“Don’t you dare walk out on me!” Violet shrieked, running around the table and out the door after him.
Poppy turned back and smiled at the stunned faces of Dan, Ty, and Chava. “They obviously know each other.”
“Apparently,” Dan said, utterly confused.
Poppy jumped to her feet. “Violet can be a little high-strung. I should probably go check on her to see what all the fuss is about. Matt, why don’t you walk Dan and his team through our security protocol, maybe they can identify any soft spots that may have made us vulnerable to a mole. Sound good?”
“Happy to, Clair,” Matt said, although he would be making it up as he went along.
“I’ll be right back,” Poppy said, scooting out of the conference room, stopping at the secretary’s cubicle just outside.
Before Poppy had a chance to ask, the secretary pointed down the hall. “They went that way.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said, hurrying off, the high heels of her pink Jimmy Choos squishing into the thick gray carpet. She rounded the corner to find Violet hovering outside a door. “Is he in there?”
“Yes, he thinks the fact that it’s a men’s room is going to stop me from following him!” Violet scoffed.
“So why are you still out here?”
“It’s a men’s room,” Violet moaned.
Poppy admired Violet’s shyness, but Poppy herself was never one to be deterred. She grabbed Violet by the hand and together they barged into the bathroom.
Phil stood near the urinals, facing them, astonished they were in the building let alone the men’s bathroom.
Finding her voice, Violet finally stepped forward in front of Poppy and cried, “How dare you? How dare you toy with my emotions like that! How can you be so thoughtless and cruel?”
Before Phil could respond, the door to one of the stalls opened and a small man with thick glasses meekly poked his head out to see if it was safe to come out. “I just need to wash my hands, if that’s okay.”
“Hurry up!” Violet snapped.
Startled, the man scooted over to a basin and turned the water on, pumping soap in his hands, scrubbing as fast as he possibly could. He glanced over at Phil, who was frozen like a statue. “I’m going to need your expense report by the end of the day, Phil, otherwise I can’t cut you a check until next week.”
Phil nodded nervously. “Got it, Stu.”
The accounting guy finished, then tore off a paper towel from the dispenser, quickly drying off before cautiously moving around Poppy and Violet with a polite nod and escaping out the door.
When he was gone, Violet angrily folded her arms. “Well, I’m waiting! How many other women have you pretended to be interested in, raising their hopes that this time it might be the real thing, then coldly and callously deserting them after you got what you wanted?”
Poppy gently touched Violet’s arm. “Honey, since time is of the essence and we’re going to be thrown out of here in a matter of minutes, maybe we should focus on the more pressing issue?”
“What’s more pressing than my heartbreak?”
“I would never diminish what you’re going through, Violet, but there is the matter of why Phil was seen on the Parker Hotel’s security cameras loitering in the lobby the night Fabian Granger was found drowned in his bathtub.”
“Oh, yes, well, I suppose murder does trump my fragile emotional state,” Violet agreed before spinning back and spitting out in Phil’s direction, “But that in no way lets you off the hook for what you did to me!”
Phil took a tentative step forward. “For the record, I had nothing to do with what happened to that reporter.”
Poppy studied him closely. “Then why were you there?”
Phil hesitated.
“We already know you must be working for Hal Greenwood,” Poppy said. “You might as well come clean.”
Phil glanced at Violet, who was still steaming. Fearing what might happen if he made her even more upset, Phil finally relented and said, “Greenwood hired Cobra to spy on Granger and find out how much he knew about the sexual harassment claims against him, hoping to somehow stop him from writing about them. He was desperate. He also widened our mission after Danika Delgado’s murder to also keep tabs on your agency because he was worried about what you might find.”
“That Hal Greenwood is a murderer?” Poppy asked.
Phil sighed. “No. You know that can’t be true. He has an airtight alibi. He was on a conference call. If we ever seriously thought Hal Greenwood suffocated that poor girl, we would instantly drop him as a client and contact the authorities. Greenwood was obsessed with his reputation. His sole purpose for hiring us was to keep ahead of any scandal that might break wide open.”
“And so that’s why you showed up for square dancing at the senior center and tried to sweep me off my feet!” Violet wailed, a humiliated look on her face. “It was all just a ploy to get close to me so you could lift my office key and duplicate it and plant your bugging devices!”
Phil nodded solemnly and muttered, “Yes.”
Violet walked up to him, eyes blazing. She waited for him to look at her, and then she raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.
“Violet!” Poppy cried.
Phil rubbed his cheek with his hand. “No, I deserved that.”
Violet stepped away from Phil until she was next to Poppy.
Phil lowered his hand. His cheek was slightly red from the slap and he continued, “I went to hang out at the Parker just to make sure Granger didn’t go anywhere, and to follow him if he did leave. That was my assignment. Keep watch, but make no contact. I never went to his room, I never saw him, I never touched him. You can check out the hallway cameras outside Granger’s room and the one pointed at the patio near the pool. You’ll never see me anywhere near there. I was hanging
