Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The seconds passed. The silence between us thickened, and he seemed to sense it. His expression softened in concern, but I couldn’t look at him too long—not when my stomach had gone cold.
If I understood why he’d lied, maybe I’d ask. Maybe I’d call him out.
Instead, instinct told me to play along.
“It’s okay,” I said, voice too bright. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”
The longing I’d had minutes earlier for a kiss dissolved, leaving something heavy and uncertain behind. I leaned in for a brief hug. It was polite, awkward, and a far cry from how I’d imagined our goodnight.
“Thank you for being you,” he said softly. “I haven’t had such an enjoyable evening in a long time.”
I forced a smile, knowing I probably wasn’t very good at being disingenuous.
“Are you going to get out of every compliment I give you?” he asked as he took a couple of steps back.
“I suppose we’ll find out. Will you come by my desk tomorrow to say hello?”
“Definitely,” he said. “See you tomorrow. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said, and as soon as he got into his car, I rushed inside.
What the fuck?
My first instinct was to call Grant, but when I took out my phone and noted the time, I figured it was way too late, especially if he was sick. Though he’d appeared healthy that morning.
I sent him a text anyway. Whether he received it now or tomorrow morning, it didn’t really matter.
Me: I have to tell you something about Maggie.
I set the phone down and got ready for bed. When I looked at it again, there was a message.
Grant: I have something to tell you, too. Meet for coffee in the morning?
Me: OK. 8 AM.
I barely slept. That lie from Colin replayed on a loop until dawn.
I arrived at the coffee shop harried and out of breath. I was a couple of minutes late and didn’t want to cut into the time that Grant and I had carved out to relay our news to each other.
He smiled at me when I found him in the horde of people waiting in line and around the pickup area. It was a big change from his attitude toward me of late.
“I already ordered for you,” he said.
“How do you know what I want?” I asked, my hands on my hips.
“You don’t exactly scream variety. Every single time we’ve gotten coffee together, you ask for a caramel macchiato.”
“You think you know me so well, huh?”
He probably did. Sitting beside each other for five years, we’d learned each other’s likes, dislikes, quirks, annoying habits, pet peeves…
He elbowed me gently. “You won’t believe what I found out about Maggie,” Grant said.
Maggie. Always Maggie. Granted, I had news about her as well.
“Alright, go ahead,” I prompted. He was obviously waiting for me to have some sort of reaction to whatever this bit of gossip was.
Finally, he exploded. “She’s been seeing someone new. I just don’t know who it is, but whoever it is, they have her on lockdown.”
“Where do you get your information?” I asked. And then I looked him up and down. “You don’t look a bit sick.”
“I’m not. I was nauseous and tired yesterday. Thought I was coming down with something. It cleared up not long after I’d texted you that I wouldn’t be coming in today.”
“Uh-huh… So how did you find out Maggie is dating someone?” It was always so easy for our conversations to get sidetracked.
“At night, when I was better, I ate at Vincenzo’s.
That place near my apartment with the best marinara sauce?
Anyway, I sat by myself at a small booth, but I didn’t notice who was in the next booth.
I’m just minding my own business. But as I’m looking through the menu—which was pointless ‘cause I always order the same thing—I heard a woman’s voice that I wouldn’t ever not recognize.
It would be like me picking your voice out of a lineup.
I’d recognize it from the first word you spoke. Well, same with Maggie.”
“Maggie was at the same restaurant as you. So?”
“I’ll tell you if you don’t interrupt,” he said, one eyebrow lifted high.
“Oh, my goodness! Go on.” I put my finger to my mouth like someone silencing a child.
Grant’s name was called at that moment. We walked up to the counter to pick up our order. Grant handed me a bag and my coffee. When I looked inside the bag, there sat my favorite coffee cake.
“Thank you,” I said, raising the bag and the coffee slightly.
“No problem,” he said offhandedly while reaching for extra sugar packets.
We sat down at a small table by the back entrance, and I waited for him to finish his story.
“It turns out that she was on a date with the new guy. From their conversation, it sounded as if they’d been dating a while. It wasn’t even a conversation. More like a heated argument. She kept calling him ‘love.’ One time she did use his name. It sounded like Brandon?”
“What were they arguing about?”
“He seemed to believe she wasn’t being truthful about something.
She swore she was, but he kept getting more and more upset.
At one point he left and came back about 15 minutes later.
It was a rough evening out for them, that’s for sure.
I ate and left before they had finished.
Their food probably got cold with all the arguing. ”
“That’s so bizarre. Even more bizarre with what I have to tell you.
” I cringed internally at having to divulge how I had seen that Maggie had called Colin, but I held my breath and let it all out.
I told him about the airport and the dinner date last night and finally got to the part about his outright lie about who had called him.
I kept from meeting Grant’s eyes throughout my explanation. My gaze focused on the steady stream of people making their way through the door of the coffee shop.
“Did you kiss?” he asked, and finally our eyes met.
“No.”
“Are you going out with him again?”
“How can I, knowing he lied? Unless there’s a good, secret business reason,” I said, verbalizing the possible excuses I’d imagined since waking up. “But it still feels icky.”
He didn’t ask or suggest anything else, so I asked him, “Is it possible Brandon suspects something between Maggie and Colin?”
“That may have been the argument. I failed to catch what the real dispute was about.” He sounded lost in thought, as if his mind were somewhere else.
“What if this all connects to her disappearance?” I asked.
“Or we overreacted. If Maggie’s having an affair with Colin and this Brandon guy is jealous, it sounds like a messy situation, and I want nothing to do with it.”
“Well, I do now! And how can you say that after we tried to get into Maggie’s apartment and rummaged through her office?
It’s sounding more and more like that ‘family emergency’ of hers is a lie.
I’m not convinced that she even has family.
