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“This won’t take long, Isabelle,” Phil says to her, and the three of us take a seat at her table.
Her phone is ringing. She has it in her hand and takes a look at the screen, then mutes it. My blood boils, because it's Dickhead Douche again, and I can’t believe he is still calling her.
“I just need to go over a few things that the crew in D.C. emailed through overnight,” Phil starts.
It is on the tip of my tongue to ask again what happened, but I feel Isabelle’s soft hand over the top of mine under the table, and I grab it. Squeezing it to give her some support.
She looks at me. “My office in D.C. was broken into last night,” she says, and I realize that she is the calm one. Me on the other hand, have been acting like a damn fool for the past ten minutes, which is not like me at all. What the hell is this woman doing to me?
“I don’t really know what to tell you, Sheriff. I was here all night and didn’t know about it until my Operations Manager, Kelly, called me at around 2am.” Looking at her, I now understand all the freshly baked goods at my door. She obviously got the call and then stayed up baking because of the stress.
“I looked at the security footage and have no idea who it was or what they may have been looking for. I don’t have any enemies and no disgruntled ex-employees. I haven’t even been into my office in a while because I worked from home, looking after my dad these past few months.”
“I'm sorry for your loss. I knew your father, he was a great man,” Phil says to her.
“Thank you,” Isabelle says quietly.
“The D.C. crew have everything they need; I was just asked to stop in and check on you. But here is my card, don’t hesitate to call me here locally if you think of anything that might help.”
Isabelle nods as she takes Phil’s card. We all stand, and he shakes Isabelle’s hand and then mine.
“Are we still on for darts tonight, Jake?” Phil asks, and I give him a small smile.
“Sure, Phil, I will see you around 7pm?”
“See you then.” Phil nods to us both and walks out the door. We watch him from the doorway as he gets into his patrol car and drives away.
“Let me see your footage,” I say to Isabelle as soon as Phil is gone. I am in work mode now; I want to see the footage and understand exactly what is going on.
Nodding, she leads me to her laptop, bringing up the security feed, and I sit down to watch. It is dark, but she has a good camera set up because we have visuals of the entire office. But there is still not enough light, so we can only see a dark figure. A feeling of familiarity is creeping on me for some reason, but I have no idea why.
“Does he look familiar at all to you?” I ask her. “His movements, the way he walks, bends over, his posture, any of those things?” I prod her.
“No, not at all. He doesn’t look familiar to me in the slightest,” she replies, and I look at her. She is fucking exhausted.
“I’m going to email myself a copy of this, and I will look into it with my team,” I say to her as I download the footage.
“You don’t have to do that, Jake. Really, the police have everything.” Her hand touches my shoulder, and I look up at her again.
“Let me look into it for you?” I say softly, wanting to help.
“Okay,” she whispers, and looking at her, I know I’m on the edge. I know I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t touch her, but my self-control is slipping more and more every minute I spend with her, near her, fucking thinking about her. She smells like delicate rose again; it is a smell that is etched into my senses, now every rosy smell will make me think of her.
“You need to sleep,” I say to her as I stand up from the laptop. I gently grab her hand, giving it a small squeeze in support. “I need to review your footage and see what I can dig up for you. I will come over later but try and get a few hours. Sleep will do you good.”
She rubs her face and yawns, before giggling because she is just proving my point.
“Okay, okay. I have a team meeting now and then I will go and lay down.”
I look at her with an eyebrow raised in question. Laughing, she hits me softly on the arm. “I promise. Now get out of here and go do your work,” she says with a smile, and I like it.
15
Isabelle
My team meeting went as expected this morning. They are all worried, but I have increased security, getting more patrolled surveillance during the evening and two scheduled during the day. The staff are unsettled, but Kelly and I did our best to reassure them. Thank God for Beth, who always lightens the mood and keeps everyone upbeat. Even though I am sure her spilling coffee over the crotch of our Finance Manager, Derrick, was not a joke, it lightened the mood all the same.
I did as Jake said and crashed into my bed as soon as the meeting was done, and I have slept most of the day. After spending the last hour or so refining the Rothschild event and answering important emails, I decide to go into town. I need to get out of these four walls and see people.
