The older woman had worked at the Windward since the dawn of time, was in a perennial bad mood, and had her own thoughts on how the hotel should be run. Her gray hair was in a ruthless bob around her wrinkled face.

“Morning, Coral.”

She sniffed, then turned back to the computers.

“Here you go.” Archie handed me one of the staff radios.

“Thanks.” I clipped it to my belt, then cocked my head. “What’s wrong with your tie?” It was askew.

He looked down. “Oh, no. The stitching is coming undone. I’ll have to fix it.” He tried to tuck the fraying edge of the tie out of view.

I strode over. “Don’t worry.” I unzipped the tiny leather pouch on my belt. It always rested on my hip—my emergency kit. I pulled out a safety pin and handed it to him. “Use this. That will do the trick for today.”

The young man smiled. “Thanks, Tessa.”

As Archie fixed his tie, I sipped my coffee and took in the stylish banners advertising the Mountain Masquerade. They showed a leaf-covered mask on rich navy blue, with the Windward Resort logo beside it.

Turning, I spotted another banner that had been set up by the reception desk. The Windward Mountain Resort is proud to be joining the Langston Hotels family. The fancy gold Langston Hotels logo sat proudly under the words.

“No, we’re not,” I muttered under my breath.

Then I spotted Everett, our head of maintenance, by the elevators, a toolbox at his feet. He had a panel in the wall open, and was wearing his usual uniform—jeans and a blue flannel shirt.

I hustled over. “Everett, please don’t tell me the elevator is out of order again. The masquerade is tomorrow.”

He turned and smiled. It was a slow, sexy smile that had driven the girls at our high school crazy. He’d been one year ahead of me. I’d had a crush on him back then, which had thankfully mellowed into solid friendship. Still, I had a pulse, and could appreciate the way he filled out his jeans. Despite the laid-back appearance, he had an engineering degree, and was totally overqualified. Still, he ran maintenance here in a way that made things less of a headache for me.

“No, I’m just tinkering, Tessa. Don’t stress.”

“Me, stress?”

His grin widened. “Stress is your middle name.”

“I’m organized, Everett, there’s a difference.”

He snorted.

I tapped my pass card to the reader on the door and headed down the corridor to the staff offices. The floor gleamed, the wood recently polished.

Two women came around the corner. One was petite, toned, and blonde, and the other tall and slim, with short, black hair. Well, mostly black hair. It had a few purple highlights in it.

The blonde was gesticulating madly with her hands and the brunette was yawning.

“Hey, you two.”