“Is Hailey here?”

I burst through the door of Dark Brown Coffee Co, sending the bell overhead into a whirling frenzy that earns me stares from the few other people in the store. I ignore them, repeating my question as I walk up to the wide-eyed girl behind the counter.

She shakes her head, her eyebrows raised so high from the shock of my dramatic entrance that they’re in danger of colliding with her hairline.

“No. She left awhile ago. She said she felt sick, but she looked really upset. Did something happen? I texted her to ask if she was okay, but she won’t answer.”

“Shit,” I hiss, whipping out my phone and sending yet another text off to Hailey.

Her ex-boyfriend actually tried to punch me in the face when I went to follow her to the elevators, and by the time a few of my team members got up to pull him off me, she was already gone. I demanded to see whatever he’d shown her on his phone, and felt the sky come crashing down on me when I saw the message from Ludo.

Glad to see you’re moving on from latte girls and hitting the big leagues.

I lurched towards the computer screen they’d been looking at, and there were Nina Felina and I, sucking face on the front page of a celebrity news site. Now I know what Nina meant when she said she’d got what she wanted.

I rushed through the building, sending Hailey frantic texts all the while and even stopping to call her when I found her coffee cart sitting abandoned in a conference room. I should have just come to Dark Brown right away.

“Um, hello?” asks the girl at the counter, as I stare down at my phone. “Is she alright?”

I turn my attention back to her. “I think so. She’s just...she’s upset with me.”

The girl’s expression darkens, making her innocent little pixie features look suddenly fierce.

“What did you do?” she demands.

“We just— Look, there’s been a misunderstanding,” I explain. “Can you ask her where she is? I need to talk to her.”

The urgency I feel makes me speak louder than I meant to, and another woman pops her head out of the kitchen at the sound of my raised voice.

“Trisha, you okay? What’s going on out here?”

“I’m looking for Hailey,” I explain.

The woman shares a look with the girl behind the counter and then narrows her eyes at me. “Hailey’s not here.”

“But I need to know where she is!” I shout, frustration getting the better of me.

Angry pixie girl takes a step back and the two women look at one another again.

“I think you need to leave now,” says the one in the kitchen.

I’m about ready to drop to my knees and start begging for information. “Please. I just need to talk to her.”

I sound like a deranged stalker boyfriend, and the two of them are clearly thinking along the same lines, because the woman in the kitchen steps out and threatens to call the authorities if I don’t leave right away. Figuring an encounter with the police is the last thing I need right now, I turn and walk out of the store.

Back out on 19^th Street, I scan the sidewalks as if I’m hoping to see Hailey standing there, or at least a clue that will tell me where she went. I wander the few steps to the Knox Building and sit down on the front steps. Then I do the only thing I can do. I take my phone out and dial her number again.

After three rings her voice comes on the line and I jump, but it’s only the recording for her voicemail. I wait for the long beep and then draw in a breath.

“Hailey...”

Nothing else follows. All I can think of his her face after she read Ludo’s email. I try to summon up the concentration to speak.

“Hailey, please, I need to talk to you,” I begin. “I’m not trying to excuse myself. I’m not even asking you to forgive me. I just want a chance to explain. This all started with one little rumour that got out of hand. I shouldn’t have let it get so far. I should have tried harder to stop it, I know that. It’s...my family, there’s—”

The same lump in my throat that appears each time I try to talk about my mom starts to choke out the rest of my words, so I change the subject.

“And those pictures, that girl, I know how cliché this sounds, but she came right at me. If someone had taken a picture a second later you would have seen me trying to get her off me. There’s nothing between us. I left the party right after that happened. I never meant for things to get this bad. Please just call me. I need to hear you. I need to know you’re okay. I’ve done a shitty, shitty job of showing how much you mean to me but...please. Please just call.”

The beep of the message cutting off stops me from saying anything else.

People in winter jackets file past me on the stairs as I continue to sit there in just my suit. I don’t know if I’m shaking from the cold or from how angry I feel at myself. I stare up at the concrete buildings around me, searching for an answer among the miles of tinted windows. They give nothing away.

My phone buzzes. There’s a text from Hailey:

You told me not to let other people’s expectations control my life. I wish you’d taken your own advice. Please don’t contact me anymore.

Whatever lifeline I’ve been holding onto until now slips through my fingers. I tumble down into the despair I’ve been trying to claw my way out of, but for the first time in my life, I land on something solid: rock bottom.

I get up and square my feet on the stairs.

“No,” I say out loud, my voice as sharp as a knife. “This is not how this ends.”

A man walking past me on the stairs gives me a look. I turn my attention towards him.

“Do you hear me? THIS IS NOT HOW THIS ENDS!” I roar.

Everyone within a ten meter radius pauses to stare at me in alarm, but I’m already running through the entrance of Knox Security.

I fly across the lobby and launch myself into the elevator just as the doors are starting to slide shut. My momentum slows a bit when the ride up is packed with people and takes about five minutes to reach the top floor, but I regain it when I get out and stride towards my father’s office, ignoring the protests of his secretary.

I’m just about to fling the door open when Uncle Ludo walks out. He jumps back when he finds me standing a few inches in front him. I step back and he closes the door behind him.

“Jordan, my boy. Speak of the devil.”

“What?” I growl, wishing he’d move and let me into the office.

“Your father and I were just discussing you.”

“I have some things to discuss with him too,” I answer through gritted teeth.

Ludo raises his eyebrows. “Well, Jordan, I don’t think this is exactly the time.”

He reaches to put a hand on my shoulder and draws me away from the door. “Your father is a bit...unimpressed with the whole incident this morning.”

“Incident?” I repeat.

