His dark suit offset his blue eyes and dreamy features. One hand was propped along the banister behind him. Ella was already warm in her jumpsuit, but the sight of his photo set a match to her blood. Hawk Danielson. Yeesh, he was good-looking. He gave a whole new meaning to the words candy man.
“Come on,” she breathed, returning the photo to its place. “Better get down there before Stina sends someone else after me.”
The sun rising over Westville, Vermont, was visible through wide glass windows on the way to the elevator. It cast splashes of orange to counterbalance the sparkling white snow below. Ella wheeled the bucket to the custodial closet on the twelfth floor, emptied its contents—spilling water into her shoe and saturating her sock in the process—and hung the damp mop to dry over the floor-sink before locking the closet behind her.
She descended to the lowest level in the building where the main custodial breakroom was located. The other employees roosted on the long, wooden bench in front of a line of lockers where Ella and the others secured their belongings.
Pris and Charlotte were already settled beside a few of the others. Their mother, Stina, was the only one of the crew not decked out in the oh-so-fashionable gray jumpsuits. Instead, she wore a white blouse with black, flowy pants, heels, and her usual sneer of dissatisfaction at the sight of Ella.
“There you are.” She didn’t add the word, but “finally” was evident in her tone.
Stina began to pace before the crew. Arms folded, heels clacking, she paraded her position as custodial company owner with pride. Malus Custodial Management was her baby.
“I’ve gotten a report from Hawk Danielson. It isn’t often the owner of the company contacts me directly, but there have been reports of missing office supplies. As the only ones in this building—besides security—who carry keys that can access any room, naturally, they are suspecting the thief to be one of you.”
The tension in the room strung tighter than last year’s jeans.
“But we don’t all have access to every key,” Charlotte argued. “We’re assigned keys for the day, depending on which area we’re cleaning.”
A few others nodded their agreement.
Ella’s foot began to jiggle under the accusation. “Have they checked surveillance of the areas where things went missing from?”
“They have,” Stina said. “But it seems the feed has been deleted. An odd thing, definitely. They’re still trying to figure out who’s been accessing the cameras.”
“What’s missing?” Charlotte asked.
“Reams of paper,” Stina said. “Along with print cartridges and a few tablets that were purchased for employee use. A new order was delivered, and the packaging was opened before management had even noticed. That means someone was in Distribution, someone with access others don’t have.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Ella assured her, hoping to end this lecture sooner rather than later. She liked the idea of being suspected for something she didn’t do about as much as a bout of the flu. This made her feel just as nauseous.
Stina’s heels stopped clacking right in front of her. Ella’s entire body clenched. She hated it when Stina singled her out in front of everyone. If only she could melt into the lockers behind her.
“See that you do,” Stina said in a too-sweet voice. “I’d hate for your job to be at risk.”
Ella’s gut twisted. Why did that sound like a threat?
Slowly, Ella gathered enough courage to lift her gaze to her stepmother’s. Stina’s eyes narrowed in a way she was all too familiar with. She couldn’t possibly think Ella would stoop low enough to steal anything, let alone office supplies, and to compromise a camera feed? She was a seamstress, not a criminal mastermind.
Speaking of which, Ella glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty a.m. was looming nearer by the second.
Ella was meeting with one of Ever After Sweet Shoppe’s secretaries, Samantha Holbrook, about some fabric donations for the kids at the children’s hospital first thing that morning. Samantha had heard about her project for the hospital and happened to have some extra material on hand she wanted to contribute to the cause.
Stina skulked back to her desk. Done for the day, crew members began zipping out of their jumpsuits, slipping them off to reveal their everyday clothes beneath, and stuffing them into their lockers. Ella started to do the same when Stina called her name.
That sound had the effect of hearing a fire engine and realizing it was headed to her house. Ella zipped her jumpsuit up once more, steeled herself, and approached Stina’s desk.
“You called?”
“Yes, just one more thing. We’ve gotten a request from Highland Heights Apartments. They want to have their units ready to show Christmas Day.”
Since Stina’s independently owned company also provided custodial services for other establishments apart from Ever After Sweet Shoppe, being assigned to clean other places wasn’t that unusual. This pronouncement, however, made time tick louder in her ears.
“Christmas Day?”
“It’s part of their promo to get people moving in right after the holidays They’ve hired a light service and want each of their units spic and span. I told them we could accommodate their needs.”
“By working on Christmas?” That meant she’d have to start working by at least midnight for the units to be ready to be shown in the morning.
“You have somewhere better to be?” Stina crooked a single brow.
Ella swallowed. Stupidly, she’d been hoping for an invitation to the family’s Christmas lunch, the way Stina used to do before the whole Pris and Derek fallout. But she hadn’t been included in any family gatherings since that had happened.
Just as well, she supposed, especially if Stina was expecting her to work. Even if she finished cleaning the units in time, she wouldn’t be able to rest and ready herself for their fancy event.
If her mom was still alive, her dad would never have stood for this. Ella wanted to brush her hair back, straighten her shoulders, and stand up to Stina,
