A Second Chance

No Return Address

Chapter 52

Caden was sitting at his desk drinking his coffee. It was his day to buy Amari's morning coffee but she has not shown up for work yet. Caden would be lying if he said he was not at least a little worried about her. Within the year he has worked with her he could never remember her being late, unlike him.

Being an ARRO agent and worrying about people is not a good combination. It means his mind made up the most ridiculous scenarios about what could be wrong. He then heard the squeaking of his office door and he looked up to see his partner standing there. He smiled and his mind was put to ease.

"Sorry I'm late. My morning has been kind of strange." She admitted taking a seat.

Amari did not seem as focused as normal and something just felt wrong to Caden. She was quiet and not that Amari was necessarily loud she just was not normally this quiet. He frowned because this bothered him.

"You ok?" He questioned.

She looked up at him as if her mind had been some where else for awhile. She smiled for him, that smile he will always love.

"I'm fine. Like I said just having a 'different' morning." She said, but this time she seemed to be focused again.

"No one has bothered you have they?" Caden asked as he handed her the coffee he bought for her.

She smiled at his protectiveness and accepted the coffee.

"No, I'm fine, Caden." She assured him.

Caden pressed a key on his keyboard to make his monitor sleep. He turned his chair and focused more on Amari.

"Well why don't you tell me about your morning?" Caden offered to listen.

Truthfully it was not just being kind. He was sorta suspicious about what had his partner so out of sorts today. Amari shifted in her seat getting comfortable.

"My alarm was set earlier than normal this morning so I woke up at five o'clock in the morning. The thing is I don't remember setting my alarm any different. I suppose maybe my memory is just bad or James messed with my phone some time when I was with him." Amari began her story.

Amari was smart enough to try to play off her alarm being set different. Though Caden was not like her. That was just weird to him and he was to much of a paranoid person to just assume a reasoning. He would get to the bottom of it if that was him.

"So believe it or not I got here extra early. I went to my office and checked my Email. I had one from Rivers saying he wanted me to see him in his office. So of course I walked to his office to see what he wanted. The thing was he was not even here yet." Amari explained still confused.

That odd feeling Caden had when she first showed up was back.

"So I waited around till he showed up. When he did he said he was not expecting to see me, so I figured he meant he was not expecting to see me so early. He told me someone else sent something to ARRO for me. I don't find that odd or anything and neither did Rivers but when I confronted him about the Email he said he never sent one." Amari shook her head and looked away.

She was quiet and thinking for a minute. She then looked back at Caden.

"I know that Email was sent through his address so maybe he was just pranking me by saying he never sent it." Amari said with a shrug.

There was something that struck him as odd about that whole story. Caden would know better than anyone Anderson can be a prankster. Who do you think he pulled the pranks on? Yet that was something only him and Anderson did to each other. He felt Anderson would not prank her.