I look down at my own and sigh then pick a chunk of fried dough out of my cleavage. Then I eat it.
“Man, it’s rough out here.” Jess sighs.
“You have no idea.” I guzzle more coffee. “I was awake until late trying to get my sister up to speed. She spent half the time on her phone.”
“I hope he jerks off before the party.” Jess turns back to her computer.
“What the hell?”
Jess’s eyebrows raise. “I’ve been around your sister when she’s on the prowl for a man. She’s, like, the definition of sex kitten. Salinger’s going to need some post-nut clarity before he deals with her.”
“Everything is fine,”I tell myself in the elevator. “You get to leave early. You’re going to an expensive dinner, and Pepper got a free grooming. Everything is fine.”
Pepper, a chunky ball of corgi floof, whines unhappily when I pick her up from the groomer.
“How was my baby?” I coo, lifting her up.
The groomer has a professionally neutral expression on her face. “Was this her first time at a groomer?”
“Er… No, it’s just been a while…”
“I see.”
There’s a long awkward pause.
I swallow loudly. Pepper tries to burrow in my shirt. “I’ll just pay then.”
I drag Pepper out after leaving a generous tip—on Salinger’s card, of course.
“Lucky for you, I can’t afford to let you go back there again,” I tell her, “because they were not big fans of yours.”
Normally after she’s had a stressful day, I would take Pepper home and feed her snacks while she snuggles under the covers.
“I need you to dig deep,” I tell the dog as I truck her up the stairs of my walk-up apartment. “You cannot be the weak link. Salinger needs this contract. And who knows? He might give us a bonus. That lawyer I found is pricy.”
And hopefully won’t be necessary. The cops hadn’t shown up for Pepper or anything. Maybe Jaxon had just been blustering.
“We have bigger things to worry about. Salinger does not like tardiness. He also doesn’t like failure.”
Which is a problem because this is about to be the biggest fail ever.
When I open the door to an empty apartment, I want to collapse on the floor. “Oh god. Lauren. Lauren! Where are you?”
I search the small apartment frantically, as if she’s just hiding in a cabinet or something.
“Lauren!” My voice has a hysterical edge to it.
Hands shaking, I scroll to her contact on my phone.
No answer.
“Lauren!” Panicking, I yell it into the phone. “Lauren, pick up, I swear to god…”
End the call, call again. The phone rings while I send a frantic, misspelled text. “Pick up your freaking phone.” I dial her again, hands clammy, nausea burbling in my gut. “Oh my god. Pick up, pick up.”
The fifth time I call, Lauren answers. “Oh my god, what is your problem?”
“You!” I shriek. “We’re late. We need to go to my boss’s penthouse.”