And Maggie would have done everything in her power to call any of us to say she wasn’t coming in. ”
He shrugged at me. I shrugged back, an exaggerated gesture to show that I wasn’t accepting this indifferent attitude. All I received in reply was another half-hearted shrug.
“I guess I should thank you for that information. It looks like I’ll continue this investigation on my own now. Are you coming into work?”
Grant nodded. “Yes, let’s go.” He stood up.
I followed him out, wondering why he was so irritable.
I didn’t find out much that day. Maggie stayed in her office most of the day, except when she had the scheduled meeting with the whole department.
Grant and I sat on either side of her, unsure what the meeting was about.
It seemed to be more of a pep talk for the sales team.
I made frequent eye contact with Grant, looks of suspicion and wariness passing between us regardless of what he’d said earlier about Maggie being none of his business.
After lunch, we ran into Kaitlin in the lobby. She was waiting for the elevator, and as soon as she perked up at the sight of Grant, I perked up too.
Kaitlin was the key. If I can persuade Grant to find his enthusiasm for the mystery again, he might realize that too.
If I could only get him to look up, that is.
He seemed to avoid eye contact with Kaitlin no matter how many hints she made about the warm weather and her plans for the weekend. I snuck myself into the conversation to not leave Kaitlin hanging, which elicited odd looks from her since she and I never made any small talk.
But Grant merely looked down at the floor or at the numbers on the elevator panel as we rode up.
When we sat back down at our desks, and I looked around to make sure Maggie’s door was shut and no one else was coming to our corner, I took hold of his chair and spun him around so we were facing each other.
“You have to flirt with Kaitlin,” I whispered.
He looked at me as if I’d asked him to search the building for wildlife.
“Are you out of your mind?” he asked.
“How else are we going to get information?” I tried widening my eyes to impress upon him how good of an idea it was.
“You go out again with Colin,” he said.
I paused, turning the idea over in my mind.
I nodded with the grim determination of someone about to walk into battle.
“Yes, I will,” I said. “But if something’s going on, he’s going to hide it, of course. Kaitlin might possess some useful information and let it slip.”
He shook his head emphatically.
“Why not?” I asked.
“She doesn’t deserve to be used that way,” he said.
Now I was the one shocked.
“What?” he asked when he saw the look on my face.
“I didn’t suppose you’d have moral qualms about using someone for a little information.”
“You think because we had one bad date that I’m a monster?”
“What about the incessant sexual harassment that I’ve never turned you in for?” I retorted.
“Well, why haven’t you?” he asked somewhat angrily.
I had to stop and consider his question. His behavior toward me had always crossed the line, but I didn’t know why I had never reported him. He’d always been there, irritating but reliable.
“Okay, so you’re not a monster,” I said, deflecting the question.
“But is this really that bad? It’s not like you’ll be professing your undying love.
It’d be one date. I suffered through one of your dates and never wanted to date you again, so you’d really be doing her a favor and have her fall out of love with you. ”
He couldn’t help snorting a laugh and turned around. “You can forget about it,” he said.
I gave him an annoyed grunt. The ding of his email notifications throughout the afternoon further annoyed me, and I wondered why I wasn’t also getting email blasts.
Right before we were about to leave, Grant pushed his chair back next to me and said, “I’m taking Kaitlin out this weekend.”
I beamed at him, and he gave me a rare, bashful smile.
“You might enjoy it,” I said, though I had very little hope for that.
He gave something of a cross between a loud sigh and a dramatic grunt and stood up.
“Leaving?” he asked.
That evening I tried distracting myself by watching one of the reality dating shows on my streaming app when Colin’s name appeared on my phone.
I hesitated, my finger hovering over the green circle on the screen.
Finally, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, beautiful,” he said, his low, rich voice hitting me like a wall of flames. I tried not to melt, knowing he had lied to me. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve had you on my mind all day. I wanted to come downstairs to visit you, but there was always something preventing me.”
“I had a nice time last night,” I said truthfully.
“I had a wonderful time. I’d like to see you again.” He said the last part as if it were a question.
My throat went dry. There was no question about it—if he hadn’t lied about who’d been calling him last night, I’d have said yes right then in a heartbeat.
But…this doubt.
It didn’t feel good. I should have just confronted him at that moment, called him out for lying about it being someone from the board of directors instead of Maggie.
He spoke first. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I truly was conflicted, remembering how I’d felt so special as he watched my every move, how he’d looked so jaw-droppingly handsome, and how charming he was outside of his usual work persona.
“If you’re not sure, then you definitely need a second date. You can’t say no to an ‘I don’t know.’ You need to be certain when you tell me no.”
I laughed at this logic and said, “I don’t know,” again.
“You’re proving my point. Kate, I’d really like to sway you to a definite yes for next time, but that can only happen if you let me take you out this weekend.”
Suddenly, a yes was inevitable. I’d imagined he’d try to take me out in the next couple of days, but for some reason, the idea of waiting five days until the weekend seemed like a lifetime. I wanted to self-flagellate for being so weak.
“Yes,” I said, shutting my eyes tight as if waiting for lightning to strike me or the floor underneath to open up like a trapdoor.
Nothing so dramatic happened.
“Thank you. You’ll have a good time. I’m positive. I’ll be out of town for the next few days, but I’ll pick you up on Saturday at 5 o’clock. Does that work?”
“Yes,” I said, my eyes wide open now as I giddily paced my bedroom. I glanced at myself in the mirror as I passed it, my grin reflecting back at me.
I stuck my tongue out at myself.
We hung up a few moments later, just after he called me beautiful again and said he couldn’t wait. I told myself this wasn’t about romance—it was about information. If something bad were going on with Maggie, then I had to help her. Like Grant and Kaitlin, I was following a lead.
That’s all this was.
Right?