Holly opened the door and winced at who she found on the other side.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Louise demanded, shouldering past Holly and into the hallway. “I’m calling the police. You just can’t take no for an answer, can you? Honestly, she kicked you out, Holly. Take a hint.” She pulled her phone out of her coat pocket.
Holly easily pulled the phone out of Louise’s hand and held it out of reach. “Whoa, hold on,” Holly said. “I can explain.”
“Who’s this?” Jazz asked, exiting the kitchen and looking at Louise who was now jumping in an attempt to grab her phone from Holly’s hand.
“Who are you?” Louise retaliated, stopping her battle for the device and smoothing her clothes to make herself appear a little more presentable and a little less deranged.
Jazz smiled at the irate woman and then looked at Holly. “Who’s this?” they repeated.
“Louise, Victoria’s first assistant,” Holly explained.
Louise looked between Holly and Jazz in exasperation. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Victoria and I didn’t break up,” Holly said. “It was an act to try to flush out someone who sent me anonymous emails and photoshopped images of Victoria in compromising situations.”
Louise’s jaw dropped open, and she stared at Holly in shock. Holly knew that Louise wouldn’t take the news well; for one, she was thoroughly enjoying her role in ejecting Holly from Victoria’s life.
“Jazz is a computer specialist who is helping me figure out who sent the emails,” she added.
Louise punched Holly in the arm.
“Ow! What was that for?” Holly demanded, rubbing her arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped!” Louise said, anger in her voice.
“You were a suspect,” Jazz added unhelpfully.
Holly cast them a look, but Jazz ignored her and continued to look at Louise with a lopsided grin.
Oh great, Holly thought, knowing that look all too well. She’d seen Jazz crush on women once or twice before. She didn’t need to think about Jazz and Louise together.
“I was a suspect?” Louise rounded on Holly again.
Holly raised her hands in defence. “Everyone was a suspect,” she corrected, tossing another look at Jazz, pleading with them to shut up.
“But you were quite high on the list,” Jazz added unhelpfully. “Being so close to Victoria and everything.”
“Where is she, anyway?” Louise asked. “I need to drop off this USB stick. She’s going to kill me. I thought I gave it to her, but when I got home, I realised it was still plugged into my laptop. I rushed over here.”
Holly bit her lip and shook her head sadly. Any residual possibility that Louise was involved was now surely gone. She was innocent—and as useless as Holly was.
“She’s missing,” Holly said.
Louise stared at Holly for a beat before she held out her hand. “Give me my phone. Now. I’m calling the police.”
“We can’t call the police,” Holly said, keeping the phone away from her.
“Victoria Hastings is missing,” Louise said slowly, as if Holly were an idiot. “One of the wealthiest women in New York. We don’t wait to tell the police. There’s no twenty-four-hour rule when it’s Victoria.”
Jazz took a step forward. “It’s not that simple.”
Louise rounded on Jazz, put her hands on her hips, and stared them down. “Oh, really? Why not?”
“Because the police will think she’s been embezzling from Arrival and that she’s on the run,” Jazz explained.
Louise blinked a few times, then took a step away from Jazz and turned to Holly again. “What is this crazy person on about?” Louise asked.
“I think we need to get you caught up on everything,” Holly suggested. “Jazz, can you get everything up on your laptop so we can show Louise everything from the beginning?”
“Sure.” Jazz turned on their heel and walked back into the kitchen.
“Where did you find her?” Louise asked with interest.
“Them,” Holly corrected.
Louise’s brow knitted together in confusion. “What?”
“Jazz is non-binary. They prefer to be known as them,” Holly explained.
Louise’s eyes widened. “Fascinating,” she drawled. “Once we find Victoria, I need to know everything.”
“That’s Steven Goodfellow,” Louise said as she clutched a mug of hot coffee in her hands. “Odious little creep. Victoria dated him once.”
“What?” Holly asked, surprised at the revelation.
“Oh, it was ages ago. Didn’t last long from what I heard.” Louise leaned a little closer and looked at the photograph on Jazz’s laptop screen. “He’s furious. And you’re not exactly spreading sunshine smiles either. Not like you at all, Holly.”
Holly’s mind swam with the new information. Steven was Victoria’s ex? She had clearly argued with him in Paris. There was something else; he looked so familiar.
“Does he still look like that?” she asked Louise.
“No, he’s grown his hair out a little and has a little more stubble.” Louise lifted her phone from the table. She’d only been allowed the return of the device after she faithfully promised not to call the police. She pressed a few buttons and then showed the screen to Holly.
“Oh! Yes, I saw him! Just a couple of days ago in the elevator at Arrival,” Holly said. “He was very friendly.”
Jazz stopped staring at Louise to turn and look at Holly. “Well, that’s weird.”
Louise quickly nodded in agreement. “Yes, because this picture was taken on your last day at Arrival. Victoria is going to the Black and White preview here. If I remember her schedule correctly, you later attended the Paul Smith preview with her, and it was soon after that that you vanished.”
Holly realised that the car journey to the Paul Smith preview must have been where she finally built up her courage to tell Victoria that she had feelings for her, only to be shot down.
