Samiah sensed the tension suffusing the office the moment the doors opened on the twenty-second floor. Absent was the laid-back, casual atmosphere and general levity one usually found upon entering Trendsetters. The air crackled with barely contained angst, her coworkers’ collective discontent pulsing just below the surface.
She went straight for the kitchen, setting the bakery items she no longer had any interest in indulging in on the long counter next to the coffee station. On the way to her office, she could practically feel the furtive glances following her movements. Her earlier confusion intensified, her body heat rising with every step she took.
By the time she made it to her office, Samiah could feel sweat collecting at the small of her back. She took off her light wool peacoat and hung it on the single brushed-steel peg on the wall behind her desk. She then dropped her purse in the bottom desk drawer, kicked the drawer shut, and set out in pursuit of answers.
Before she made it past the front edge of her desk, Amy Dodd rushed into her office and closed the door behind her. She slapped the button underneath the light switch that turned the glass walls from clear to opaque and charged toward Samiah.
“Tell meeverything!” Amy said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You cannot hold out on me! Come on, I want to know what’s going on.”
“That’smyquestion!” Samiah slapped a hand to her chest. “Iwant to know what’s going on.”
The crease that ran across Amy’s forehead became even more pronounced. “Wait a minute,” her coworker said. “You mean you weren’t a part of it?”
“A part ofwhat?” Samiah screeched.
“The sting! Or whatever the heck went down.”
She stepped back until her butt met the edge of her desk and then sat. “Start over,” Samiah said. “From the beginning. What sting?”
“Apparently there’s been some kind of undercover operation going on this whole time. The Fed—like the freakingFed—has been tracking this crazy money-laundering scheme.”
“Money laundering?”
“Yes! This is what I’ve heard so far. Some employees here at Trendsetters were approached by a small group of people from Hughes Hospitality—including some of theirexecutives—with an idea to launder money. They were inflating the number of users logging into the Wi-Fi at all of the company’s Central American properties. So, if only a thousand people logged on in a week, they manipulated the numbers so that it would look as if twice that many logged on. Then, a couple of months go by, they audit the numbers, find that they overpaid and were refunded.” She dusted her hands. “All that dirty money gets washed clean. Genius, right?”
“Goodness,” Samiah whispered. It truly was genius.
“They arrested both Doug and Bianca. They were manually inflating the unique logins.”
“I saw Owen in handcuffs,” Samiah said.
“He’s the one who set the whole damn thing up! Mike Epsen was in on it too. He was the mastermind behind all the tech work.”
“Mike?”
“Yes! From what I’ve heard, Mike tried to shut it down, and they sent goons after him. They’re the ones who ran into his bike.”
Samiah covered her forehead with a shaky palm. This was way more than she could handle before coffee. “It’s like something from a movie.”
“I just don’t understand,” Amy said, her eyes wide with confusion.
“People do crazy things for money,” Samiah said.
“No, I mean, I don’t understand how you don’t know about it. Word around the office is that it wasyouraccess card that was used to breach the system.”
Her body went cold. Samiah relinquished her perch on the desk, rising slowly as she mentally fended off the escalating trepidation brought on by Amy’s pronouncement.
“What?” she whispered in a voice so thready she barely heard it herself.
Just then, there was an uptick in the muddled chatter that had been humming throughout the office. Samiah reached over to the keypad on her desk and turned the walls back to clear. At least a dozen of the men in the imposing windbreakers charged down the hallway, filing into the large conference room a few doors past her office. Quentin and Daniel brought up the delegation’s rear.
Daniel stopped just past her door and looked back at her through the glass wall, his soulful brown eyes teeming with remorse.
And just like that, she knew. He had lied to her.
