Leaving the suite behind, Cas made his way to the elevator that would take him back down to the parking garage, careful to make sure there were no other hotel guests around to see him. Already, he wished he could stay with Iris or that she could come with him to the palace, but he had to be patient for just a little while longer. He was finally going to be meeting with the best person to help them with their situation, so the next time he saw her, he would be helping her pack up the few belongings she had to move out of the resort. He promised himself he would make that happen.

Resolved in his decision, he headed back to his car and drove it back to the highway, turning the music up on the stereo now that he was in a better mood than he had been when he’d left that morning. He’d stayed a few minutes too long at the [i]Sunset Veil[/i], but none of the police on the roads would pull him over for speeding, so he knew he could make up the time he’d lost on the way home. Hopefully when he returned, he and the warden would come up with a solid plan to rewrite his late father’s decrees, and the worst would be behind them.

--

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you that.”

Jacob pursed his lips as the resort’s CEO repeated the same answer to him again. Each time he tried to gain information on the king’s activities at the [i]Sunset Veil[/i], he was met with a dead end. Perhaps if Caspian had still been a prince, the workers there would have been more willing to give him what he was looking for, but because the royal was now the highest ranking man in Aspiria, there was nothing he could do to override his orders to keep the records private. He didn’t know what the monarch was doing, how long he had been coming to this place, nor what times he typically stopped by to visit.

If it had been anyone else, Jacob would have assumed he was there to meet a call girl, but he knew Caspian too well to jump to that conclusion. Atlas’s son wasn’t irresponsible enough to risk ruining his family’s reputation for a short tryst with a prostitute. There had to be another reason why he had arranged to be at the resort that morning, and he wasn’t going to be leaving until he figured out what it was.

“Is there anything you [i]can[/i] tell me?” he asked, resting his chin on his fist as he held the CEO’s eyes across the office desk.

“No, sir,” the other man replied stoically. “I cannot confirm or deny anything other than that my orders come from someone above your station.”

[i]Which means they came from Caspian,[/i] the security guard exhaled. The king was the only person who could bar him from what he wanted. He also knew that he was wasting his time by trying to pry anything more out of the CEO. The man obviously wasn’t going to betray the monarch, so he was going to have to find another way to approach the situation. Standing up from the desk, he frowned, “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time then. I need a smoke anyway… Have a good afternoon, sir.”

“You as well,” the CEO seemed to relax slightly, as if relieved the questioning was over.

Jacob exited his office and strode out to the front patio, fishing his carton of cigarettes from his pocket. The nearby fountains washed the area with a cooling mist, and he enjoyed the light spray for a minute as he watched other guests walk in and out of the building. There had to be something else that would help him. Maybe the young king had stopped by because of something about the resort itself?

With no better leads to follow, he pulled out his cell phone and looked up the resort’s website. For another few minutes, he puffed on his cigarette while he looked through the amenities and the unique qualities that the [i]Sunset Veil[/i] boasted of—one of which was that they often hosted celebrities and other important patrons privately. Go figure. However, he paused when he came across a page that caught his eye. It was an advertisement for the hotel’s most luxurious room: the executive suite.

Caspian had always had a weakness for nice things, so if there was any room he would have booked at the resort, it had to be that one. Following his hunch, he put out the remains of his cigarette and stepped back into the lobby to approach the receptionist. The younger man noticed him and looked up from his computer, “How can I help you this time, sir?”

“I was wondering if I could book a room for the weekend,” Jacob lied, turning the screen of his phone toward him. “I just saw this ad while I was outside. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday on Friday, and I want to do something special. Is the executive suite available?”

“Let me check on that for you,” the receptionist turned back to his computer. After a moment, he frowned and looked up again, “I’m sorry, sir, but it looks like someone else is staying there right now.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jacob feigned a disappointed expression. “Any idea when it’ll be available again? Maybe I could book it the weekend after next.”

“I really am sorry, but the person staying there now doesn’t have a check out date assigned yet, so I can’t make any promises.”

“Well, it was worth a shot, I guess,” the security guard shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”

And that was all he needed to know. Now he felt certain Caspian had something to do with the mysteriously booked suite. All that was left was to find out why he was paying to have it reserved indefinitely. To do that, he exited the lobby once more and circled around to one of the side doors of the hotel, waiting until one of the guests walked up to swipe an access card to get inside. He tailgated a family into a corridor of rooms, located the closest elevator, and with his own expertise with technology, overrode the lift’s programming that prevented regular guests from accessing the top floor of the building.

Just in case the hotel’s security noticed him, he flashed his ID badge at the camera in the corner of the elevator to deter questions and rode it up to the last stop before the roof. From there, he followed the plaques on the walls until he found the executive suite.

For a moment, he toyed with the idea of picking the lock to get inside the room. Based on the current time, it was likely that Caspian was no longer there. But he did wonder: What if there was more than one person sharing the suite? Just in case the king really had been using the room to meet with another person, he decided to try knocking first, so he lifted a fist, rapped three times on the solid hickory panel, and took one step back to wait for an answer from the other side.