“Here comes Puma now,” Rika said, and moved to lock the door behind the Head of Ops once he entered.
Right, Puma. Simon had asked him to come by with all the footage from the other Faire entrances. Get your head in the game, Simon thought to himself, and he turned to greet the tall, handsome man as he came in.
To Simon’s surprise, Puma was trailed by a short, strawberry-blond girl with a round, freckled face. It must be the person Puma promoted to take Trish’s place. She was very young, and the sullen look on her face was not promising. She was not at all what he expected, but Simon trusted that Puma knew what he was doing.
Behind her, the lock clicked as Rika turned it. She then flipped the sign around on the door so they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Oh Shit.Jordy realized who they were looking for. Simon had described Cadmus. And worse, Simon was looking for Cadmus in the footage of people coming in through the staff entrances. Like the one she used to let him in that day. Which was longer than 24 hours ago.
Hope flared up.
“Security footage is overwritten in 24 hour loops,” she said. The Faire owner looked at her, and pushed his glasses up. But before he could speak, Puma answered quietly.
“We’ve recently changed it to 72 hours, and Simon had phoned in a request to set it aside last night, which I handled personally.”
Jordy stifled the wave of annoyance that welled up. She said stiffly, “I was not informed.”
She caught the HR Director’s slight smile before it disappeared.Bitch.She was probably enjoying Jordy’s humiliation. Rika was mentally added to the growing list of people who had crossed Jordy. But taking care of her would have to wait. She needed to make sure they didn’t find out about her letting Cadmus into the Faire. Jordy had no idea why they were looking for him, but it wasn’t going to be a good look for her that she knew him. She had to get rid of that part of the footage, like, yesterday.
Plus, as unassuming as he looked, especially standing next to Puma, this was the frikkin’ owner. If there was anyone who was above Puma in the pecking order, it was this dude right here: Simon. It was a golden opportunity for Jordy to start planting the seeds to move on up, as she would eventually. She’d be a fool not to take advantage.
And Jordy wasn’t a fool.
“That’s a lot of footage, so I’m happy to help go through it.” As expected, a look of relief swept through Simon’s face. Puma looked as pleased as Puma was ever capable of, as he did whenever a member of the Ops team did him proud. She knew he would eat up her display of a can-do attitude in front of Simon.
“This is high priority, Jordy,” Puma said. “So take whatever resources you need. I’ll get Gabe to cover stuff for you.”
“And if you spot anything else that looks off-kilter, point that out, too.” Simon’s voice was eager, grateful.
“I’ll go over what Simon means by that with you.” Puma said to Jordy, and she nodded.
“I can’t thank you enough for this.” The Faire owner was sure to remember her now.
“Naw, I want to do this.” Jordy said. “For you.” She even gave what she hoped was a disarming smile. It seemed to work. Simon was flustered, a flush filling his cheeks.
Through sheer willpower, she kept the smile from turning into a smirk. She was anxious to get started. Plus, she couldn’t wait to let everyone know she was on a high priority project for the owner himself.
