Kat rubbed her hands together as she exited the elevator onto the fourth floor. She shuffled towards her office, grateful to be out of the cold. She stopped when she saw her office door. It was partially ajar, and it was obvious from the damaged doorjamb that it had been forced open. Someone had been here.
She debated calling Marcus before entering. But that would only invite more questions and delays. She didn’t have time for that right now. First she needed to change, pull her Edgewater report from the remote data storage, and change passwords to minimize Nathan and Victoria’s access to her files.
She pushed the door open slowly and listened. Hearing no one, she entered and searched around, starting with the reception area and then the kitchen and two offices. She relaxed a bit when she realized whoever had been here was gone.
The office looked exactly as it had before, except Harry and Jace were conspicuously absent. The thought of Harry gave her a twinge. At least he was with Hillary.
Kat punched in Jace’s cell phone number. Her anxiety grew when she realized there were no messages from him on her office phone. There were, however, half a dozen messages from Zachary. Angry messages, asking why the hell she hadn’t called.
She knew she should call Zachary. Calls to her cell phone would have gone unanswered too, and given his tenuous financial straits, he had every right to an update. But he’d have to wait until their meeting a few hours from now. Right now she had more urgent things to worry about. Like finding Jace.
Jace would leave a voicemail here and at home, after being unable to reach her on her cell phone. She was sure of that. Dread enveloped her.
She hung up after a dozen rings and glanced at the message pad beside the phone. Furious indecipherable scribbles ran off the page. The few words she could make out were misspelled and repeated. Harry had always been a stickler for penmanship, but the tangles of dementia had overcome him in just a few short months. It broke her heart to watch him deteriorate.
That was when she noticed a square-shaped bare spot on the desk. Harry’s desktop computer was gone. Kat swore under her breath. Without her laptop or Harry’s computer, she couldn’t retrieve her Edgewater report or the supporting documents from the remote server. She had to go home.
Kat called home, only to hear a recording of Jace’s voice. Tears welled up as she listened. What if she never saw him again? Wherever he was, he’d be counting on her to find him.
She looked up the number for the Hideaway Bay RCMP and waited uneasily. After six rings, her call went to voicemail. She slumped in Harry’s chair. What kind of cop shop didn’t answer the phone? She left a message and then slammed the handset down, fuming. Jace was missing, and she was completely at a loss on what to do next.
Harry’s house and cell numbers went unanswered too. She realized she didn’t even have Hillary’s phone number. Harry no longer remembered phone numbers, so it was unlikely he’d call the office, even though her office and home numbers were programmed into his phone. He’d had difficulty using his new phone, a replacement for the one he had lost a few months ago. Maybe Hillary would call. At some point her patience would wear thin, and she would want to dump him off so she could concentrate on her social life.
She had second thoughts about Zachary and called him to postpone the meeting. She was relieved when she got his voicemail instead. For a guy conjoined to his cell phone, Zachary was surprisingly impossible to reach. She decided against leaving a message. She had just enough time to get home and back. Besides, she needed to talk to Zachary in person about Nathan and Victoria and last night’s events. She also needed time to figure out her approach. What if Nathan’s accusations about Zachary were true?
How else could Zachary trade fictitious amounts and not know it? How could he be unaware of such a huge Ponzi scheme? You’d have to be an idiot not to know the trades weren’t being executed.
She checked her watch and realized she needed to get moving if she was to be back in time. But first she did a quick walk-through of the office. Nothing else appeared to be missing.
She paused at the bathroom mirror. Her tangled hair framed a grubby face covered in scratches from her struggle with Victoria. Where the dirt on her face came from she had no idea. No wonder Marcus had backed away.
She rifled through the wicker basket she kept her running clothes in and managed to find a tracksuit, socks, and an old jacket. Enough to get her home without freezing to death again.
She still needed bus or cab fare. After coming up empty in her office, she padded down the hall to Harry’s desk. She rifled through his desk drawer, hoping for enough loose change for bus fare.
Harry’s top drawer was a mess. Elastics and paperclips tangled together in clumps. She pulled out everything one by one and deposited it on the desk. Two staplers, tape with grit stuck to it, three pairs of reading glasses, and a bottle of expired ibuprofen. She opened the bottle and popped two of the pills, hoping to dull her aching head.
Kat picked up a small metal Sucrets© box and shook it. It was rusted from age, but the clinking sound was promising. A masking tape labeled change was affixed to the top. She opened it and found loose change and two twenty-dollar bills. She counted it, pocketed the money, and dropped an IOU into the box.
Then she noticed the two keys. The first was a spare office key. The other appeared identical to Harry’s house key—same as the one on her keychain. It suddenly occurred to her that her own house key was in her purse, which was still up at the resort. She grabbed Harry’s key. At least it allowed her to retrieve her own spare key at Harry’s house if he wasn’t home.
She closed the drawer and opened the second one. It was almost empty, a sharp contrast from Harry’s usual clutter. As a matter of fact, it was spartan. Completely different from his other drawers. Odd. She remembered that Harry kept something there for safekeeping but couldn’t recall exactly what it was. It had to be something important, though, since Harry never left empty spaces. Just as he filled up a room with his presence, so did his stuff. She had never been more conscious of that emptiness than she was right now.