Claire nods. “Right now, your success is being discussed by people who knew you before. You’re not paparazzi fodder—that’s good news. Once any of us becomes that, we’ll need more help. But we’ll do this together.”
Claire and Landon smile at me, and I give them a firm nod.
“Thank you.” I stand. “I should meet with my team.”
I’ve spent my morning in meetings while my team has been immersed in their projects.
I walk up and have to tap them on the shoulder to get their attention. The trend in the office is to wear high-end, over-the-ear headphones and ignore everything around you.
“Join me in my office in five, and we can go over a few highlights from my meeting,” I tell them.
Once we get settled, with drinks and plenty of snacks, I share what we discussed. “Ginger, the Disruption team is trying to work on the uplink with the integration, but they’re having problems. Can you reach out to Sean and see what they need from our side?”
She nods and types into her tablet.
“Thank you.” I turn to Vanessa. “Everyone loves the design you’ve created. They’re looking at this adjustment,” I point to some changes on my computer screen.
She taps her fingers on the desk. “That will increase the size of the earpiece by at least twenty percent. I think if they did this…” She points to a piece of hardware on my screen. “And flipped these two chips, we might be able to go smaller. Maybe another five percent?”
I’m stunned by what such a simple adjustment could do. “Get with Glen and see if that can happen. I love it.”
I turn to the next lady. “Danica, I’m getting closer with the algorithm that should pick up the slang. How are you doing with the dialects?”
She walks us through eight Spanish dialects we haven’t touched. She’s charted the similarities and differences, pointing out some patterns that give me an idea.
“This is so helpful,” I tell her. “If I adjust the code here and here, we may fix a major problem.”
The room erupts in excitement, and I look at this team in awe. Damn, these women are smart. How did I get so lucky to have them take a chance on my idea? I have goosebumps.
Landon knocks on the glass door to my office. “Are you ready?”
I nod. “Be right there.”
“I have a meeting with a tech security team to figure out why I’m not able to work on our server,” I explain as I gather my things. “If they can’t get it fixed, I’m heading back to Landon’s this afternoon, so I can code.”
“If you weren’t pushing out several thousand lines of code a day, I’d be convinced you and Landon were screwing like rabbits,” Vanessa says, a glint in her dark eyes.
The heat rushes to my face. “We’re not! He’s a giant flirt, but a good guy. We’re becoming friends.”
Ginger’s eyes grow big. “Are you friends with benefits?”
I mostly ignore the comment and search for a pen that isn’t pink. “I’ve told you before—he works in his home office on the other side of the apartment. I work at the kitchen table”
“Too bad,” Ginger remarks. “He looks good enough to eat.”
I stand. “Cross your fingers that we get some answers.”
The ladies all nod.
“You got it, boss,” Danica says.
I join the group—which I see still does not include Mattis—in the large conference room. It looks like they’ve started, so I take the first available seat. “Sorry,” I mumble, trying to be inconspicuous.
Claire and I are the only women in a room full of male models—or at least that’s what they look like. Not an ounce of fat on any of them. Chrissy would go nuts in this room. I smile, thinking of all the things she’d be saying right now.
“No problem.” Jim says. “Claire and Landon haven’t heard from Mattis. Have you?”
“No. I wouldn’t expect that I would…” I shrug. Mattis wouldn’t contact me if I were the last person on Earth.
“That’s somewhat puzzling,” Jim replies, turning to Landon and Claire. “Has he ever not shown up for work and not called?”
“He’s only worked for us about eight months,” Landon says. “He keeps to himself, but that’s not abnormal around here. I think he goes out and plays darts after work with a few of the guys on the team. But he’s pretty much been here every day.” Landon looks to Claire to see if she has anything to add.
She shrugs. “Yes, Mattis has been a decent employee. He doesn’t work any overtime—just comes in, does his job, talks to a few of the guys, and goes home.”
Jim’s head does a slight bob. “Hmm…We may want the police to do a wellness check on him.”
“What does that entail?” Claire asks.
“We’ll explain that he left work on Thursday and texted he wasn’t coming in on Friday, but we’ve been unable to reach him since, and he hasn’t come in to work.”
“We don’t have to tell them he got in some trouble before he left?” Claire asks.
“If you’re concerned, we can have my team go over first. If Mattis opens the door, we’ll know he quit his job without telling anyone. If he doesn’t, we can tell the police that.”
Claire bounces her fist against her mouth. “I like that idea.”
Jim makes a call, reciting Mattis’s address. When he disconnects, he looks at Claire. “Bash is going over now. He’ll call us as soon as he knows something.”
She nods.
“While we wait…” Gage takes the mirror
