CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mortification came swiftly. Ella’s entire frame dulled. She’d never answered his question about her job, but now he knew. She should have been straightforward with him from the beginning, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
Hawk’s glower harnessed so much more than disappointment in her deceit. She’d never even considered stealing anything from anyone. How could he think she would?
“Good morning,” he began. “I know this is unorthodox, but we thought it would be best to address the situation upfront with each of you. During the past few weeks, we’ve been getting reports about missing office supplies. A stolen printer. Paper and ink cartridges. Sticky notes and packs of pens.”
Beside her, Janice shifted. Ella swallowed.
“This morning, a few tablets came up missing in several offices. This time, these weren’t the property of Ever After Sweets. They were the personal belongings of members of my marketing staff. In the past, when we’ve made inquiries, our security cameras have come up blank, but this time one of you failed to cover her tracks.”
With a nod from Hawk, the bald guard at the desk clicked an icon on his screen. He widened the video to full screen, and Ella watched with the rest of the crew as a woman darted glances behind her inside an office as she unceremoniously stuffed a tablet into her purse.
Ella’s entire body froze from head to foot. It was her—it was clearly her. But how could that be? She hadn’t been anywhere near those offices on Christmas Eve. Not only that, but she never cleaned while carrying her purse. It always remained in her locker. Her discomfort grew as every gaze in the room gradually shifted to her. She wanted to speak up, to defend herself, but what could she say that would disprove this?
“That looks like Ella,” Pris said.
Ella closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t speak. Her tongue refused to work.
“What do you think?” Hawk asked Stina. “You know your staff better than anyone.”
Stina. Yes. Ella perked up. Stina knew Ella hadn’t been cleaning offices recently. She’d been detailing halls, cleaning out the garbage, and sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming stairs. She hadn’t had the keys to those offices. How could she have been caught in that feed?
Though they’d had their differences, Stina wouldn’t throw her under the bus for something like this. She would come to her defense. She had to.
“It does fit her profile,” Stina said with reluctance.
“No,” Ella cried, finding her voice.
“Search the lockers,” Hawk said.
Stina provided the master key, and one by one, lockers were opened, their contents examined until the guards arrived at Ella’s. The door was jammed. The handle wouldn’t budge. The guard jiggled it, pounding on the metal until it gave way and popped open.
The missing printer tumbled out, hitting first the bench before crashing to the cement floor. Reams of paper, the missing tablets, and sticky notes, everything that had been reported missing recently, had been stuffed in and spilled to the ground.
Reaching deeper, the guard withdrew her purse and removed two more tablets from within. Ella had never seen them before. How did they even get in there?
Horror struck her like an inferno. “I didn’t,” Ella said, praying they heard the plea in her voice. “I didn’t steal those things!”
Words were spoken. Hawk dismissed the other workers. Several offered sympathetic statements or glances, but Ella heard it all as if underwater. She was detached. Devastated. Disbelieving.
She didn’t hear Stina’s words until her stepmother grasped her by the shoulders and shook her. “You’re finished, do you hear me? This is humiliating, and I want nothing more to do with you inside or outside of work. You’ll get no references from me. And I’ll make sure your dad knows the truth about you.”
Ella’s lower lip trembled as pieces began rattling back into place in her brain. She fisted her hands. “You’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time.” Her voice was quiet, but she pressed on. “But you were finished with me long before this.”
Stina rounded on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Indignation made her throw caution to the wind. She had nothing else to lose now. The words gushed from her, tumbling like the bottled-up contents of her locker. “Why else do you not invite me to my own family’s Christmas lunch? And then you schedule me to work in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve?”
“Yes, but you didn’t work Christmas Eve.” The flash of take that in her eyes was enough to provoke her.
Ella caught sight of her stepsisters by the door. The room hadn’t completely cleared after all. Charlotte appeared worried, but Pris was as haughty as ever.
In a desperate attempt, Ella reached toward her. “Pris knows this wasn’t me. She handed out the keys. Pris, tell her. You gave me keys for the first-floor closet, not the offices on the fifth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Suspicion trickled in with a wretched tang. Pris had given Ella her keys for months now. As manager beneath Stina, she was also the only other person who could have gotten into Ella’s locker.
“If this is about Derek, nothing happened. Please, Pris, this could ruin my life.”
“I guess you should have thought about that before you went around stealing things.” She added an extra bite to the word before she and Charlotte strolled out, leaving Ella alone with Hawk, Stina, and the security guard.
Or almost alone. Ella hadn’t noticed Janice hang back until her supposed family left.
“Did you need something?” Hawk asked. His arms were folded. Clearly, he was trying to keep his cool.
Janice’s cheeks pinked. Her expression grew both serious and sorrowful. “I’d like to just say that I’ve known Ella for a long time, and she wouldn’t do something like this.”
Hawk’s scowl deepened. “Thank you, but evidence has proven otherwise.”
“Then check it again,” Janice said
