Page 60 of Grant’s Blaze

I found myself looking around too but quickly nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Hannah expelled a rush of air before pulling aside a staff member with a blond-and-pink ponytail. “Hey, Brinn? Rio and I are going out to my car to go get some stuff I brought from home. We’ll be right back in, okay? Answer the phone if it rings.”

Once outside, I could barely get a look at my normally amicable friend. My nerves were really frazzled. Hannah never acted so cagey. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the morning I’d already been through. So admittedly, I could’ve been reading the entire situation wrong.

“Hannah?” I had to power walk to keep up with her. Of course, she was parked in the last row of cars, too. By the time we rounded the back of her cute little BMW 1 series and she popped the trunk, I was close to panting. “Hey, is something going on?”

My friend bent down, ostensibly to get something out of her trunk, but then gestured for me to follow. Well, hell. Was her something actually my fault? Was she going to stuff me in that trunk too?

I gave my head a firm shake. My word. Grant and his strange dream were rubbing off in all the wrong ways.

Unless…they weren’t. Before he fully woke up, he’d been babbling shit about my safety. He hadn’t had a chance to explain everything to me yet either. Maybe I should’ve let him. Based on his behavior, I was definitely skittish too, even if I didn’t understand why. On my way to work, I’d put it all in a neat little box with a tight-fitting lid so I could get through the day. There would be plenty of time to unleash the beast later.

“Hannah, tell me what the hell is going on or I’m going back inside. Right now.” I said it firmly and felt a little bad about my tone when she straightened and I caught sight of the new look on her face. Something had her spooked too.

“Okay. Okay.” She took a deep breath and then exhaled through pursed lips. “Maybe this is nothing and there’s a very logical explanation for these things I’m about to tell you.”

“Hannah, please.”

“All right.” She seemed to mutter it more to herself than me. “You’re right, you’re right. I just need to—” After fortifying herself with another deep breath, she looked ready to move on. “Yesterday, I went to the walk-in after we were finished for the day. Everyone else had left, so I made sure the main doors were locked, like I always do if I’m here alone. You and Abbigail really drilled that into me when I first started here.” She nodded soundly like she was proud of the fact.

Intuition had me adding an approving dip of my head. “Good, I’m glad you do that. Better safe than sorry.”

“But I remembered seeing some canned goods up on the top shelf of the walk-in that needed the expiration dates checked?” She presented it like a question, maybe to make sure I knew what task she was talking about.

I nodded again, indicating that I did. There were so many things that had to be done around a commercial kitchen. The chores never stopped.

“And I knew if I didn’t do it then, while nothing else was going on, it would never get done. You know how it gets around here—”

“Hannah!” I had to stop her or she would continue justifying her actions for ten more minutes. Clearly my young friend was a nervous rambler.

“Okay, sorry. Sorry.” She took another deep breath, exhaling through her mouth so she could continue at a much calmer pace. “So, I got the stepladder out and climbed up to the shelf.”

“All right. But why did you bring me out to the parking lot to tell me this? I’m really lost.”

“Okay.” She tried to take another deep breath but ended it on a weird wince. Before I could even begin deciphering it, she said, “While I was up on the ladder, someone locked me in the walk-in. I was stuck inside there for about forty minutes.”

“Wait. What?” I sagged against the car behind me. Fortunately, it was Kendall. “Who?” I demanded at once. “Did you see exactly who did that? They will lose their job immediately. That’s not something we take lightly, Hannah. It’s very dangerous.”

“Wait. There’s more.” She stepped over and grabbed my forearm, drawing me to finally focus on her face. Tears were flooding her eyes, despite her best efforts to clamp them back. Of course, her effort was a giant fail. They spilled down her cheeks in mascara-tinted streaks.

I pulled her into my embrace and held her there while she cried softly. Her whole body was trembling, but I needed to hear the rest of this story. After a few more minutes, she straightened up and swiped under her eyes, removing any smudged makeup. Cry time was over for Miss Farsey, apparently.

With a very steady voice, she said, “Something very fishy is going on, Rio.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Tell me all of it, then. Everything that happened. How did you get out of the cooler? Did you call someone? And why the hell didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t have my phone on me.” A sheepish flush suffused her high cheekbones. “It was setting on Abbi’s desk. I usually put it there during the day. I mean, right now I do. You know, while she’s not here?”

“Of course. Of course.”

“After this, though, I’m going to get a chef’s jacket with bigger pockets so I can keep it on me.” She nodded in approval of her own plan, and I had to smile a little at her sweet habits.

“Okay, so how did you get out of the cooler?”

She shrugged. “Someone eventually unlocked the door again.”

“Huh?” I folded my arms. “Okay, so who? And didn’t you say everyone had gone home for the day?”