The Unseen Enemy Series

Chapter 106

Cordelia Patton was happier than she’d been in years. She had given her notice at Blue Star within an hour of her interview with Dallas the week before, and she was now at Solid Security, signing the final papers for her son’s medical insurance. Dallas had promised to make sure that she had what she needed to get Sean all the treatment that he required, and Dallas was as good as his word. Cordelia walked out of the HR office, relieved and excited to start work the next week.

She looked around the offices, liking the energy, the open space. That was when she saw Greg Wallace walking with Olivia Jameson, headed into the same conference room where Cordelia’s interview had taken place.

Urgh. I had hoped to never see his horrible face ever again.

She put on her winter coat and started to wrap her scarf around her neck. Then she paused. Something was bothering her, and she stood still, wondering what was wrong. Her mind turned to Greg and Olivia, and she blinked. Then it hit her.

Wait a minute. Why the hell is Greg here? He’s supposed to be at that security conference in Colorado Springs…

She tugged on her hat slowly, located her mittens in her coat pocket, her mind still whirring about Greg being in Denver. Maybe he came back early? Maybe it was dull and useless? Maybe he had never gone to the conference at all, and just used it as an excuse to play hooky from work for a few days?

Cordelia dug her car keys out of her purse, and headed for the exit. She was almost outside, almost on her way out the door, when her whole body and mind told her to turn around again. She froze. The last time her intuition had screamed at her like this, it had been when Sean’s doctor had told her that his dizzy spells and seizures were epilepsy, and the dramatic changes in his personality were just normal childhood temper tantrums. Her whole body had reacted to the man’s words – rejected them, known on a cellular level that he was wrong. And right now, right at this moment, her whole body knew that Greg being here with Olivia was wrong.

She saw a large man standing by the door, looking at the conference room, a frown on his face. Cordelia approached him.

“Excuse me?” she said hesitantly.

The man turned ferocious black eyes on her. “Yes?”

She swallowed. “I’m very sorry to bother you… I just wanted to ask about Mr. Wallace being here.”

The man stared at her in surprise.

“Why?” he grated out.

“Because I worked for him… still do, actually, until the end of this week. Then I start here, you see, and I know I’m being presumptuous asking about clients like Liv when I don’t officially work here yet, and I apologize again… but what is Greg doing here?” She quaked under that increasingly-fierce glare. “He’s supposed to be in Colorado Springs, you see.”

“He said that he was at the office this morning, and he found that Olivia had been overcharged on her last invoice. They’re going over the details now and he’ll issue a refund.”

Cordelia blinked. “But that’s all impossible.”

“Why?” The man looked completely alert.

“Because first, I prepared that invoice personally, and it was perfect. Second, he’s accidentally overcharged clients before and has never issued a refund when I informed him of that fact – not once, not ever. And third, he wasn’t at the office this morning.” She gulped as the man’s face hardened even more. “He hasn’t been at the office for the past three days.”

Sully stared at the woman in front of him, her words hitting him like punches. He turned to look at the closed conference room door, his whole body telling him to get Olivia the hell out of there.

Goddammit.

He reached for his phone, realized that in his tiredness, he’d left it in his coat pocket… and his coat was in the SUV. The dark-haired woman watched, amazed and a bit afraid, as Sully shot out the door, back to the vehicle. When he saw that he’d missed nineteen calls from Dallas, his worst fears were realized and he closed his eyes.

In less than two seconds, Sully had slowed down his heart rate and cleared his mind. He opened the office door and quietly signalled for everyone to evacuate right away. The staff stared, but asked no questions as they filed out silently.

Sully approached the conference room with his gun drawn, listening intently for any noise at all. His back flat against the wall, he peered through the long vertical pane of glass, drew back, looked again. What he saw froze his blood.

Oh, f**k. f**k, no.