“Yes, he’s unhappy that there was such a...scene, if you will. He says he hoped you’d be capable of being more professional. I did my best to—”

“More professional?” I shout, cutting Ludo off as the blood starts boiling in my veins once again. “He’s telling me to pretend to have an affair with a client and he wants to talk to me about being professional?”

“Jordan, this really isn’t the time or place. We’ve just had to fire that intern you had a meeting with this mo—”

“You fired him? What the hell did you fire him for?”

My voice echoes around the reception area. Ludo casts a glance over to the secretary, who’s staring at his computer in an attempt to pretend he’s not listening.

“Why don’t we go to my office, Jordan?”

“I don’t want to go to your office. I want to tell my father I hate him and that he’s an insane person bent on ruining my life for his own gain.”

I’m panting now, all of my muscles tensed as I glare at my father’s office door. Ludo still has his hand on my shoulder and he pulls me backwards as I go to take a step.

“Trust me, my boy, you don’t want to go in there now. Not like this.”

“Like what?” I snap.

“Look at you, Jordan. You’ve practically got steam coming out of your ears.”

He gives a wary laugh, patting my shoulder with the hesitancy of someone stroking a man-eating tiger, and I take a moment to assess the truth of his words.

I want to cut through my father’s defenses, break down the steel wall he puts up, but right now, with anger burning in me so hot I see red, all I’d be doing is pounding my fists against the metal. I need time to sharpen my thoughts into a weapon that will bring him down.

I suck in a breath and unclench my fists. Ludo releases my arm.

“That’s it. Let’s just take a step back, why don’t we? There you go, easy does it.”

He continues talking to me like he’s soothing a dangerous animal as we make our way to the elevator and down to his office.

He takes a seat behind his desk and motions for me to pull up a chair.

“So, having some troubles with the ladies are we?” he asks with a knowing smile. “I take it your little latte girl found out about Miss Felina and didn’t want to share?

“That’s not what this is about,” I say, my voice hard.

“Aren’t the ladies what it’s always about? Jugs, my boy: can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

He throws up his hands as if even he can’t believe what a genius statement he’s just made. I just stare.

“Oh, excuse me for a minute,” he says, holding up a finger. “I just remembered an email I need to send off.”

He opens up his computer and the realization of what I’ve overlooked all this time hits me like a blow to the head, so hard I almost sway in my chair.

The answer I’ve needed, the clue that could turn everything around, has been right in front of me all this time. It takes everything in me not to lunge at the computer straight away.

My father can control me because obeying him is the only chance I have of finding out where my mother is. As he’s pointed out before, he’s the head of a security company; if he doesn’t want me to know something, I won’t. I didn’t think I’d find a slip up anywhere, but Ludo, pastrami-smelling, woman-obsessed, completely unprofessional Ludo, might just be the weakest link. He’s one of the only people who know about my mother, and as he’s already proved once today, keeping email exchanges quiet isn’t really his forte.

I just have to get him out of the room long enough to take a look at his computer.

“You know, you’re right, Uncle Ludo. The ladies are what it’s always about.”

Ludo nods as he continues typing out his email.

“Like that woman at the copy machine we passed on the way in here,” I add. “Did you see the way she filled out that skirt?”

“I don’t think I noticed her,” says Ludo, raising his eyes to look at me.

“You didn’t notice her?” I demand, feigning shock. “Ludo, she has one of the best asses I’ve ever seen. You have to go take a look.”

“Oh really? It was that good?”

I try to keep myself from cringing as I answer him. “It was more than good. It was mind-blowing, so...plump and, um, shapely.”

“Plump and shapely has my name written all over it. This I have to see.”

He gets up and pokes his head out of the doorway.

“Damn it!” he exclaims. “She must have left.” He starts to head back towards his seat.

“She can’t have gone far,” I urge. “You really do have to see her.”

“I guess I could take a wander down the hall.”

I give him an encouraging smile and nod my head. The second he’s out the door I dart behind the desk and swear when I see the session has timed out and the logon screen is up, asking me for a password.

While I have more technical skills than most people, my knowledge of hacking is next to zero. I follow basic security guidelines with my own work passwords and use a random combination of numbers and letters that I change every month. My luck today depends on Ludo not being as smart. I try typing in ‘password’ and ‘12345678’ just to cover the obvious, then curse myself for not being able to remember his birthday.

If I were a chauvinist, what would my password be?

I try ‘ladies.’ I try ‘girls.’ I picture Ludo cupping his hands in front of his chest to indicate boobs as I type in the word ‘jugs.’

His inbox pops up in front of me.

I feel moved to do some kind of celebration dance that involves whipping my shirt off and swinging it around my head, but time is limited. I pull up the search feature and type in my mom’s name.

The word ‘Rosalind’ brings up dozens of messages from what appears to be about three years’ worth of email history. I scroll through the results and scan the sentences that show her highlighted name. The older ones all say things like “Rosalind will be attending the dinner. Please bring someone to accompany you as well,” and “I will need to postpone the banquet as Rosalind is indisposed.” The more recent messages all contain variations of “I will be visiting Rosalind,” but I can’t find any mention of where.

I glance up at the doorway. Ludo will be back any second. I double check all the messages around the time of my mother’s stroke, and my eyes land on a sentence I must have skipped over before.

I will not be at the department head meeting as Rosalind is being moved to the Bernstein Centre that day.

I hear footsteps in the hallways and jump up, closing the search page and stepping away from the desk just as Ludo walks in.

“Couldn’t find her anywhere. What a shame,” he mutters, and then notices I’m standing up. “Going somewhere?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer, heading for the door. “There’s something I have to do.”