Dougie
It had to be done, and he knew it, but that didn’t make the process any easier. This would be the hardest conversation he’d ever had with a friend, but he’d thought about it, he’d prayed about it, he knew it was the right decision. For now, at least.
His feet felt like they were filled with lead as he walked toward Chance’s office. What would his friend say? Would he be angry? Understanding? Disappointed? That was probably the one he feared the most. He didn’t want to disappoint the man who had been a friend to him for the last several years.
Chance glanced up as Dougie knocked on the doorframe. He smiled and waved a hand to enter. “What’s up, my friend?”
Dougie shifted from one foot to the other. Should he sit? No, sitting felt too comfortable and this was not a comfortable conversation. “I wanted to give you this in person.” He placed the resignation letter he’d typed up the night before on Chance’s desk and then stepped back as Chance read over it.
Chance’s eyebrows lifted as he scanned the paper. “You’re quitting? Why? What can I do to make you stay? More money?”
Dougie shook his head. “It’s not about the money. You’ve been great, and I love it here, but I’ve been feeling an urge to do something different. I’ve been praying about it a lot, and I feel like God is calling me to go into law enforcement.”
Chance leaned back in his chair and fixed a discerning eye on Dougie. “You sure this has nothing to do with Holly?”
One again, Chance had cut right to the heart of the matter, and Dougie wished he had a better answer. “I’d be lying if I said it had nothing to do with her, but I promise it’s not the only reason.”
“But you’re basically law enforcement here,” Chance pressed.
“Yeah, but it’s not the same. I’m sitting a lot here, helping guests when issues come up, but I’m not really in the thick of things. Maybe it’s just that I’m missing the action I saw when I was active duty, you know?” Like Dougie, Chance had been forced to take a medical leave, but his injury had been physical.
“Do you really want to go back to all that action?” Chance hadn’t known Dougie when he got out, but they’d talked enough over the years that he knew the story. “You said it took a toll on your life.”
And his sanity, but that was in the past. Chance was doing what any good friend would do — looking out for him, but Dougie knew this was the right decision. At least, he was ninety percent sure it was the right decision. “I know, and I am eternally grateful that you kept me on when you took over and that we’ve become friends, but I’ve just felt the need to move on, to do something that affects the whole community and not just the resort.”
“But you’ve got the prayer walk that affects the community. Who will head that up when you leave?”
Dougie shrugged. “Israel, maybe, or someone else at the church. It’s not like it takes a rocket scientist to schedule a prayer walk and announce it.”
“No, but it sure helps to have someone with a security background to help.”
“Well, you and Israel both have military training as well, and who knows, maybe someone else in the church does too and they’ll be able to use that gift now.”
Chance sighed and looked down at the letter again. “There’s nothing I can say or do to make you stay?”
Dougie shook his head. “My mind’s made up.” Which was mostly true. There was still a niggling doubt that this was a mistake, that he was going to walk away from the best job he’d ever had, but the overwhelming feeling it was the right move overshadowed the doubt.
“Well, then I wish you the best.” Chance stood and extended his hand. “You’ve been such an important asset around here, and the place won’t be the same without you. I wish you all the best, but if for any reason it doesn’t work out, just know the door is always open here.”
Dougie’s throat constricted with emotion. “Thank you. I’ll make sure Colton is up to speed before I go, unless you plan to hire someone from outside.”
Chance stroked his chin. “You think he can handle the job?”
“I do.”
“Then I see no reason to search for someone outside. We’ll look at how we can fill from within and post for extra hours if necessary.”
Dougie nodded, unsure of what else to say. “All right, well, I should get back to work. You still got two weeks of me, so I better make sure I’m not slacking.” He meant the words to be a joke, but they fell flat as the reality that he only had two weeks left sunk in.
“You could never be a slacker,” Chance said. “Good luck with everything.”
With another uncomfortable nod, Dougie turned and headed back to his office. He felt like one weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but another, lighter one, instantly took his place. What if he couldn’t hack it as a cop? What if it brought back too many memories? He shook his head. Those were thoughts he wouldn’t entertain. They were destructive and from the enemy. He’d felt the urging; he knew it was real. Now he just needed to trust that God would provide everything he needed.
