Chapter 51
I don’t sleep well, and when Sam gets up for work, I open my eyes and sit up.
“Hey, sleepyhead, didn’t mean to disturb you,” he says, pulling on a white polo shirt.
“You didn’t. I was half awake anyway. Bad night.”
“Nervous about the meeting today?”
“No. Well, a little, but that isn’t it. I heard the baby again.”
Sam stops what he’s doing. “Jordan, there is no baby. You know that.”
“And I know what I heard.”
Sam falls silent for a moment. “I never heard anything.”
“You were asleep.”
The look he gives me says That’s convenient. “I have to go. We’ll talk about this when I get home tonight, okay?”
“Sure.” Great. He thinks I’m losing my mind.
“Will you be all right on your own here today?”
Now it’s my turn to give him a look.
“Hey, just asking. I’m worried about you.”
“Just go.” I slide back down under the covers and roll over.
I can hear him moving around the bedroom as he finishes getting dressed.
The door opens, then shuts softly. Silence wraps around me.
I close my eyes, try not to think about where this might be leading.
I shouldn’t have said anything. Sam has been on alert ever since the miscarriage, looking for signs that I’m slipping back into the depression that almost tore us apart.
I’m not sure how to convince him that I’m not losing my shit again.
But I can see how it must look, and I don’t blame him for being worried, because I’m scared of ending up in that headspace again.
It was dreadful. But I know how I felt back then, and this isn’t it.
I stifle a yawn and slide deeper under the covers, wrapping them around my body like a soothing cocoon.
The next thing I know, it’s ten o’clock.
Shit, I fell back asleep, and on the worst possible day.
My meeting with the Glendale’s executive board is at 1:00 p.m. I take a quick shower, dress, and make a cup of coffee before heading to my office .
. . only to make a discovery that sends me into a panic.
The mood board is missing.
I stare at the desk, and at first I think I’m just not seeing it; then I launch into a frantic search.
I check beside the desk on both sides to see if it’s leaning there, even though I know it won’t be.
I pull my chair out and look under the desk.
I even open the drawers and rifle through them, which is ridiculous, because the mood board couldn’t even fit into a drawer.
Finally, I go back into the living room and search there, too, but there’s no sign of the mood board.
Which is impossible because it should be right there, in my office, where I left it yesterday.
Except that it’s not.
I go through the rest of the apartment like a whirlwind.
Bedroom. Bathroom. Kitchen. Even the walk-in closet.
Nowhere is spared from my scrutiny. Defeated, I return to the living room, sit down on the sofa, and cast my mind back to the previous night.
Is there something that I’m forgetting? Did I go back into the office after Sam came home and put it somewhere weird?
No. I might have been a little tipsy thanks to my evening of drinking wine with Jennifer, but I wasn’t that drunk.
Which leaves only one possibility. Someone else moved it. And the list of suspects is short.
There’s Jennifer, but I can’t think of any way that it could have been her.
She never went near the office. And why would she even bother?
Which leaves Sam. But he is the most supportive person in my life and would never sabotage me like that.
Plus, we need the money from the coffee shop project, which makes it even less likely that he’d do anything to risk it.
And I’m pretty sure that he never even went near the office after he came home. Unless he went in there this morning.
I’m clutching at straws, but it’s all I’ve got, so I call him.
The phone rings several times, and I expect to get his voicemail, but then Sam answers.
“Jordan?” He sounds concerned—hardly surprising, under the circumstances. “Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “Well, sort of. I can’t find the mood board for the coffee shop, and I have a meeting this afternoon. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
My heart sinks. “Are you sure? It was on my desk last night, and now it’s gone.”
“Of course I’m sure. How could you lose something that big?”
“I don’t know.” I’m starting to freak out. “That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Okay. Calm down. It has to be there somewhere.”
“It’s not. I’ve looked.”
“Are you sure you didn’t move it last night and forgot? You and Jennifer polished off a bottle and a half of wine.” There’s no recrimination in his voice, only worry. “You were pretty buzzed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I was just asking. What about Jennifer?”
“She never went near the office.” I rub my temples with my free hand. “This is bad. Like, really bad. What am I going to do? I don’t have anything to show the board.”
“I’m sure it’s there somewhere.” Sam pauses, and I hear him talking to someone. His voice is muffled, as if he’s holding a hand over the phone’s mic. After a few seconds, he comes back on. “Look, I’ve got to go. We’re knee deep in it here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Just try to stay calm. You’ll figure it out. I love you and I’ll see you tonight.”
I’m about to say that I love him, too, when the line goes dead.
I sit on the sofa, wracking my brain to remember if I did something weird with it after drinking all that wine, like Sam suggested, but I come up empty.
I don’t know why it’s not in my office, but I know one thing .
. . It wasn’t me who moved it. Right now, that doesn’t matter.
The mood board is missing. Which means I’ll have to pull together all the scraps and leftovers I can find and make another one.
And quickly, because my presentation is in less than two hours.