Curious, I followed the sound into the study where an actual landline phone sat on the desk.
“Hello?” I answered when it stopped ringing, only for it to start up again.
“Oh, Mrs. Valentine,” Madison’s voice met my ear. “Good. Mr. Valentine asked me to call you.”
“Really? Why?”
Were we using go-betweens now? How mature.
“He can’t find his phone. He figured he must have left it at home and it went dead. He’s in a meeting, so he can’t come home. He was wondering if you could locate it and bring it to the office?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll go look around.”
“Fantastic. Sooner would be better. I think we all feel kind of naked without our phones.”
“Yeah. I’ll go look right now.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Valentine.”
With that, I started looking in the primary bedroom, the closet, and the bathroom. But nothing. Same for the kitchen, living room, and pantry.
I was about to give up when I saw it in, of all places, one of my shoes by the front door. Like he’d maybe missed his pocket and it landed so quietly inside that he didn’t even notice. Because he was in such a damn rush to get out of the apartment before I got up.
As expected, John was waiting for me down at the street. He even offered to bring the phone up to Harrison’s office for me.
I couldn’t give you a logical reason I turned him down.
“You found it!” Madison said, looking relieved as I came off the elevator.
“I did. In a shoe,” I told her, watching her smile.
“I once found mine in my fridge.”
“I’ll just plug it in for him,” I said, waving toward the office.
“Of course. Thanks again.”
I made my way into his glass office, sucking in a deep breath and inhaling that comforting, spicy leather scent that clung to him.
I moved behind his desk, sitting down when I didn’t immediately see a phone cord anywhere.
Apparently, when you had a fancy desk, they hid the plugs inside the top drawer.
I’d just finished plugging it in when I saw Madison exhale hard and grab her purse.
Lunch break, maybe?
So she wouldn’t notice if I lingered for just another moment.
As I was sliding the top drawer closed, my finger hit a button and I jolted when I saw the glass office walls frost over.
“Okay. That’s cool,” I decided, touching the button again and watching the glass go clear.
But, well, there was another button. So I had to press it, right?
This time, the glass didn’t just frost; it went completely white.
And it was right then, before I could undo it, that Harrison moved into the doorway.
