Logan fidgeted with the empty coffee cup on the break room table as he peered through the blinds covering the glass window that looked out into the hallway. He debated filling it up again, but he’d already had three cups of coffee and that was more than enough to keep him on his toes. Camping out in here was boring, but he needed to keep an eye on Harper, and her office was a few feet down the hall. With the fashion show only a few days away he had the feeling the perpetrator might do something drastic, but he couldn’t pin anything on Harper until he had proof it was her. He’d been shadowing her all morning and hadn’t seen her do anything out of the ordinary. So far, anyway.

He heard a door shut and sprung up from the chair, knowing it had to be Harper’s office door since she was the only other person on the floor at the time. He waited for her to walk past the window, then slowly crept out into the hallway, making sure to stay far enough behind so she wouldn’t see him. He heard the familiar ding of the elevator and waited until he heard the doors open and close, then bolted towards it so he could see what floor she stopped at. The lobby.

He flung open the door that led to the stairway and ran down the concrete stairs to the lobby, skipping over two steps at a time and whipped open the door leading into the lobby as he entered, making a slight ruckus as he did so.

Harper was talking to Myrtle at the reception desk. The two of them looked over at him in surprise, Myrtle’s glasses slid down her nose and her brows climbed her forehead.

“Logan! What’s the rush? How are you? Say, have you met Harper yet?” Myrtle gestured towards Harper with a sly grin on her face.

Shoot! Now he couldn’t follow Harper and see what she was up to. And he really didn’t want to meet her. If she was the culprit, it would make it much harder to turn her in. It was too late now though, the two of them were staring at him, probably wondering why it was taking him so long to answer Myrtle’s question.

“Hi, Myrtle, uhh, no. I haven’t met Harper yet, but I’ve certainly heard some great things about her. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand out towards her as she juggled a large tote bag in her hands to shake his.

He eyed the bag suspiciously. It was too big to be a purse, where was she going in the middle of the work day with it, and what could be inside that would take up so much space? Whenever he’d seen her walking around she either had a clipboard in her hand or nothing at all, never this giant bag thing. Except for the time he’d seen her come out of the room with the lights.

She seemed way too composed for someone who was trying to ruin things for Gertie. She smiled at him and he tried to ignore the way her perfectly white teeth complemented her peaches and cream complexion. After a few beats, he realized he was still holding onto her hand and let go of it quickly, feeling unsure of himself. Awkward. He was usually smooth with the ladies, but this girl wasn’t a lady. She was a suspect. He must be nervous about the fact she could be the saboteur.

He ripped his gaze away from Harper and focused on the receptionist. “Myrtle, your hair looks stunning as always. How’s your day so far? Everything under control?” He swiftly turned his attention to Myrtle, who seemed to love it. He always made a point to be nice to Myrtle because he knew some people treated receptionists like crap, and the reality was, being a receptionist wasn’t an easy job. Not to mention, receptionists knew almost everything going on with all the employees. He knew he needed to stay on Myrtle’s good side.

“Oh, Logan, you are so fresh!” Myrtle chided him, pushing her lime-green glasses up on her nose, the black, white, and yellow beaded eyeglass chain dancing down from her ears.

“Help a girl out, would you? Gertie needs these papers right away. Can you take them up to her for me? I’m swamped!” Myrtle handed Logan a stack of papers from her desk as she gave him a quick wink.

“Of course I can, anything for you,” Logan replied, winking back at her as he took the papers. As he turned to leave, he caught Harper’s eye and was thrown off by the intense midnight-blue color of them. It reminded him of a moonlit ocean late at night. He hesitated for a minute before pulling himself away, muttering, “Nice to meet you, Harper.”

As he headed quickly back upstairs, the unsettling feeling came over him that somehow this PI job had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Harper’s heart skipped a beat as she watched Logan walk off. She’d caught a flicker of emotion in his eyes she couldn’t place, but he’d turned away so fast she was thinking maybe she’d imagined it.

She always liked a tall guy and she guessed Logan was around six foot four. And his eyes! They’d been a dreamy caramel color, the kind that turned gold when the sun hit them just right.

Crap! What was she thinking? Nope. Don’t go there, she scolded herself as she adjusted the thick straps on her tote bag. She had work to do, and besides so what if Logan was hot? After hearing Sarah’s story about how much of a nightmare working with your boyfriend was she would never even consider getting involved with someone at work.

