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“Great.” Joy exhaled as she sat down next to Lauren, the bench swaying wildly as it accommodated for the extra weight. “I called you. Harrison said the HOA approved his rental. We can move in there.”
“I got his text,” she said. Her tongue felt a little thick, and her brain a tiny bit fuzzy. Maybe she’d splashed in a little too much rum. Or maybe it was just so warm and gorgeous here on this patio. The swaying of the bench. Something.
“I’m relieved,” Joy said. “I actually looked at a long-term hotel this morning.” She shook her head and bent to take off her shoes. She worked as a classroom aide in an elementary school back in Texas, but she’d come to Hilton Head this summer too. She’d been here for almost a month now, and she’d gotten a job at the library. She got to wear her cute work clothes and she seemed to like the people and patrons on Hilton Head. So much so, that she volunteered at the library when she wasn’t scheduled to work.
“Can you imagine?” Lauren asked. They laughed together, and then Lauren looked at her phone again. “Oh, I missed a call from my boss.” She got to her feet, and she didn’t wobble too much. She also had no idea how she’d missed a call from Mark. Had she fallen asleep after looking at real estate?
Probably.
She walked to the edge of the patio and tapped to call Mark Apgood, the man who’d been her boss for about a decade now. She worked directly beneath him, and there wasn’t really anywhere else for her to go. Another company, perhaps, but she enjoyed the work she did now, as well as the people she worked with. Most of the time, anyway.
“Lauren,” he said crisply when he picked up.
“Mark,” she said back. No excuses. She missed calls sometimes, and it was after working hours. She didn’t have to call him back until tomorrow if she didn’t want to.
“Can you be on a plane to Texas tonight?”
“Wha—? I—” Lauren turned around and looked at Joy. She’d leaned back in the swinging bench and closed her eyes. “Why?”
“There’s some serious stuff going down, and I need you here.”
“How long?” Lauren asked, already moving back to the house. She could pack and be on the road to the airport in twenty minutes. Whether they had a flight or not, that was a different story. “Cass is getting married in six days, Mark.”
“Not that long.” Something banged on his end of the line. “I can guarantee you won’t miss her wedding.”
“I can’t,” Lauren said. “I won’t.”
“You won’t,” he assured her. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Your office?” True surprise wove through her as she strode through the living room toward the stairs. “Tonight? You’re not going home?”
“Not until this is settled,” he said. “See you soon.” The call ended, and Lauren dashed up the steps to the second floor. She had no idea what was going on—Mark had been very light on the details.
To her credit, she wore professional clothes to sit at the table in her bedroom, so she didn’t have to change. She threw a couple of extra outfits in a bag, sat at the computer, and looked for a ticket. She had toiletries and everything else at her place in Sweet Water Falls. Truth be told, she had clothes there too. Plenty of clothes.
A flight left Atlanta at ten-forty, and Lauren booked herself a ticket. Then she grabbed her purse, her bag, and her laptop and headed for the door.
Whatever was happening better get resolved quickly, because Lauren would not miss Cass’s wedding. Oh, no, she would not.
2
Lauren pulled up to the office building where she’d put in the last fifteen years of her life, catching sight of the top row of windows. Lights burned there, and though only one other vehicle sat in the lot—a big F-350 truck—it sure seemed like she’d find more people inside than just Mark.
Her anxiety had been quietly doubling since she’d boarded the plane, almost four hours ago now. It was almost one-thirty in the morning, Texas-time, but that didn’t seem to matter. She’d slept a little bit on the plane. How, she wasn’t sure.
She pulled into her reserved parking spot, as if that mattered right now, gathered her purse and keys, and headed inside. She normally wore heels to work, but such footwear wasn’t practical for airports or driving, and her loafers didn’t make quite the same clicking noises as her pumps usually did.
The elevator took her to the twelfth floor, and theding!of her arrival seemed to screech through the empty building. She stepped onto the floor she’d known so well, almost pushing through the doors because they opened so slowly.
She immediately froze. Nothing currently being digested by her eyes was right.
A long, chest-high counter usually greeted guests who came to the twelfth floor. No one could get into the offices behind them without checking in with either Sheila or Reginald. Lauren didn’t expect to see them here tonight, but to have the counter completely gone?
She blinked, wondering if she’d gotten off on the wrong floor.
Cubicles took up the left half of the floor, but the six-foot dividers had been pushed against the walls. Some of them, at least. Some lay in a heap, like a giant had picked them up, broken the hinges, and flung them back to earth.
“What is going on?” she wondered aloud.
