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She saw no computers. No desk chairs. No papers. No filing cabinets. The right side of the floor held a column of meeting rooms encased in glass. Four conference rooms, usually, that had to be booked through Sheila and Reginald, who of course, couldn’t do that anymore. Angry marks on the industrial carpet where their workstation had been glared back at Lauren.

Her throat finally remembered how to swallow, and she did that while her pulse raced through her veins. She gripped her purse tighter, not sure if she should proceed toward Mark’s office or leave immediately.

“Lauren.” Mark’s voice echoed strangely in this now-open space, and she jerked her attention toward him. He wore what she usually saw him in: a white shirt, a tie knotted tightly at the throat, and a pair of black slacks. He didn’t look like he’d been working for almost twenty-four hours, or that he was responsible for the complete chaos on the twelfth floor.

“Mark.” Lauren moved toward him, somehow wanting to run into his arms and be reassured that she was simply dreaming. She even jogged a couple of steps, and he did catch her against his chest. “This is awful. What’s going on?”

She’d had a normal day of work. Meetings with two clients. Her team, both in the morning and the afternoon. She’d gone over marketing specs that had come in from the accounts team, and she’d approved the initial mocks to be shown to a client, for which a meeting was set for next week.

She’d had half of a drink, a chat with her friend, and everything had been so perfectly…normal.

Nothing here was normal. At least not for her memory.

“Are you guys closing this office?” That made no sense, as this was the corporate headquarters. She stepped back and looked up at Mark. He suddenly did wear age and exhaustion on his face.

“We’re in trouble,” he said. He gestured for her to follow him to his office, which she did. His sat in the back corner, the one with two walls of windows. Hers still stood next to his, but as she walked by the great glass walls, where the blinds had been raised, she could see that they now sat empty, like big fish bowls waiting to be filled with water.

She shivered, the thought of sharks entering her thoughts.

Her office door sat closed, and Lauren had the greatest itch to go inside. She hadn’t brought her laptop in from the car either, and she clutched her purse even tighter as if someone might jump out from the wall and take it from her.

The art had been cleared out. The potted plants. Everything. Absolutely everything.

Her stupor deepened as she entered Mark’s office. It looked like he’d tossed a bomb inside, then waited in the hall with the door closed until it had gone off. All of the papers, files, and furniture she’d expected to see out on the main floor did live in here. In heaps. In tatters. At odd angles.

Somehow, he sat in a chair that was positioned slightly behind his desk. Lauren only took three steps into the office before she stalled. “Mark,” she said, and it sounded like a child’s voice. She shook her head. She needed to get a grip on her composure and figure out what was going on.

For it sure didn’t look like she had a job anymore. Or, if she did, it had morphed and changed in a single second the moment she’d stepped off the elevator.

“Mark,” she barked. The man looked at her now, his dark eyes surrounded by pinched lines and…sadness.

“I messed up,” he said feebly.

Lauren’s normally dormant maternal side reared up. She wanted to tell him it couldn’t be that bad. That she’d help him iron everything out and they’d find a solution to whatever he’d done. He’d always been a highly capable and approachable boss. This couldn’t be all that bad.

She indicated the floor beyond his open door without looking in that direction. “Yeah, it looks like it,” she said. This was why she hadn’t been able to find a nice man to settle down with. She told herself Mark wasn’t her boyfriend, or even a friend, really. He was her boss, and if he’d messed up, she’d probably have a price to pay.

“Start at the beginning,” she said.

“Yes,” another, deeper voice said.

Lauren cried out and jumped to her right—away from the sound of the voice. Two men entered the office, and they looked perfectly refreshed, with their hair combed to the side just-so, and black suit coats buttoned neatly. Honestly, if it wasn’t two o’clock in the morning and she’d walked onto a normal twelfth floor, she’d think they’d shown up for a cocktail party.

“Lauren Thelma Keller,” one said, and he wasn’t asking. “You’re under arrest for the embezzlement of corporate funds.”

“What?” she demanded. “No, I’m not.” She looked over to Mark, who hadn’t moved. In fact, the man wept. Hewept, the tears making slow tracks down his face while he didn’t make any sound at all.

“I’m afraid we have to take you in.”

Mark finally got to his feet. “I told you she had nothing to do with it.” He took a few steps and positioned himself between Lauren and the federal agents. Lauren suspected that was who they were, at least.

“You just want me.”

The two men appraised him. Looked at her. Then one another. “We went through her computer?” one asked.

“Yes, sir,” the other said.

“Her office?”

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