She looks to me, in my underwear. She puts my bag on the table and slides the zipper open. Silently, she looks to Ms Conway. Then she lifts out Persia’s uniform.
Fresh tears fall.
‘Can you explain this too?’ Kathleen asks me.
‘What is that?’ Ms Conway questions.
Kathleen pulls out the crumpled uniform in full and lays it out on the table. ‘Why do you have this, Serenity?’ she asks. ‘Why do you have Persia Takeda’s missing uniform in your bag?’
Ms Conway physically gasps.
‘I—’ I begin, but I don’t know how to continue.
I straighten. Wipe my tears. Acceptance creeps in. Yes, it looks bad, but I remind myself that this isn’t my fault. I only tried to get it back.
I raise my chin. I don’t have anything left to lose.
‘You might want to ask your son that question,’ I say in Samantha Conway’s direction.
Something flashes across her features. ‘Kathleen, did you call security?’
‘I did,’ my squad leader says grimly.
Ms Conway’s eyes come back to mine. ‘Get dressed. Take your things and go. I don’t ever want to see you near this stadium again.’
Samantha Conway stalks out. The door slams behind her. I step forward and grab my clothes. I dress quickly – aware that Kathleen is waiting on me – and when I’m done, I wipe tears from my face and collect my bag from the table. Kathleen opens the door and two burly men enter the room, dressed all in black.
‘We’ll need your door pass, ma’am,’ the bigger of the two men says to me.
I root around in my bag and pass it to him.
Kathleen orders them, ‘Escort her to her car.’
‘I don’t have a car,’ I mumble, in what seems like a final humiliation. ‘I came here on the bus.’
‘Then escort her from the premises,’ Kathleen corrects herself. She gathers up both sets of uniform. She doesn’t even look me in the eye when she departs.
Moments after she’s gone, I follow the two men out.
Chapter Thirty-One
Serenity
At the stadium perimeter, I exit onto the sidewalk, the two Danube security guards eyeballing me as I walk away. I hug my bag close to my chest. Within seconds, I reach for my phone and try Jake’s number. There’s no answer. He’s in the air and if Samantha Conway is correct, his phones have been impounded. He’s unreachable.
I tuck my hair behind my ears. My eyes are red and swollen; I can feel it. My entire face is puffy. On the inside, I feel numb.
I walk to the nearest bus stop. I try to hold everything in. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Within moments of arrival, I hear a car approaching, its horn blaring out.
A large, white SUV shrieks to a halt. Harmony hollers at me from an open window, ‘Get in!’, and I look up in surprise. I spy Ashlyn in the back seat, her expression etched with both confusion and concern.
I do as I’m told and get in the car. Once the door is closed, Harmony swerves back into moving traffic, causing several cars behind to blast their horns at her.
‘What the hell happened?’ she demands as I buckle up.
My bottom lip quakes. ‘They fired me.’
Harmony punches the wheel. ‘Goddammit!’