Her shoulder started to ache, the stupid giant tote bag was too heavy. Logan had looked at it a little suspiciously when they’d shaken hands. Did he think it was strange to have such a large bag or did he think she was hiding something inside of it?

Stop being paranoid.

She didn’t even know him and why would he even care about her bag? She was being paranoid because she knew she intended to stick the GoPro in it.

“So, what do you think? He’s hot, right?” Myrtle asked her in a singsong voice as she wagged her eyebrows, her multicolored eyeglass chain beads dancing in the sunlight.

Well, he certainly was attractive, that was for sure. And Harper did think it was nice how he’d flirted with Myrtle and made her feel special. It hadn’t been cheesy and came across as genuine. Maybe he was a nice guy with a good heart. The kind that wouldn’t dump his fiancé a week before the wedding. Then again, maybe not. It was hard to judge someone from a one-minute conversation.

“He was okay, I guess. I’m too busy to notice to be honest.” Harper shrugged her shoulders to convince Myrtle she could care less about him. Trying to convince herself of it, too.

“Just okay? You’re crazy. He’s a sweetheart, and I saw that look between you two! Don’t tell me there wasn’t a little spark dancing around when you shook his hand!” Myrtle exclaimed as she side-eyed Harper.

Harper rolled her eyes sarcastically while simultaneously squelching the butterflies in her stomach. Was the chemistry between she and Logan really so strong Myrtle had noticed it? Wait. This didn’t even matter right now. She needed to focus on getting the GoPro out of that room to see what it had recorded last night.

Just then, the glass lobby door swung open and Edward Kenney breezed in, dressed in his standard custom-tailored suit and looking as dapper as always. His immaculate dress shoes shined and click-clacked against the floor as he walked up to Myrtle’s desk.

The door had barely closed behind him before he began barking out orders.

“Where are we with the fashion show? Is everything all set? Designs, what’s going on with Gertie and the designs?” he demanded, looking from Myrtle to Harper then back to Myrtle again.

Harper stood in silence, unsure of whether to answer him. There were way too many things still left to do for the show, and she knew Edward didn’t need to know everything. She also knew he should technically be dealing with Veronica, as she was the Events Manager and the person managing the show for him, but Edward didn’t stand on formality, he basically demanded answers from anyone within earshot every time he showed up. Which, unfortunately, had been almost daily.

“Excuse me, but who do you think you are, blowing in here and talking to us like that? You might be Mr. Big Boss over at Draconia, but here at O’Rourke’s Signature Events you are no better than the rest of us, and I expect you to be polite and to treat us all with some respect!” Myrtle had stood and was chastising Edward, her hands on her hips and her spikey red hair moving back and forth like a bird’s plume on top of her head.

“I beg your pardon? I am the founder of Draconia Fashions and I expect to be treated as such,” Edward retorted.

“Well, that’s your problem. You think you are entitled to special treatment here? Absolutely not! You come charging in here barking out orders and asking questions every day. That will stop, right now! We are all equals here, Gertie insists on it.”

“Gertie insists on what, dear?” Gertie appeared in the lobby, wheeling herself up to Edward and Myrtle. Her thick, long grey hair had been pulled back off her face, a style few older women could pull off, but Gertie certainly did. Her olive skin glowed, and her green eyes sparkled as she looked at the three of them.

“I was just explaining to Edward you insist everyone here is treated the same and his daily temper tantrums won’t be tolerated by me anymore.” Myrtle looked at Edward over the top of her glasses, her hands still firmly planted on her hips.

“Well, duh. Of course, everyone here is equal, we are all on the same team. And yes, that includes you, Edward, so lay off the Mr. Important act and come with me so I can show you what’s wrong with your designs. Chop, chop! I don’t have all day for this baloney you know!” Gertie reached out and grabbed Edward’s hand.

Harper took the opportunity while everyone was bantering to slip away down the back stairs to the basement. As she opened the door that led into the main storage area she clutched the tote bag close to her. She probably should have brought a clipboard or something to make it look more work related for her to be down here. Then again, her job required her to go all over the building. Besides, who the heck would be watching her so closely to even notice the stupid tote bag? She took a deep breath and told herself to stop worrying. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, anyway, she was trying to help Gertie.

