panic in her eyes. He responded by smiling at the guard. “Hey, Charlie. Victoria’s badge isn’t working. Can she use her driver’s license instead?”
Charlie frowned. “As much as I’d like to do that, I can’t. There’s quite the process if your badge doesn’t work. Did you bend it, snap it?”
“No, nothing like that,” she replied. Her heart raced. Had Wagner already fired her? He had told her she’d regret not meeting him after work.
Charlie looked between the two of them. “I’ll see what I can do, but I might need to call a higher-up.” He waved them over to his station and opened his hand. Victoria handed over the badge, and he slid it underneath a stationary scanner.
The high-pitched buzz echoed around the glass walls. “Well, that’s strange.” He peered over his glasses at her. “Says here that your account doesn’t exist.”
“What?” Jeff leaned over the counter. “That’s got to be a mistake. She was working here just yesterday. I’m her supervisor in the...”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten who you are, Jeff,” the guard interrupted, fingering Victoria’s badge. “And I haven’t forgotten Victoria here either. She’s the one that’s always leaving homemade fudge for me and the guys in the break room.” He flashed a smile. “You didn’t think we were going let the chef of those goodies remain a secret, now did you? Got too many retired police detectives in our department for that.”
Victoria’s cheeks heated. Not so much from the guard’s good-natured ribbing but more from Jeff’s surprised stare. Apparently, she wasn’t that adept at doing a good deed in secret, no matter how hard she tried. Victoria shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. I like to cook. I just don’t want the temptation to eat it all.”
Charlie held up his closed fingers to his mouth. “She makes peanut butter fudge so smooth, it melts on your tongue. Even wraps it up in fancy homemade boxes that the wife loves to keep.” Charlie sighed. “But, I’m afraid without a call to my supervisor, I can’t help you.” He lifted up the phone to his ear. “It’ll be a few moments, folks.”
Victoria held her hand out toward Charlie’s arm. “Would you mind if we just waited until normal business hours? I can stay here while Jeff checks on a very important report for me.”
Charlie looked between the two of them and hung up the phone. “I can do one better. There’s no rule against Jeff signing you in as a guest.”
“Oh, that would be great. Then we can go home and change and deal with this whole mess when I get back. Right, Jeff?”
“Well,” Charlie mused, “this isn’t my normal shift, but I’m sure I can leave a note for the next guy.”
Victoria smiled sweetly. “It’s okay. I don’t mind going through it all again. No sense in making any more paperwork for you.”
Charlie’s eyebrow rose, but he said nothing. Instead, he handed a clipboard to Jeff. “Just sign her in there.”
Jeff complied. “Hey, Charlie, there’s been some guy in a red Range Rover bothering Victoria after work. If you could just keep an eye out for him in the future, that’d be great.”
“Is that so? We’ll keep a watch out for him, Miss Hayes.” Charlie raised a hand in acknowledgment.
When Jeff swiped his badge, the elevator doors opened swiftly, and they stepped inside. Victoria worried her hands. “Thank you for asking him to keep a look out. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have come here.” She turned to him. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this, really. I couldn’t see another option.”
“My curiosity is definitely piqued now. A few too many things are happening for this to all be a coincidence.”
She inhaled sharply. “My house went up in flames tonight. You saw a man rifling through my car. You still thought they were coincidences?”
Jeff held up both hands in surrender. “I’m not saying I didn’t believe you, I just hoped you were wrong.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like what the alternative means.”
While it still irked her that he hadn’t instantly accepted the truth based on her word, her shoulders relaxed. The elevator opened to a darkened fourth floor. Goose bumps on her arms insisted she was entering a danger zone. The motion-activated fluorescents welcomed them by flickering in a domino effect down one cubicle row. Without windows in the department, the rest of the open room remained eerily dark.
Jeff strode toward his office. Was it a coincidence that Wagner was moving him out of this department at the end of the day? He hadn’t told Victoria yet; no one else knew, in fact, but Wagner and Human Resources. There would be an announcement around lunch today. Victoria had come to him because he was her supervisor. If he told her now that she’d have a new supervisor come Monday, he couldn’t predict what her reaction would be, given the circumstances. So, for her sake, it was probably best to wait.
In fact, Victoria was full of surprises. She’d always been polite and answered his friendly attempts at conversation, but never beyond the bare minimum. She never initiated the conversation, either, unless it was work related. It seemed like she was friendly with everyone else in the department, and yet, she made goodies for only the security department. Why had she never brought her famous fudge to their break room? Perhaps he’d mistaken her aloofness for being shy?
He slowed his steps. Victoria wasn’t following. He turned to find her frozen, white as a sheet, barely outside of the elevator.
“We’re just here collecting a report. We’re not trying to expose fraud, jeopardize thousands of people’s financial portfolios, risk our jobs and ultimately shut the entire company down.” Victoria said the words rapid-fire and stared ahead, but it was as if she wasn’t seeing anything at all.
Was the shock from the fire catching up with her? He reached out for her hand. “You’re freezing.” He placed his other hand on top of her wrist in an attempt to warm her. “Hey. We’re just trying to get the truth. Nothing more.”
He leaned down a bit so she couldn’t avoid eye contact. “Victoria, you’re here because you’re a good employee. You care about doing the right thing.”
That seemed to do it. She blinked and looked straight into his eyes for the first time he could remember. He sucked in a breath at the intensity of her stare and his own sudden attraction. She glanced down at his hands over hers. The color in her cheeks made her blue eyes contrast with her dark hair. She was beautiful. Realizing his gesture came across as intimate, he dropped her wrist like a hot potato and straightened. “We don’t have much time before Wagner will arrive. Let’s find the files and get you to that FBI appointment. I’ll sort out what the deal is with your security clearance later.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. Victoria stood behind him when he took a seat at his desk. “Just so you know, I don’t usually freak out like that, but I’ve also never had someone try to kill me before either.”
“Well, that would do it,” Jeff mumbled, logging into the mainframe. He needed to focus on the task ahead and get her off his mind. “Now where’d you hide the file?”
She
