Chapter 13
By eight-ten Monday morning, Miranda was parked across the street from Halcyon with both hands resting on the steering wheel and no memory of the final three turns that had brought her there.
The building looked smaller than it had during her leave, its glass front reflecting a pale sky and the row of maples planted along the sidewalk.
She had left Owen with Claire after feeding him twice and changing him once more than necessary.
Garrett had gone to work twenty minutes earlier without offering to drive her, and Miranda had been relieved until she saw his car in the employee lot and understood that he was already inside with everyone else.
The lipstick she had bought the day before felt too dark in the rearview mirror. She considered wiping it off, then saw the faint imprint it had left on the lid of her coffee cup and decided she was not willing to arrive looking as though she had changed her mind in the parking lot.
Her phone showed three unread messages. Claire had sent a photograph of Owen asleep across her chest with the caption, Hostage has accepted terms. Garrett had written only, Dennis is in already. The third message came from an unfamiliar number and contained no greeting.
Please check in with reception when you arrive. HR will meet you in Conference Room B.
Miranda locked the phone and crossed the street.
The lobby smelled like lemon cleaner and the coffee Lauren, the receptionist, brewed too strong every Monday.
Nothing had changed visibly. The same framed campaign posters lined the wall, the same metal bowl held mints no one ate, and the same narrow crack split one corner of the reception counter where Dennis had dropped a sample box three years earlier and insisted no one would notice.
Lauren looked up from her computer. Her expression brightened before caution entered it, as though she had remembered too late that Miranda’s return was not social.
“Look at you,” she said, rising halfway from her chair. “You look amazing. I mean tired, obviously, but amazing.”
Miranda almost smiled. “That must be the new lipstick,” she joked.
Lauren’s gaze dropped briefly to Miranda’s lipstick, then returned to her face. “I heard about the meeting. Dennis has been walking around like someone misplaced a client.”
Before Miranda could ask what exactly she had heard, footsteps sounded behind the frosted doors leading into the main office.
Willa appeared first, carrying two binders against her chest and wearing a cream blouse tucked into navy trousers.
Her hair was pulled into a low knot, softer than the style in her website photograph and serious enough to suggest she had dressed for diplomacy.
Her expression warmed immediately. “Miranda.”
She crossed the lobby as though they were meeting after an ordinary absence and stopped close enough that an embrace became possible. Miranda kept one hand around her coffee and the other on the strap of her bag.
“You look wonderful,” Willa said. Her gaze moved once over Miranda’s face, taking in the lipstick and perhaps the scent of the perfume still faint at Miranda’s wrists. “It’s so good to see you back here.”
“I’m here for the meeting.”
“Of course.” Willa adjusted the binders in her arms. “I only meant it’s been a long time.”
Five months was not a long time in a company where campaigns remained stalled for twice that over packaging revisions. Miranda looked at the labels along the binder spines and recognized the names of her accounts printed beneath Willa’s initials.
Lauren came around the desk with a visitor badge. “This feels ridiculous, but HR asked me to issue one.”
Miranda looked at the badge in her hand. The word VISITOR appeared in red beneath a blank space where Lauren had written Miranda Holloway.
“They deactivated my employee access?”
Lauren’s eyes shifted toward Willa, then back. “I think it happens automatically when someone is on extended leave.”
“It didn’t happen during my first month.”
“No. That was later.”
Willa’s mouth tightened sympathetically. “Security updated the system in May. It locked out several people by accident.”
Miranda clipped the badge to her blouse. “Was mine an accident?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Willa’s answer came without defensiveness, smooth enough to leave no surface to push against. “I’m sure HR can clarify.”
The inner doors opened again, and a junior account coordinator named Beth stepped through carrying a cardboard drink tray. She had joined Halcyon two months before Miranda left and still had the nervous energy of someone who expected every hallway encounter to become an assignment.
She saw Miranda and stopped so abruptly that coffee sloshed against one lid. “Oh my God, hi. I didn’t know you were coming in today.”
“Neither did I until yesterday.”
“Sorry, if I had known I would have ordered you something.” Beth smiled, glanced at Willa, and lifted the tray slightly. “I brought the usual. Dennis’s black coffee, and the work spouses’ matching oat-milk lattes.”
