Not his usual smug, country-club-golfing, Manhattan-loft-buying self. No, James had the look of a man who just realized the numbers weren’t adding up. The kind of look that made me pause in his doorway and wonder if I should pretend I didn’tsee him. His usually sharp suit was slightly wrinkled. His tie loosened. He’d been tapping his fingers against his desk in this jittery, erratic way, staring at his phone like he was waiting for bad news.
I should’veknown then.
But now? Now I know something is seriously wrong.
Because the second I step inside the office, I feel it.
People are whispering. No, not whispering—hissing. Like the kind of frantic, panicked huddles you see in disaster movies before the asteroid hits.
Jenna, the front desk receptionist, is clutching her phone like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. Her eyes are wide, darting around like she’s watching the walls close in.
What the fuck is happening?
The printer is spitting out papers at rapid fire, like it’s panicking, too.
Someone’s pacing near the windows.
“What the fuck is happening?” I say to no one in particular, voicing my thoughts.
Mark—the human embodiment of a Patagonia vest and a handshake deal—is furiously clicking refresh on his email like the act of checking it one more time will make his commission checks appear.
“They wouldn’t just—”click“—this has to be a mistake—”click“—he wouldn’t fucking do this—”clickclickclick.
And then there’s Sandra, standing in the middle of it all like the Queen Bitch of Chaos, phone pressed to her ear, muttering, “Pick up. Pick up. Pick up, you asshole.”
She looks…rattled.
Which isterrifying.
Sandra does not get rattled. Sandra is a reptilian overlord in overpriced Louboutins. The woman doesn’t even sweat. If she’s losing her mind, then we are allscrewed.
I drop my bag onto my desk and glance at her, arms crossed. “Okay. Who died?”
Sandra’s head snaps toward me. Her eyes are sharp,wild—and then something happens that I never thought possible.
Shedoesn’tsmirk.
Shedoesn’tthrow some condescending remark about my outfit.
She just stares at me, jaw tight, like she’s debating whether to speak or throw up.
“Where’s James?” I ask, glancing toward his glass-walled office. His empty glass-walled office.
No sign of him. His chair is pushed back. His desk phone is off the hook.
Sandra lets out a bitter little laugh. “Oh, honey. That’s the question of the century.”
My stomach knots. “What do you mean?”
Mark groans from his desk, still clicking refresh like a man with a gambling problem staring at a stock market crash.
“She means that James is gone.”
My brain does a full reboot. “Gonewhere?”
Sandra pinches the bridge of her nose, her acrylic nails digging into her forehead. “Gone as inpoof. As in packed his shit and left in the dead of night like some shady Russian oligarch before the feds show up.”
I blink. “That’s… not real.”
