She Stole My Job… And My Nightmare! novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Group Chat

On Monday morning I went back to the forty-first floor for my plant.

It was a small jade plant in a chipped blue mug, and it had sat on the corner of my desk for four years.

I wasn't going to leave it there.

The elevator doors opened, and the whole floor looked up at once.

Nobody said a word.

Someone's phone buzzed, and that was the only sound.

I walked past forty cubicles with my chin up.

Every screen I passed had the same picture on it.

My back against a green door, and my hands in Elliot Maddox's hair.

The desk outside his office was clean.

Ivy sat behind it with a pen in her hand and a fresh coffee at her elbow.

She stood up the second she saw me.

"Hallie! Oh my gosh, you came."

"I came for my plant."

"It's right here. I've been watering it." She lifted it carefully in both hands. "I wanted to say, I'm so happy for you. Honestly. I think it's sweet."

"You posted that photograph."

"Oh, that." She tilted her head. "Someone sent it to me, and I thought everyone should know you're okay. People were worried when you left."

Her voice was warm and a little hurt, and she said it loud enough for the cubicles to hear.

If I hadn't known better I would have thanked her.

"Someone sent it to you," I said.

"Yes."

"It was taken from across the street from my sister's building. On Friday night at ten past ten."

Ivy blinked.

"That's a long lens," I said. "That's someone who stood on a Queens sidewalk with a camera and waited."

"Hallie, I don't know who..."

"Who knew where I'd be?" I asked. "I told one person. I texted it to him Thursday night. Nobody else."

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