I conveyed Margaret’s request that no photographs of her be delivered or shared. The photographer said the files had not yet been distributed and agreed to hold them while we discussed how to handle any images in which she appeared. Neither of us could do anything about guests’ phones.
I also spoke with Elena, the general manager. She had already reminded the staff not to share images or accounts of what had happened at the reception. I thanked her, then asked her to meet me later.
Simone was waiting in the office with a legal pad and a coffee she had barely touched. Vanessa had agreed to send her a complete copy of the signed proposal and source list. It was on the screen between us.
“Is it the same offer?” I asked.
“The terms match the copy you have. The attachment is longer.” Simone turned the screen toward me. “We still need to check where its underlying information came from.”
On the missing page, Daniel was named again beside operating forecasts and labor-cost assumptions. Some entries were labeled as figures supplied through him; others were described as the Whitmore firm’s own estimates. The page did not tell us which files he had sent or who else had handled them.
Simone pointed to a column.
“His statement about labor totals may be accurate. This doesn’t establish that he sent individual employee records. We need the actual correspondence.”
I read the page twice. Then I asked her to bring up the offer itself.
The proposed price was substantial. The Whitmore firm also described how it would fund improvements after a purchase. There was money in the plan; I could see why Daniel had wanted us to consider it. But closing depended on financing, approvals, and other conditions. No check was waiting for us. Nothing had been sold.
I turned to the section headed *Operating Efficiencies*.
The firm proposed combining departments, reducing desk coverage overnight, and changing how housekeeping shifts were assigned. It estimated that twenty-four positions could be eliminated over eighteen months. Some losses might occur through vacancies. The proposal did not promise that they would.
“Daniel said they’d keep everyone,” I told Simone.
“He may believe they could. The offer doesn’t say that.”
A paragraph farther down protected certain management positions for ninety days after closing. After that, staffing decisions would belong to the buyer.
I thought of the night clerk who had once stayed past his shift to help a stranded guest reach her daughter. I thought of the housekeepers who could tell which regular guests needed an extra blanket without checking a screen. None of them knew they had become a line in a purchase proposal.
“Did we give them access to our staff schedules?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Simone said. “I’ve asked IT to preserve the access logs and the work Daniel had permission to see. Let’s establish that before we tell anyone what was taken.”
I sat back. She was right. The plan for eliminating jobs was there in black and white. The path by which the firm had built its estimates still needed proof.
Simone tapped another paragraph.
“They’re offering to assume certain improvement costs after closing. That may be meaningful. But Daniel also told you the sale would take every financial worry off your hands. This proposal doesn’t guarantee that, either.”
“Can we afford to reject it?”
“That’s a question for the lender and the minority investors, as well as the two of you. I won’t pretend the offer has no value because we dislike how it arrived.”
A knock sounded. Vanessa stood outside with a folder pressed to her chest. She had asked to come in person after sending the files. Simone looked at me before letting her in.
Vanessa took the chair across from us. She seemed startled to see the staffing page displayed.
“You’ve read it,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I signed the proposal. I worked on the price and the improvement plan. I didn’t gather every number in it.”
“Did you read the staffing plan before you signed?”
“I did.”
I waited. She looked down at the folder.
“We modeled reductions. We’d expect vacancies to cover some of them.”
“And the others?”
“I can’t tell you that no one would lose a job.”
I had more respect for that answer than for a promise she could not keep. It did not make the answer easier to hear.
“Daniel told us the sale would save everyone,” I said.
“He told me you’d listen once you understood the financial terms. He didn’t say you and Margaret controlled the hotel.” She met my eyes. “I should have checked who the owners were. I knew he had worked with you here. I didn’t know this was your company.”
Simone asked Vanessa to explain which figures her firm had received from Daniel. Vanessa named forecasts and totals she remembered seeing, then admitted she could not account for every entry on the source list without going through the correspondence. She agreed to preserve it and give Simone the relevant records.
That mattered. So did the fact that her name was at the bottom of the proposal.
She glanced at the folded jacket on the chair beside me. I had brought it from the suite without thinking.
“Richard,” she said, “about last night—”
“Margaret hasn’t asked to hear from you.”
Vanessa stopped.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to arrange it,” she said. “I know what I did wasn’t a joke.”
I could hear the microphone again. Margaret saying Daniel’s name. The laughter before the room went quiet. Vanessa’s acknowledgment did not spare Margaret any of it, and I had no answer to offer on her behalf.
“Then leave her out of this meeting,” I said. “Questions about the bid can go through Simone.”
Vanessa nodded. She stayed long enough to answer two more questions about the offer’s conditions, then left the folder with Simone.
After the door closed, I returned to the staffing page. The number twenty-four was still there. So was the proposed funding for repairs. I could not erase one by pointing to the other.
Elena arrived just before noon. She carried the occupancy report I had requested, but beneath it was a letter with the lender’s name at the top.
“This came for Bennett House Holdings,” she said. “I thought you should see it before our meeting.”
May you like
I took the letter. Halfway down the first page, beside a request for our response, the lender had printed a deadline.
It was nine business days away.