The joke landed lightly enough that Beth continued moving for half a step before the silence stopped her.
Miranda looked at the two identical cups in the tray. Both had small hearts drawn beside the orders in black marker.
“Work spouses?” she asked.
Beth’s face changed with painful speed. “It’s just what everyone calls Garrett and Willa.”
Lauren closed her eyes briefly.
Willa gave a small laugh, embarrassed in exactly the right proportion. “Beth, that joke is ancient.”
“I thought Miranda knew.” Beth looked from Willa to Lauren, searching for rescue. “It’s because they’re always handling Dennis together. Nothing weird.”
Miranda shifted her coffee to the other hand. “How ancient can it be?” She smiled tightly. “I’ve only been gone five months.”
Willa’s smile held. “Don’t worry about it, it was a stupid joke.”
“Garrett never mentioned it.”
“He probably forgot it existed.” Willa stepped closer to Beth and removed one of the lattes from the tray. “We’ve all said it so often that no one hears it anymore.”
Lauren took the second cup before Beth could offer it to anyone. “Conference Room B is ready. HR is waiting.”
The redirect was obvious, but Miranda allowed it. The lobby had become too small around her, every familiar object now carrying the possibility of a joke everyone else had shared while she stood outside it.
Willa led the way through the frosted doors.
Employees looked up as Miranda passed, some smiling too brightly and others pretending not to notice her visitor badge.
She recognized every desk but not everything placed on them.
New photographs had appeared, new plants, new piles of samples, the evidence of months that had continued without her.
Garrett stood near the copier with Dennis.
He saw her immediately. His gaze moved to the visitor badge, then to Willa’s binder. He crossed the office before Dennis finished whatever he was saying.
“You made it,” Garrett said.
The words were ordinary enough to sound wrong. Miranda looked at him, searching for any indication that he knew what had happened in the lobby.
“Beth told me about your work wife,” she said.
Garrett stopped.
Around them, the office did not become silent, but the nearest conversations changed shape. Beth looked down at the drink tray. Willa moved toward Conference Room B without turning.
Garrett’s face tightened with recognition rather than surprise. “That is an old joke.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“It means nothing.”
Miranda looked at the matching lattes still in Beth’s hand. “Apparently it means a standing coffee order.”
Beth held it out to Garrett with the strained expression of someone returning an incriminating object. “I can throw this away.”
Garrett took the cup from her instead. “It is only coffee.”
“Yes,” Miranda said. “‘Only’ seems to be the theme.”
Dennis approached before Garrett could answer. He wore the gray suit he reserved for client conflicts and employee exits, though he had skipped the tie.
“Miranda, good to see you.” He extended his hand, then seemed uncertain whether the formality was appropriate and let it fall. “We should get started.”
Conference Room B had once been Miranda’s preferred room because the windows faced east and the air-conditioning worked.
Willa had arranged three binders along one side of the table, each aligned with a legal pad and a bottle of water.
Miranda recognized the preparation as something she would have done herself.
The human resources director, Paula Benton, sat at the head of the table with a folder closed beneath both hands. She was a compact woman in her forties with cropped blond hair and the patient expression of someone who had already decided which parts of the conversation mattered legally.
Garrett stopped outside the room. “Do you want me in there?”
Paula answered before Miranda could. “This meeting concerns Miranda’s employment. We’ll speak with you separately if necessary.”
Garrett looked toward Dennis, who offered no help, then at Miranda. “I’ll be at my desk.”
Willa smiled and entered the room. Miranda sat across from her.
Paula opened the folder. “Thank you for coming in on short notice. I want to begin by clarifying that your employment with Halcyon remains active and your approved leave has not been revoked.”
The reassurance sounded prepared because it was. Miranda placed her phone facedown beside Claire’s timeline and waited.
Paula continued. “However, the company has undergone operational changes since your leave began. Several accounts have been reassigned, and the senior account structure has evolved based on current client needs.”
“Evolved into what?” Miranda asked.
Dennis leaned forward. “Willa has done excellent work stabilizing the portfolio. Two clients have specifically requested continuity through the current campaign cycle.”
Miranda looked at Willa. She had lowered her eyes to the binder, allowing Dennis to praise her without appearing to enjoy it.