Chapter 5: The Watch

Ivy saw me, and for a second her face went still.

Then she smiled and held up her wrist so the whole lobby could see.

"Hallie! Look what was waiting for me."

The watch slid down over her hand. It was a size too big.

"Mr. Maddox gave it to me this morning," she said, and she said it to the room. "He said I'd earned it."

Several people looked at Elliot.

Several people looked at me.

I knew exactly what she was doing. She was putting me in the lobby with two hundred witnesses and letting me watch my old life go on her arm.

"I did not," Elliot said.

His voice carried to the back of the marble.

Ivy turned. Her smile stayed in place, but her eyes went to him very quickly.

"Oh," she said. "I'm so sorry, sir. I found it in the top drawer of the desk, and it had no box, and I thought it came with the job."

"It does not come with the job."

"I thought it was left for the next assistant." She laughed, a little shaky laugh. "I didn't mean anything by it. I'll take it off right now."

She fumbled with the clasp.

She was good.

She had even left a tremble in her fingers. Nobody who watched her would have believed she had done it on purpose.

I almost didn't believe it myself.

Then I remembered the coffee order, which no one had written down.

Elliot held out his palm.

Ivy put the watch into it.

He looked at it for a moment, then turned and handed it to the security guard.

"Lock that in the front desk safe," he said. "Nobody takes it out except her."

He didn't look at me when he said it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Stole My Job… And My Nightmare! from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.