Page 34 of The Mood Board

“Jim already called,” he growled before I could knock on his door to announce my presence. I had called Liam’s dad immediately after the hearing but had wanted to wait to tell Tom in person. His father hadn’t had the same idea, obviously.

Not that it mattered—the outcome would have been the same.

I slumped into the chair opposite the desk from him, feeling more exhausted than ever. “I can’t believe this.”

But I jumped as Tom brought his fists down onto his desk. He made a strangled noise in his throat like he wanted to yell, shout, scream, or something. But the sound was all he would allow himself before he buried his head in his hands.

I didn’t know what to do. Tom and I had become friends over the time Liam and I had been together, but this was an entirely new situation. Would Tom welcome comfort? Did he want to be left alone? I didn’t even know what to say.

“He’ll be okay.”

The soft words came from my left, and I looked to see Bianca balancing three mugs between two hands.

“This is hard,” I sighed.

“It sucks,” Bianca agreed, then pushed one of the mugs at me. “I saw you come in and thought you might need this.”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing into the dark depths and wishing for a moment it was something with alcohol. Or maybe something to help me forget this was happening for a while.

“Here. Double shot.” Bianca had moved to Tom’s desk and placed one of the other mugs beside his elbow. He raised his head from his hands and glanced at it before his gaze slid to Bianca and hovered there for a moment before he tore it away.

“Thanks.”

His reply was gruff, but Bianca didn’t seem to notice. She put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, her smile one of understanding.

“They didn’t take your computer?” I asked, nodding at it before sipping at the hot liquid. The warmth helped ease some of the tightness in my chest.

Tom’s face settled back into a scowl. “Oh, they took everything—all of it. I had to borrow old ones from the company next door. We had to get work done somehow, even if they’re slower than molasses.”

“We’ve also started our digging,” Bianca said, sitting in a chair beside Tom’s, in front of which a laptop sat. She leaned back and took a sip of her own drink.

“Anything so far?” I asked, a tiny bit of hope blossoming.

“No,” Bianca sighed as she shook her head. “But we only just started. I know we have to find something.”

From the growing scowl on Tom’s face, he wasn’t so sure.

“Here.” Bianca turned the laptop around and pushed it at me. “Why don’t you use this one for now? I’ll work with Tom.”

“Thanks.” I put down the mug and pulled the computer toward me. The sound of Tom’s typing resumed, and my hands hovered above the keyboard.

But where did I start?

It took me a long few minutes to figure it out and then another to gather the courage to do what I was thinking.

I typed Janelle’s name into the search bar. Surprisingly, the search turned up very little. I had imagined, with her storied career, to find articles, at least, if not profiles and announcements. It was odd, and a prickle tickled the back of my neck.

Instead of searching by name, I followed my gut and did a reverse image search. More articles flooded the screen—but it wasn’t for a Janelle Moynihan. Instead, it was under a different name: Mallory Parker.

“What the hell?” I muttered, clicking on one image to make it larger, thinking maybe Janelle had a twin.

But that was no twin—the woman in the picture might have had blond hair, but she had the same smile, same eyes, and even the same beauty mark on her cheek.

What the hell was going on?

My fingers flew over the keyboard as I typed the name, and more articles and announcements popped up. Including one of the latest that named her as the CIO of another company—one that I know had been a rival of Liam’s.

“What the fuck?” I murmured, fingers pressing into my lips as I tried to comprehend what I was seeing.