“So, this was probably the last time Steven saw you, until the other day in the elevator,” Louise finished. “So, for him to be very friendly, after this was the last time he saw you, is very weird.”
“Very weird,” Jazz agreed.
Louise turned to raise an accusing finger at Jazz. “I want you to know that I’m not happy about you hacking my boss’s computer.”
Jazz grinned and leaned back on their chair. “Want me to hack yours instead?”
Louise sighed and rolled her eyes. “No. That’s not the point.”
Jazz pulled the laptop closer and typed.
Louise ignored them and turned back to Holly. “Now that I’m not on your stupid list of suspects, may I recommend that you put Steven on there?”
“He is on there,” Holly confirmed, “and he is rising to the top of the list. What else do we know about him?”
“Ta-da!” Jazz turned the laptop screen to face them.
Louise looked at it and sighed dramatically. “No.”
Jazz frowned. “Yes.”
“No,” Louise repeated.
“Yes,” Jazz argued. “This is your laptop. Trust me.”
“No, that’s not my desktop. My desktop looks nothing like that. My icons are properly organised, for one.” Louise pointed at the haphazard icons that littered the screen. “This, this is the work of a madman.”
Jazz turned the screen around. “This is your machine. The asset ID is yours.”
Louise let out a tired sigh and opened her bag. She pulled out her laptop and opened the lid.
“This is my machine.” She gestured to the immaculate desktop. “A place for everything, and everything in its pla—”
Jazz grabbed the machine, closed the lid, and turned it over.
“Hey,” Louise said.
Jazz ignored her, looking at the barcode on the bottom of the machine, and then typing something on their own computer.
Louise took her computer back. “You need to work on your manners.”
“What is it, Jazz?” Holly asked.
Jazz looked up, confusion written all over their face. “Every device at Arrival has an asset ID. It’s assigned to a user so that corporate knows who has what. The asset ID on that laptop, is, well, it’s yours.”
“Mine?” Holly asked.
“Yours. Which is weird, because your asset ID was deactivated when you didn’t come back from Paris. But it’s here.” Jazz pointed at the laptop that Louse held in her hands.
“So, that was my laptop in Paris?” Holly confirmed.
Louise put the laptop on the desk and stared at it in confusion. “How on earth do I have Holly’s laptop? It was filed as missing when she left.” She regarded Jazz suspiciously before she leaned in close to Holly. “Are you sure this person is a computer expert?”
“Hey,” Jazz said. “It’s not my fault Arrival can’t keep their asset IDs updated.”
Louise continued to look at Holly, her tone wondering if they should really be pinning everything they knew on Jazz.
“I trust Jazz,” Holly said.
Louise let out a breath and tapped her fingers on the device, deep in thought.
Holly stood up and started to pace the kitchen. So far, they were no closer to finding Victoria. If anything, she just had more questions.
“Wait a minute,” Louise said. She sat up straight and looked from Jazz to Holly. “My laptop started acting up not long after Victoria got back from Paris. I remember it because she was an absolute beast and my machine was running slow and kept crashing—not something you want when Victoria’s on the rampage. I called IT, but they’re useless. I went down there and they were running around like headless chickens, so I just took one of the spare ones from the hot-desking shelf.”
Holly crossed the room, took the laptop from Louise’s hands, and stared at it in confusion. “So, this is my laptop?”
Holly and Louise looked at Jazz, who was still typing and looking at random lines of code on their screen.
“I think it is, but I’ll need to investigate it further to be certain,” they replied.
“Which means someone brought my laptop back,” Holly said.
“Victoria said all your belongings were gone,” Louise explained. “She told me to file your laptop and phone as missing.”
Holly felt faint. Louise took the laptop from her hands and gave it to Jazz before gesturing for her to sit down. Someone had taken her laptop, maybe her other belongings. She’d always assumed that she’d gone back to the hotel, packed up her things, got into an accident, and been mugged, but the presence of the laptop meant that couldn’t be the case.
“What happened to me?” she breathed.
Louise crouched in front of her and took her hands. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
Questions about her accident had always swum in the back of her mind, but she’d never dwelled on them too much. It was possible she’d never know the truth, in which case the assumed version of events was enough for her to get on with her life. But that reality had just been torn up, and Holly had never wanted her memories back as much as she did now.
“There’s a lot of data on this hard drive,” Jazz said, “going back a long way.” They’d already plugged Louise’s laptop into several devices. “I’m going to see what I can recover.”
“You do that. We need to get to Arrival to talk to the night security guard. There’s a guy there I’ve… seen a couple of times,” Louise said as she stood up. “He’ll be able to give us some information, and I trust him to keep things quiet.”
Holly took a few breaths to get herself back into a state where she could function properly. She needed to switch gears and fast. Victoria had to be the priority, even if just thinking about where she could be was giving her heart pain.
“I’ll stay here and see what I can find. Call me if you need anything,” Jazz said.
“Come on.” Louise took Holly by the arm and dragged her from the kitchen. “Let’s find Victoria.”