They had arranged to have dinner there together. Isaac’s food was far better than most restaurants around town, and cheaper. Besides, they got two free meals a day and employee discounts on everything else.
She clocked out and shut everything down, then she headed to see Damion, only to come up short when she saw an image of the camp on the large flat-screen television that hung in the lobby.
Walking over, she turned on the sound and watched the news report. After listening for a few seconds, she rushed over, grabbed her walkie-talkie, and called Elle, Hannah, Scarlett, and Aubrey into the lobby area.
“What?” Elle asked when they were all there.
“That.” She motioned to the television. She’d recorded the report and had it paused. Now, she hit the play button and they all stood around and listened to Joe and Lisa Tribberton trash the place.
They watched it a couple more times, and she noticed Damion walk in and watch it. Then there were more than a dozen employees all watching it.
“What does this mean?” someone asked.
“It means nothing,” Hannah said firmly.
“Right.” Elle nodded.
“So one rich couple with influence had a terrible experience. We all had to deal with them ourselves. I bet there isn’t a resort or hotel they have been to that doesn’t know just what kind of guests they are,” Scarlett said. “Carter, you had to stop Mrs. Tribberton from whipping poor Charlie to death.”
“No one whips my horses,” Carter said in a low tone.
“And Andrea, you stopped Joe’s massage halfway through when he exposed himself to you several times,” Scarlett added.
“If I had wanted to see something so small and shriveled up, I would have put a sausage in the dryer for a few hours,” Andrea said, earning enough laughs that the entire atmosphere in the room changed.
“We’ve been in business more than five years now and we’re successful at it. One little news report about some spoiled rich asshat isn’t going to change that,” Scarlett said firmly.
But then the phone rang across the room, and everyone stopped to look at it. Then they turned to her.
She walked over and answered the call, even though she knew that the answering service would get it.
“River Camps, how may I help you?” she answered on the third ring.
“Yes, I’d like to cancel our reservations for the fifteenth of next month,” a woman replied.
Before she could get the woman’s information, the other line rang, and Jules’s heart sank.
Half an hour later, after taking more than a dozen calls for cancellations, she switched the phones to night mode and shut her computer down.
“Shit,” she said to the smaller group that had stuck around.
“We need an employee meeting first thing in the morning,” Elle said. “We have to nip this in the bud.”
“What we need to do is an interview of our own,” Aubrey said.
“No, not yet. Not until we can all be there, and Zoey isn’t up for it. Not yet,” Scarlett added.
“Right,” the friends said together.
“Does she know about this yet?” Jules asked them.
“No. Hopefully she won’t until we can tell her. Dylan’s assured us she’s resting,” Scarlett answered. “Go on home. We’ll meet in the morning,” she told Jules.
Jules looked over at Damion, who nodded. “We’ll be in there having dinner if you need us,” he said to the group. He took her hand, and she grabbed her bag and followed him into the other room to have dinner. But she was no longer hungry.
She hated that someone so mean could ruin more than a hundred people’s lives because they were spoiled.
“Hey, shut it down for now. We’ll figure something out. Not everyone listens to the news or cares what two people think,” Damion said once they had their food.