The Trouble With Sentiment

Chapter Twelve

"Nothing to worry about. Just a low backup battery that needs to be replaced. Danny didn't have any on hand when he was here and asked me to stop by since I was in the area."

Her expression cleared. "Oh, I see." She waved a hand at the lift behind her. "Go on up, then."

"Much obliged." He bobbed his head, then made his way to the lift. The first floor featured a gym and cafeteria. The second, third, and fourth contained human resources, sales, and marketing. The fifth and sixth were a veritable honeycomb of cubicles with workers busy writing code. As Vivian worked for the CEO, she'd be on the topmost floor where all the executive offices were located. The lift doors slid open, and he walked down a corridor. A few people passed him, but no one gave him a second glance. A man in a working uniform like his was essentially invisible within the corporate world. The solid wall on his left gave way to glass, revealing a crowded meeting room, except it was like none he'd ever seen. The two side walls were painted a bright yellow, and the third was completely taken up by a massive whiteboard. Businessmen and women sat perched atop large, bouncy exercise balls. Some were more precariously balanced than others.

A blond man paced the length of the whiteboard, scribbling as he went. While everyone else was dressed in professional attire, he wore jeans and a simple blue dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sherlock's gaze dropped to the man's feet. They were bare. Interesting. Only someone utterly brilliant at their job would be allowed to openly flout the company's dress code. With his back still to the audience, he gave an emphatic beckoning gesture. Multiple voices sounded, indiscernible through the glass, and Sherlock realized the man was writing down what they were saying. He squinted at the messy scrawl across the top of the board. Stupid ideas? Why on earth would they have a meeting about stupid ideas? Wasn't the whole point to skip over those? After the man finished the last line with a flourish, he spun around and grinned. Sherlock's eyebrows twitched upward. This was Charles Wheeler, CEO of Cubic Systems.

The news article photograph had portrayed Charles as a well-dressed, collected, and serious businessman. At the moment, he was anything but. He bounced on the balls of his feet with barely contained enthusiasm, gesturing wildly with the uncapped marker. There was no need to wonder where the streak of black ink along his jawline had come from. Charles began to write again, but the marker died mid-word. He dropped it, turned, and held out a hand. A new marker sailed across the room, and he snatched it out of the air and beamed. That had been one hell of a throw. Sherlock traced the path of its trajectory, and his chest tightened so much, his sternum ached.

Of course it was her.

Red hair swept into a French twist. Perfect posture and pink cheeks. Vivian looked far more appealing than anyone sitting on a giant exercise ball had a right to. Although the glass walls were too thick for Sherlock to make out what she said, the murmur of her voice was easily identifiable. Charles threw his head back and laughed, and a chorus of amusement followed.

Sherlock's fists clenched at the sight of her smiling face. She'd lied to him this whole time, and yet there she sat, pleased as punch, acting like everything was normal. Unable to bear looking at her a moment longer, he continued down the hall. At least one benefit of the meeting was that all the offices were empty. He peeked into a number of them, only stopping when he found one whose computer monitor had photographs taped to its edges. Perfect. Closing the door behind him, he noted the single security camera located in the upper corner near the fire alarm detector. He pulled out a chair and stood on it to reach the fire alarm and made a show of testing it, keeping the brim of his hat down low. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a small aerosol bottle. The label on the outside made it appear to be canned smoke, used for testing fire alarm equipment. What it really contained was a mist that put a thin, blurry film over glass surfaces. He sprayed the air around the fire alarm detector, making certain the cloud reached the security camera lens. He jumped down and moved to the computer. The amount of time he had was dependent upon how vigilant their security team was. The fuzzy footage might not be noticed for hours, but he wasn't about to count on that. He woke up the computer. It belonged to one Agnes O'Connor, an older woman, married, with three grandchildren, and a peculiar obsession with giraffes. A number of the animal figurines cluttered her desk.