A Twisted Love Story(9)

Not tonight, though. Tonight is about Wes.

Again.

Six thirty on a Friday evening, and almost everyone is gone. The only one left is Tanner. Though she’s heard others say that he sometimes acts like an overgrown frat boy, he is actually a very hard worker. One of the last to leave the office, even right before the weekend.

Bianca stays, cleaning out her inbox and writing up meeting notes, until Tanner finally comes out of his office.

“Go home,” he says to her. “It’s Friday.”

“I’m just about done.”

Tanner smiles. “No big plans tonight? I can’t believe that.”

She waves goodbye, doesn’t answer.

He walks down the hall and gets on the elevator, but she still doesn’t move. Bianca waits another fifteen minutes, just in case Tanner forgot something and returns. When he doesn’t, she takes out the nesting dolls to get the key. It’s just after seven, which gives her several hours before the overnight cleaning crew starts to arrive. Plenty of time.

Wes doesn’t have a corner office, because he isn’t a manager or director, but it’s respectable enough. Decent size, plenty of seating for clients, including a small couch in the far corner. His desk is neat—no papers, no sticky notes—clear of all clutter. The Siphon employee handbook specifically states that any personal items are to be “tasteful and limited.” Wes has only one that’s visible: a picture of himself, his sister, and his parents.

In his top drawer, he has a few things pushed into the far corner. A brass key chain, tarnished and scratched and engraved with a heart, along with a deflated HAPPY BIRTHDAY balloon, and an old parking sticker for a downtown garage. She found all of those a long time ago.

Bianca sits down in front of his computer. Some of the reps have given her their passwords; they often ask her to check their emails when they’re on vacation or out of the office. Those are the reps who keep their personal business on their phone or a different email. Wes is one of them.

One glance at his inbox tells her nothing has changed. All work-related, nothing of interest. But that’s not why she’s here, because if she wanted to see his emails, she could access them through her own computer. What Bianca wants to see is his calendar. On her side, she has a limited view. Business hours only. His entire calendar is only accessible through his computer or his phone.

She pulls up yesterday, which shows his day is blocked off for the evening, starting at five thirty. The only explanation is two letters:

    AB



No idea what that means, but Wes didn’t leave the office at five thirty last night. After the detective left, he stayed in his office for a long time. Didn’t leave until after six.

Tonight, the first part of the evening is blocked off for the basketball game. He’s the kind of guy who always has his schedule planned out, even for social activities. Bianca knew about the game—the reps have been talking about it all day, and right now they’re all watching it at Scooter’s. Wes’s calendar is marked off until ten thirty.

Another engagement starts then, and it’s marked with a different letter:

    I



AB one night, I the next. Her first thought is women. Maybe one of them is the reason why that detective showed up.

Or maybe the letters have nothing to do with that. It could be something about a project or a deal. Impossible to know without more information.

Bianca looks ahead on the calendar, to next week, but sees only business dinners and another night marked off for a basketball game. Nothing of note for the rest of the month, no further letters or strange plans.

She checks his internet browser history, skimming through the news and sports sites, looking for anything unusual. Not tonight.

After locking up Wes’s office, she takes a glance through a few others. Might as well, since her key is out and no one is around. She learns one of the guys is still cheating on his wife, Dana has started seeing a guy in accounting, and a sticky note on Tanner’s desk makes Bianca think he has a new woman in his life. He doesn’t send flowers to just anyone, but someone named Julia will be getting a delivery tomorrow.

Bianca double-checks that she leaves the offices exactly as she found them and that the doors are all locked. When everything is in order, she puts her key back and leaves. Her knowledge about people comes from intuition. Snooping just fills in the blanks.

If she didn’t snoop, she wouldn’t know about Wes. Wouldn’t be watching him so closely.

About a month ago, she was making her rounds. She doesn’t do it too often, because she doesn’t want to get caught, but enough to know what’s going on with everybody. When Bianca checked Wes’s internet history, a donation site popped up in his browser: the Joseph A. Fisher Memorial Fund.

Joey Fisher.

Of all the things she has discovered at Siphon—the affairs, the interoffice politics, the gossip—this one shocked her the most.





9




I’ll text you when the game is over, Wes had said.

The game is over. Ivy knows who won. She even knows the score. What she doesn’t know is why there’s no text from Wes. It would be fine if she texted him first. They are back together, after all. Not dating—in a relationship. She can text anytime she wants.

In theory.

In reality, she won’t. Because she shouldn’t have to.