There were two large empty wooden dollies sitting in the main area. Harper knew they were used to move heavy items around, so she looked around to see who else was down there. As she walked farther into the area she realized they were doing some more staging to the runway. She hurried past to get to the room with the camera in it before whoever else was down there saw her.

She stopped when she was outside the room, looking around again to make sure no one saw her before she quietly slipped inside and grabbed the camera, quickly shoving it into the tote bag as she exited the room.

As she hurried back towards the stairs she saw two of the maintenance guys, Ben and Noah, pushing the dollies which were now loaded up with boxes of linens and plates.

“Hey, guys. I’m just checking up on how the staging for the runway is going for Veronica, she wants updates like every ten minutes.” Harper rolled her eyes as she said the lie, knowing they would believe her. Veronica was a perfectionist, and everyone here knew it, so saying she was checking up because Veronica asked her to was totally believable.

Ben and Noah exchanged glances, making Harper feel a little uneasy. Maybe she was coming off as too weird or overly friendly? She hadn’t really talked much to these two in the past.

“Ben, you were working on that weren’t you?” Noah asked.

Ben frowned at Noah. “No. Well, yes. George is working on it now I think, isn’t he?”

Ben leaned the dolly back upright on the floor and walked towards the staging area for the runway, calling out George’s name. Harper followed a few steps behind him, smiling and acting like she was interested, but really wanting nothing more than to run away to her office and look at the images on the GoPro.

“What’s up? I’m almost done here. Just tightening things up a bit.” George was underneath the runway and had slid partially out, looking up at them. His tone sounded irritated at being interrupted.

“It looks amazing, George! I can’t wait until the actual show. It’s going to be such a huge success! Thanks for doing such a great job, guys, I’ll let Veronica know everything’s coming along fine!” Harper turned around, trying not to walk too fast away from them. She stuck her hand in the tote bag and fumbled around for the camera to reassure herself it was still in there and her hand felt a hard can. Tuna. Crap! She forgot she’d brought more tuna in for the stray cat.

She bypassed the stairs and kept walking towards the loading dock, stopping when she got outside. Opening the top of the tuna can she called out to the cat, placing the can on the ground as she looked around.

The cat didn’t come. She called out a little louder and waved the can around, as if the cat would suddenly catch the smell of tuna in the air from wherever it was. But it still didn’t come.

She hoped it was okay and nothing bad had happened to it. Maybe she should have taken it home with her when she’d last seen it. Even though she wasn’t supposed to have pets in her apartment, she hated knowing the cat was most likely homeless and vulnerable to predators.

She placed the full can of tuna back on the ground and scanned the area one last time for the cat before leaving and going up to her office. If she could, she would have waited longer for the cat to appear, but she needed to look at that GoPro footage as soon as possible.

Big T jiggled the vending machine, trying to shake the bag of pretzels stuck inside loose, so it would fall off the hook and drop down so he could grab it.

“Come on you stupid thing!” he yelled at it, tipping it forward and watching the bag drop down from where it had been stuck.

He leaned over and stretched his arm up inside to grab the package, tearing it open before he stood again. As he shoveled a handful of pretzels into his mouth he thought about Harper. Why had she been downstairs again? Sure, he’d heard her say it was to check on some stuff for Veronica. But he wasn’t buying that because Veronica had already been down there checking up on them earlier. Besides, she was carrying some big tote bag around with her and since when did anyone carry tote bags with them inside work?

His instincts told him she was hiding something in that bag, but it wasn’t like he could look inside. He would have followed her when he saw her if there hadn’t been people around, but there were, and he didn’t want any witnesses.

He walked slowly over to one of the plastic chairs set in the open space near the vending machine and sat, the chair creaking under his weight. Reaching into the bag he popped another pretzel into his mouth, crunching on it as he thought about what he should do next. His patience was growing thin and Harper was getting on his nerves. His eye caught the security camera lodged up in the corner of the room, the red light flashing. Cameras.

Weeks ago, he’d hidden a few nanny cams around the entire building, including all the offices, so he could see what was going on. Maybe checking the one in Harpers office would be useful and would tell him exactly what she was up to.