THW BILLIONAIRE WIFE DISAPPEARED

Chapter Two: First Impressions

I noticed it before I could even name it.

A pause. Barely half a second. It happens right after I introduce myself that first morning, right when Kingsley's eyes drop down to my name on the new-hire paperwork Clara handed him.

He doesn't say anything. He just looks at the page a beat longer than a name should ever need, then looks back up at me like nothing happened at all.

I tell myself I imagined it.

By ten a.m. I'm at my desk outside his office, working through the Whitmore file, and by ten thirty, I've almost forgotten about the pause completely. Almost.

You're staring at his door, Clara says, dropping a stack of folders on my desk without asking.

I'm not staring.

You've looked at it four times in the last two minutes.

I'm listening in case he needs something, I say, straightening the folders mostly just to give my hands something to do. That's the job.

Sure it is, she says. Her smile fades just a little, and something shifts in her voice before she catches herself and heads off toward the copy room.

I turn back to the Whitmore file.

The numbers on page eleven don't add up. I catch it on the second read-through, a small gap in the Q3 totals, small enough that anyone skimming past would miss it completely. Not small in dollar terms, though. Somewhere around four hundred thousand, unaccounted for, moved between two line items that never should have touched each other.

I almost flagged it as a formatting error. Then, I see the initials scrawled in the margin next to the discrepancy. Not Kingsley's. Not anyone in finance, I recognize.

D.W.

I don't know why my stomach tightens, looking at those two letters. I just know that it does.

The intercom buzzes at eleven.

Stephanie. My office.

I grab my notepad and the file and go in.

Kingsley's standing at the window with his back to the door, phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and clipped in a way that makes me hover just inside the doorway instead of announcing myself. I catch a few words. Containing it before it reaches the board. Then he hangs up fast, the second he notices my reflection in the glass.

He turns around. For just a second, something in his face hasn't fully settled yet - some tightness around his eyes, and then it smooths over the moment he sees me watching.

The Whitmore file, he says. You get through it?

This morning, I say. I hesitate, deciding against mentioning the pause from earlier, but not against mentioning the numbers. There's a gap in the Q3 totals. Page eleven. Around four hundred thousand, unaccounted for.

Something moves across his face. Not surprise exactly. It's more like he already knew, and he hadn't expected me to find it this fast.

Show me, he says.

I hand him the file. He flips straight to page eleven, and I watch his jaw tighten the second he sees the margin note.

Where did this come from, he says. Quiet. Too quiet.

It was already there, I told him. I didn't write it.

He stares at those two initials for a long moment. When he finally looks back up at me, whatever had been sitting behind his eyes a second ago is gone, replaced with something careful and deliberate. Like a door swinging shut right in front of me.

Leave this with me, he says. Don't mention it to anyone. Not Clara. Not accounting. Nobody.

Why?

Because I asked you not to, he says, flat, final. Then, quieter, as if it costs him something to say it. Good catch, though. Most people wouldn't have looked twice.

You're not going to tell me what it means.

No, he says and closes the file. Not today.

I leave his office with more questions than I walked in with, and this sick, sinking feeling that I've stepped into something I don't understand yet, something bigger than a job.

Clara finds me at lunch, drops into the chair across from my desk, and steals a chip off my plate without asking.

He kept you in there a while, she says. What'd he want?

Nothing important. The lie comes out easier than I expect it to, and I hate that it does.

She studies me for a second too long. You should be careful around him.

Why?

She hesitates, and for one second, I actually think she's going to tell me. Then she just shakes her head, stands up, and brushes crumbs off her lap.

Because people who get close to Kingsley usually end up regretting it, she says. She says it lightly, like it's a joke that isn't quite a joke, and walks off before I can ask her anything else.

I sit there with the rest of my lunch going cold, turning that sentence over and over in my head, wondering exactly how many people she means. Wondering what happened to them.

By six, the floor's empty except for me and, apparently, him. I hear his door open behind me.

You're still here, he says.

Finishing something up.

He comes around and leans against the edge of my desk, arms crossed, watching me with an expression I can't quite place. It's not cold. Not warm, either. Somewhere caught in between, like he hasn't decided yet how much of himself to let me see.

About this morning, he says. The file.

I already told you I won't mention it.

I know. I believe you. He looks at me a moment longer than the conversation really calls for. I just need you to trust that there's a reason I'm asking.

That's hard to do when you won't give me one.

Something almost like a smile crosses his face, gone before it fully lands. Fair.

Is that all?

Go home, Stephanie, he says, pushing off the desk. The file will still be there tomorrow. So will the questions.

I pack up slower than I need to, replaying the whole day in my head. The pause at the introduction. The initials on page eleven. The way his voice dropped when he asked me where that note came from. None of it adds up the way a normal first day is supposed to.

I'm in the parking garage, halfway to my car, when my phone buzzes.

Unknown number.

Stop looking into the Whitmore file. This is the only warning you'll get.

I freeze halfway across the garage, phone lit up in my shaking hand, cold prickling up my arms that has nothing to do with the night air.

I hadn't told anyone I was looking into it.

Nobody except Kingsley.