The day’s shift felt longer than normal, especially after the email from Chance came out that he was leaving. One by one, staff from all over the resort came in and wished him good luck or thanked him for his service. All of the words were kind, but each one felt like a knife of doubt being plunged into his side. He had never found himself looking forward to the end of shift before, but he certainly was today.
Sitting back, Dougie rubbed his eyes and stretched. Just fifteen more minutes and Colton would be here and then he could go home. As he stood up to stretch his back a little more, something caught his eye.
He leaned in to look closer at the screen, and his mouth fell open. It couldn’t be him; it just couldn’t because if it was, what was he going to tell Holly? She was marrying the man in a week. But he couldn’t let her marry this man. Not if he was cheating on her.
He followed the man and the woman with him as they went from the restaurant to the elevator. He’d never seen the woman before that he could place, but she certainly seemed to know Frederick. She hung on him like a bad coat, and he didn’t seem to mind. His arm was wrapped around her waist, and he grinned like a man who’d won the lottery. In Frederick’s mind, he probably thought he had if he had this woman, whoever she was, here and Holly outside the resort.
The couple got off on the eighth floor and Dougie watched until they entered a hotel room. There were no cameras in guest rooms so he couldn’t watch further even if he’d wanted to, and he most certainly did not. The only problem was… how could he tell Holly if he didn’t really know what was going on in there? From their body language, he had a good idea of what was happening behind the closed door, but he couldn’t prove it. It was only suspicion, and even if he watched until they left, which he planned to do, it still wouldn’t prove anything. The woman could be a relative or some old friend in town. Doubtful but possible.
“Hey, boss, how’s it going tonight?”
Dougie looked up as Colton hung his jacket on the hook just inside the door. Though in his mid-twenties now, the kid wasn’t sure security work was his entire future, but he was good at it. “It’s been quiet, so that’s good.”
The Patriot Peak resort was generally easy work. The patrons, for the most part, were older couples or young families coming to escape the rat race of the city for a few days. Usually, the only excitement was a kid separated from their parents for a few minutes or patrons looking for lost items thought to be stolen but then later found just misplaced. But occasionally there were the other crowds. There were the rowdy college kids who drank too much and then played music too loud in their rooms or, on a few occasions, destroyed the room, but the ones that got him the most were the angry groups looking to destroy anything small town and family oriented. They were the ones who tried to spray paint the outside walls at night or wandered through the lobby looking for people to target and they had been growing in number over the last few months.
“That’s good, but why do I feel like there’s a but coming?” Colton asked, plopping down in the chair next to Dougie.
“No but, I’m just trying to figure out if I should tell a friend something I saw even though I’m not entirely sure what it means.”
Colton scratched his head for a minute. “Are you thinking of not saying anything because you might be wrong about what you saw?”
The kid was good. “In a nutshell, yeah.”
“But if you’re right, your friend would want to know, correct?”
Dougie sighed. “Yeah.”
“Then I think you do the only thing you can. Present the evidence to your friend and let him or her decide what to do with it.
Dougie stroked his chin as he considered Colton’s words. Holly would be mad when he told her, especially if it turned out to be nothing, but maybe she would understand that he was just trying to look out for her. That was all this was, right? Him looking out for his friend? It didn’t have anything to do with his feelings for her, feelings that hadn’t gone away even after a year and a half. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t tell her and it turned out to be what he thought, he would feel worse. “You’re right. Do me a favor. Watch room 812 and tell me what time they exit, would you?”
“You got it, boss. Good luck.”
Good luck. He would certainly need it. He practiced the words he would say all the way to Holly’s restaurant, but none of them sounded right. He would just have to hope they came out more eloquently for her than they had in the car ride over.
His nerves kicked into high gear as he parked in her lot and headed into the restaurant. A tiny bead of sweat trickled down his back, and he wiped the clammy feeling from his hands on his pants. Holly was working the front and smiled when she saw him enter.