“Shut up, Trent!” Darren hissed, his eyes wide with terror. He turned back to Evelyn. “It was a glitch in the software, Mrs. Mercer. Just a terrible IT error. I will refund you immediately.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You know my name now. Good.”
She walked slowly past Darren, ignoring his trembling hands, and stepped directly behind the reception counter.
“Hey, you can’t go back here!” Trent yelled, stepping forward to block her.
Evelyn didn’t even look at him. She just looked at Maya, the young clerk who had tried to help her earlier. Maya was staring at Evelyn in shock, realizing that the dynamic in the room had just violently shifted.
“Maya, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked kindly.
“Y-yes, ma’am,” Maya stuttered.
“Maya, log out of your terminal, please.”
Maya immediately did as she was told, stepping aside.
Evelyn sat down at the computer. Her hands, which Darren had assumed were frail and weak, flew across the keyboard with the speed and precision of an engineer. A black command window popped up on the screen. She typed in an override code that only two people in the world knew.
Darren rushed behind the desk, his panic evolving into pure, unadulterated terror.
“Mrs. Mercer, please, you don’t need to do this,” Darren begged, sweat dripping down his neck. “I can run the report for you! Please, step away from the terminal!”
Evelyn hit the Enter key.
The screen flooded with a massive, hidden ledger. It wasn’t the standard hotel booking system. It was a secondary spreadsheet, buried deep in the local server.
Evelyn traced her finger down the screen. “Fourteen hundred dollars charged to my card... but only two hundred logged into the hotel’s official corporate revenue stream.”
She looked up slowly, staring right through Darren’s soul.
The silence behind the reception desk was deafening. The only sound was the howling of the winter wind rattling the thick glass doors of the lobby.
Trent leaned over, finally looking at the screen. When he saw the hidden ledger, all the blood drained from his smug face. His jaw dropped.
“Darren...” Trent whispered, his voice trembling. “How did she bypass the admin password?”
Evelyn didn’t look at Trent. Her eyes remained locked on Darren, who was currently hyperventilating.
“For the past six months, this property has been underperforming by thirty percent,” Evelyn said, her voice clinical and precise, devoid of all emotion. “Yet, you’ve been reporting hundred-percent occupancy. I wanted to see it for myself. So I drove down here, looking like an easy target. An old woman, traveling alone, desperate for a bed in a snowstorm.”
She tapped the screen, highlighting dozens of transactions.
“You’ve been overcharging elderly guests, single travelers, and foreign tourists who don’t know better. You route the base rate to corporate, and you and Trent split the massive upcharges into a dummy account.”
Maya gasped, covering her mouth in shock as she looked at her bosses. “Is that why you told me to always use the offline card reader for cash-paying seniors?” she asked, her voice cracking with betrayal.
“Shut up, Maya!” Darren roared, completely losing his composure. His groveling was gone. Cornered and desperate, the vicious animal inside him lashed out.
He slammed his hand down onto the desk, leaning aggressively over Evelyn.
“Listen to me, you old fossil,” Darren hissed, his eyes wide and unhinged. “You might own the building, but you have no proof I authorized those transactions! Trent handles the night audits. I’ll pin this all on him. And as for you, you’re trespassing behind a restricted employee desk.”
Trent choked on his own breath. “What?! Darren, you son of a—you forced me to do this!”
Darren ignored him, pulling his cell phone from his tailored pocket. He dialed 911.