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He sat in the chair in her bedroom as she got ready for work, and was sleeping by the time she got out of the shower. She let him rest while she quietly dressed and put on her makeup.
It was just before 7:00 a.m. when she woke him, so he could go home, and she could go to work.
He rose slowly from the chair, and followed her down the steps. She threw on her coat and gloves and grabbed her briefcase, and headed toward her SUV. Always the gentleman, he opened the driver’s side door for her, leaned into the vehicle, and brushed his lips softly across hers.
“With all that’s going on, maybe you should stay home today.”
She smiled inside, and couldn’t help but love how he wanted to look after her. “Joe, everything will be fine. I need to go to work.”
“Well, have a good day then, and call me if you need anything, or if anything strange or out of the ordinary happens.” A hint of worry flashed through his eyes. “I mean it. Don’t take this lightly.”
“Okay, I know, and I will call if need be,” she replied as she busied her mind to avoid thinking about all the bad stuff that had gone on in the last couple of months.
Her heart raced as she drove to work. She was nervous, and scared as all could be, and had fought to not let on in front of Joe. With all he had to deal with, she didn’t want him to worry about her any more than he already was. It worked while she was in front of him, but she nearly had a breakdown in her vehicle the second she turned off their street. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel until they ached, and she couldn’t help but check the rearview mirror for suspicious vehicles nearly as much as her eyes were on the road in front of her. Who was she kidding? She probably wouldn’t recognize a suspicious vehicle until it smacked her on the bumper.
She arrived at work at a few minutes to eight. The only office light on was Mr. Kent’s. She discarded her coat and briefcase in her workspace and headed down the hall toward his office. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk when she knocked on the partially open door.
“Come in. How’s Joe?”
“He’s quite banged up, but he’ll be okay,” she said as she shut the office door behind her. She took a seat on one of the chairs across from his desk.
“Did you have a chance to find out if Darcy, or anyone from the office, talked with Mr. James yesterday? We’re still trying to figure out how he knew I was out of the office, and if he or Patrick had anything to do with what happened to Joe.”
“I asked around, but it appears that no one talked with him, unless of course, someone is lying. If I had to guess, I would have to say that Darcy played a role in this somehow, but she didn’t let on yesterday. There’s something not right about that girl, she always seems so bitter and angry,” he replied. “Maybe we should just fire her and get her out of here.”
“No, I think we should keep her around for a while. At least until we get to the bottom of this.”
After finishing with Mr. Kent, she returned to her office, buzzed her assistant, and asked her to come into her room so they could go over the new file indexing system she wanted to put into place.
“Good morning, Darcy. How are you this morning?” Elizabeth asked as she worked to smile pleasantly.
“Fine, thank you. I’m surprised to see you in the office this morning.”
Elizabeth cocked her head to the side. “Why would you be surprised to see me at work on a Friday?”
The woman shifted her guilty gaze about the room before she returned it to her. “Well, I thought you had some sort of family emergency yesterday.”
“Why would you think that?” Elizabeth asked, pushing her assistant for more detail.
Darcy stammered. “Well, Mr. Kent said...he told me that.”
“Mr. Kent said what? What did he say? Maybe we should call him in here and ask him exactly what he said to you yesterday and air this all out,” Elizabeth interjected. Her patience was shot, and she knew darn well her boss had not divulged any information to Darcy, yet the woman seemed to be in the know.
Her assistant shifted her weight from one foot to the other, clasped her hands, and nervously rubbed her palms together.
Wanting to end this little game, Elizabeth reached over to pick up the telephone receiver, and began punching numbers on the keypad.
“Stop. Just stop. Don’t call Mr. Kent. He didn’t say anything. It was Gloria. She called and told me you had a family emergency.”
“Gloria from the New York office called and told you I had a family emergency? How on earth would she know that?”
“She called and said she overheard Mr. James talking to someone on the phone, and that’s all I know. I think she called here hoping I knew the details, but all I knew was what Mr. Kent said, that you wouldn’t be in the office.”
Darcy’s gaze pleaded for belief. Elizabeth believed her. There was nothing more to ask at this point.
“Let’s just get down to business and talk about the new indexing system.”
After an hour of discussing the new file index system, she dismissed her assistant, and phoned Joe to tell him about her conversation with the annoying woman, and the conversation between Darcy and Gloria.
