“No, there should be thirty-two,” I insisted. “Those are my lifeline to ensure I don’t have to spend my days in constant agony, I know how many I had when I came in and how many I should have right now.”
“It’s not hard that you might have lost track,” Reggie suggested, but stopped when Mr. Shepherd cleared his throat. “Look, perhaps what you’re telling me is accurate. That doesn’t erase what you did wrong, Rowan, but there is another problem. We have someone else here who was found to have a stash ofthese exact pills. Now you’re telling me that you’re missing some from the count you swear is accurate?—”
“It is,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “I might have snuck those in and lied about them, but one thing I amnotis sloppy. I know precisely how many I came in with and how many I have used. If the number is wrong, either you missed some of the pills when they spilled out earlier, or someone helped themselves while I was gone.”
Reggie and Mr. Shepherd exchanged a look before Reggie grabbed his phone, tapped it for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s funny you should bring that up, because that was something I considered, and I set the system to scan the log in your room to check for anyone who might have entered while you were out. It says that the only people who have come in and out of your room are you and Luka. So either you’re not being honest, you’re keeping something else back, or Luka isn’t being honest with us.”
“Bite me, Reggie,” Luka said with a scowl. “I’ve never been anything but on the up and up with you. Don’t start casually throwing around the accusation that I’m lying.
“The system that couldn’t keep my room in private mode?” I asked wryly.
Reggie blinked, not sure which of us he wanted to address. “Well, I can see where you might have an issue with the system, but that was a bug. Up until this point, none of the logs have shown any inaccuracies or issues to make me consider there might be a problem with them.”
Mr. Shepherd leaned back in his seat. “Is it possible that either of you misplaced your access passes at any point?”
Luka frowned. “I’ve never let my pass out of my sight. There’s too many places people could get into with it, and I wouldn’t take the chance that something could happen, so no, I can’t think of a time when I didn’t have my pass with me and secured.”
They all looked at me, and I felt my face warm. Of course, it made sense that I was the one most likely to lose my pass; I was, after all, the one who had been hiding pills. I could have been high and misplaced it. What made it worse was that I had to admit, “There have been a couple of times my pass was left, and I had to come back and retrieve it, or someone brought it to me later. I never thought anything of it because no one should have any need to go into my room, nor should they have known that there was anything of interest in there; those pills were hidden, and it was only by accident that Luka discovered them.”
The unhappy look Reggie and Mr. Shepherd shared told me everything I needed to know about how this conversation was going to end unless something changed. “We’re not saying that isn’t possible?—”
“But you are saying you don’t believe him,” Luka said sourly. “Or me, for that matter.”
“Well, we’re going to have to do a bit of digging, that much is true. I wasn’t expecting something clear-cut, nothing ever is,” Mr. Shepherd began, folding his hands in front of him. “However, that said, rules were broken, and now we need to do an investigation to see just how many. For the moment, we will have to place Rowan in lockdown, and you on leave. We know where the problem started, obviously, but until we have a better understanding of what transpired from the moment Rowan arrived, we?—”
“Enough,” I said, closing my eyes, knowing there was only one more card to play and dreading what was about to come from it. “There is no point in punishing Luka for what I have done, and I assume, someone else as well. I don’t know how whoever it was who has my pills knew I had them, but they clearly figured it out.”
“You’ve been pretty obvious about being in pain,” Luka said with a sullen shrug. “And you’ve never gone to the medical wingto get checked out. Someone might have seen that and guessed you had something. All it would have taken was getting their hands on your pass. That would have been enough if they knew we were busy.”
“True, but I’m not going to end up in isolation because of someone else’s thievery, and I’m not going to have you punished because I chose to do something without your knowledge and someone took advantage of that,” I said, seeing the way he frowned in confusion, but right now, there was no other choice. “I haven’t been completely honest...with any of you.”
Reggie set his phone down with a frown. “I assume this isn’t about the pills.”
“No,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll need to confirm my story when I’m done, but the truth is, I’m not who I claim to be.”
Mr. Shepherd frowned. “Excuse me?”
I sighed, sitting forward and ignoring the twinge in my back. I knew the pain might make a comeback, but right now it was purely mental because I knew my supply of relief was sitting on the man’s desk rather than at hand. “My name is not Rowan Thompson, but Rowan Moore. And I am here under false pretenses.”
Mr. Shepherd looked at Reggie. “Is that name significant?”
“I’ve known a few Moores; it’s not a rare name,” Reggie said with a frown. “But...I know that name for another reason.”
I gave him a mirthless smile. “Then you are probably thinking of the family that doesn’t get brought up often but is still mentioned, always there, and never at the forefront.”
Reggie’s expression soured. “Right. So what does that mean?”
“It means I am here at the request of my family, and because there was a request for someone to be here, my family chose me.”
“And who, by chance, made that request?” Mr. Shepherd asked, and I thought it was shrewd. He didn’t care who I was or where I came from; he cared who had sent me.
“The Monstandt Corporation,” I told him, and watched understanding flash over his face, with a grimace. Reggie scoffed.
“Uh,” Luka looked around nervously, “is that important?”
“It’s important because in the list of people and organizations who make the biggest donations to the Arete Resort, the Monstandt Corporation happens to be at the top,” Reggie explained dryly.
“An agreement I brokered personally,” Mr. Shepherd said grimly. “So, you are here to...evaluate us?”
