Inside, it smelled like dust, cleaning supplies, and old paper. The narrow room was crowded with mops, buckets, and boxes of printer paper. There was barely any space, but in the corner behind a stack of boxes was a small gap. Emily squeezed into it, crouched down, and pulled the door almost shut, leaving only a thin crack.
In the near-dark, all she could hear was her own heartbeat, loud enough, it seemed, to carry down the hall. Time dragged. At first she heard only the usual office sounds—footsteps, bits of conversation about deadlines, reports, lunch plans.
Someone laughed too loudly. Someone else argued with a vendor. A normal workday. Emily sat there pressed against the wall, feeling ridiculous.
Her legs went numb. A box corner dug into her back. She wanted to stand up, walk out, and head to the hospital pretending none of this had happened. But she couldn’t make herself move.
The old woman’s words had lodged in her mind like a splinter. About an hour passed. Emily had started to drift from sheer tension and exhaustion when she heard footsteps.
Not hurried ones. Confident, heavy steps. They stopped right outside the closet door.
“Let’s step in here. No one will see us,” a man said.
Everything inside Emily went still. It was Brian’s voice. His tone. His rhythm. She clamped a hand over her mouth and barely breathed.
“Brian, it’s dusty in there,” came a second voice, female. Young, a little whiny, with that sugary tone Emily instantly disliked. “Couldn’t we just do this in the car?”
“Someone could see us in the car,” Brian said flatly. “Here it’s quiet, and nobody comes by. You’ll survive.”
The closet door opened partway, and light spilled in through the crack. Emily shrank farther behind the boxes so she wouldn’t be seen. She could only make out part of the room, but it was enough. Brian stepped in first, guiding a young woman by the elbow.
Emily recognized her immediately. It was Lauren, the new executive assistant to the company president—a slim blonde with a polished, doll-like face who had been to their home a couple of times with paperwork from the office.
“So, is everything ready?” Brian asked, turning to her. There was impatience in his voice.
“Yes, Brian. Just like you wanted.” The woman moved closer to him. “Tomorrow we sign. I lined it all up. The notary’s taken care of.”
“She won’t know a thing. We just need to make sure nobody talks too soon.”
Brian ran a hand over her shoulder. Emily saw the motion, and a wave of pain hit so hard her vision blurred.
“I’ll transfer the condo into your name, then we’ll sell it. We split the money. I’ll divorce her, and she won’t get anything because by then the place won’t legally be ours. The loans are all in her name anyway—let her deal with them.”
“What if she figures it out?” Lauren asked, and for the first time there was a note of worry in her voice…
