Natalie almost dropped the bottle of Tums as she was shaking out the prescribed two tablets into her palm. The town of Salvation loved nothing more than to flap their gums about the Sweet family. It had been that way since the dawn of time, but she’d never been at the center of it. She’d been too quiet and boring for that.
“We’re just giving you shit.” Miranda hurried over, wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with us.”
“It’s not a secret.” Natalie relaxed against her sister. “It’s just a business meeting.”
She ignored the fizzy feeling in her stomach and the extra lightness in her lungs because it was just a business meeting. She popped the Tums in her mouth.
Really. That’s all it was.
With Hailey, Natalie had finally found a kindred soul in the world of organization. Flicking her fingers across the color–coded and alphabetized personnel files in the brewery office manager’s vanilla–scented front office, the staccato beating of her heart had smoothed out to a steady rhythm. Her vision lost the blurry haze around the edges and her shoulders inched their way down from her earlobes.
This morning’s events had been a close call in more ways than one.
The files she’d pulled shook in her hands.
“Here, let me take those before you send everything flying.” Hailey swept the files from Natalie’s grasp and set them down on her desk. “Now you’ve got files for everyone who’s been fired—that’s the red tab—or quit—that’s the blue tab—in the last year.”
Pulling herself back to the present, Natalie ran through her mental checklist. “What about anyone who’s been written up or suspended?”
“Green tab.” Hailey pulled open a filing cabinet drawer without even having to look first. “Only one of those.” She grabbed a thick folder and handed it to Natalie.
Someone had written the name at the top of the file in precise block letters: Sean O’Dell.
Natalie blinked rapidly in surprise. She looked up at Hailey’s determinedly blank face. “Really?”
“Oh yeah.” Hailey snorted jeeringly. “He and the last brewmaster had their moments.”
Carl Brennan, the old brewmaster, was a real piece of work. He’d been so pissed off when Uncle Julian left the brewery to her and her sisters that he’d tried to run Miranda off the road after she’d fired him. The fact that Natalie hadn’t thought of him already as being the possible cause for the breweries troubles just went to show how out of her element she was. “Is he still in jail or has he made bail?”
Hailey nodded. “Yep, the judge wasn’t messing around when she set his bail and his family doesn’t have that kind of money.”
Natalie’s stomach sank. So much for her number one suspect. “Family?”
“Yep, his wife, Joni, is a stylist down at Pig Tails Salon.”
A pissed–off spouse who had knowledge of the brewery’s workings? That sounded like a possible suspect to her. “Did Joni ever work at the brewery?”
“Nah, she came to visit every once in a while, but she’s a teetotaler.” Hailey’s narrow shoulders shuddered. “How she manages that, I have no idea. If I was married to that man, I’d be using whiskey instead of milk in my cornflakes every morning.”
“Thanks, Hailey.” Natalie gathered her stack of personnel files and headed out the door.
An hour later, her vision blurry from going through so many files in her office, she glanced up at the clock. Five–fifteen. At this time of year, dusk was giving up its foothold on the horizon to full dark, and judging by the lack of chatter filtering in through her open door, most of the crew had left already.
Miranda had hit the road with her fiancée, Logan, a half hour ago to go check out wedding reception venues. They’d picked April Fool’s Day for their wedding date—a testament to the Sweet family’s reputation in Salvation.
Normally, Natalie was pulling out of the parking lot by 5:05, but Sean’s file alone had taken her a half–hour to read through. Unlike the others, that file was a mess. Hiring documents were out of order and half filled out. The W–2 was missing. There wasn’t much in it at all if she didn’t count the many warnings written by Carl with the word “overturned” in her Uncle Julian’s cramped scrawl at the top of the page.
Glancing down at Sean’s contact sheet, she memorized his address and then closed the manila folder, the sound amplified by the silence around her. Her pulse revved inside her like a race car waiting for the green light. Of course she wasn’t alone. Hailey didn’t usually leave until after six. Same with Clyde, who was determined to fix the fermentation tank tonight. Still, she knew Sean was gone, and despite the fact that she shouldn’t feel better when he was around—she did. Somehow he’d moved into a spot that she hadn’t realized was empty and filled it perfectly.
With deliberate care, she ran her fingers across the pearl necklace’s smooth orbs, closed her eyes and breathed in a calming breath.
After three ten–second inhales and e
xhales, she opened her eyes.
Ignoring the apprehension buzzing quietly in her mind, she opened the desk’s bottom drawer and retrieved her purse. Crossing to the door, she made an extra effort to maintain her normal pace, and not one footstep faster.
She wouldn’t fall prey to old habits. The amped–up breathing. The jittering that shook her inside and out. The tightness in her chest, squeezing her heart nearly in two. It had been too long, and she’d been doing so well.