I walked down the hallway about as quickly as I could and still have it look socially acceptable. I knew I’d passed a bathroom on the way to the break room, and sure enough, there was the sign on the door. I came close to walking into the ladies’ room, and at the last second turned and went into the men’s. That could have been embarrassing!
Please be empty, please be empty, please be empty I thought to myself as I pushed the door open and walked in. I wasn’t that lucky. The other Forrester was at a urinal. Luckily, as I’d always heard, men hated talking to other men in bathrooms. They were pretty much the opposite of women in that respect. I kept my head down and walked past, careful not to make eye contact—another big no-no if my TV was to be believed!—and tried to casually walk into a stall.
I carefully put the toilet seat down and climbed up on it. Seconds later, I felt that same roller coaster feeling, and when it passed I was looking back down at my own clothes, my own body. Thank goodness. Nothing had gone wrong. I hoped Sophie had gotten out of the offices in time and was now waiting downstairs.
Suddenly, an idea came to me. I waited until I heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, indicating that the other Forrester had left, then peeked my head over the stall to make sure the bathroom was well and truly empty. This time, I was alone. “Nonvideroa,” I whispered, pointing a finger at myself. Instantly, I disappeared.
Perfect, I thought to myself as I carefully opened the stall door. As long as I made sure not to bump into anyone, I could get out of here completely undetected. I slipped out of the bathroom, careful to open the door as little as possible lest someone notice a door randomly opening and closing, then made my way through the hallway.
I headed back toward the reception area, where luckily enough people were coming and going that I could slip through the door unnoticed.
In reception, Sophie’s boyfriend was interviewing another lawyer, a blonde man who looked incredibly nervous for a lawyer. I slipped past them and joined an elevator with a couple talking about the murder. Pressing myself, as far from them as possible, against the wall, I heard a tiny glimpse of their conversation.
“Well, I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead and all,” the man started, and the woman continued.
“But if you wanted to murder one person in this office, would it have been her? Yeah, I agree.”
“Not that I did murder her,” the guy joked, and the lady punched him lightly on the arm as the elevator reached the ground floor.
“Oh, Greg,” she replied as the doors opened. I didn’t hear any more of their conversation, but instead moved toward the door leading to the stairwell where I hoped Sophie was waiting for me. I checked to make sure there was no one left in the lobby, then opened the door carefully and went in. Sophie was pacing in circles, and as soon as the door opened she looked up expectantly.
“It’s me,” I said quietly, and the panic on Sophie’s face quickly turned to relief.
“Geez. Thank goodness. I was wondering what the hell had happened to you. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Videroa,” I said, reversing the spell on myself and appearing once more.
“Did you find out anything good?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’ll tell you in the car.”
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Because we still have to get these two people woken up and get out of here before they notice us.”
“Fine,” I said, reversing the locking spell on the closet door. I opened it and sure enough, the real Annie and Lester Forrester were still where we had left them. “Give me a hand,” I asked Sophie, and we dragged them back out into the main stairwell area. I locked the door quickly.
“Ok, you go now just in case. I’ll meet you outside the building,” I said. Sophie nodded and went back into the building lobby while I looked at the two sleeping figures. I pointed one finger at each and muttered “Exsuscitoroa.” Immediately the two of them began to stir, and I quickly turned and left out the same way Sophie had.
They were going to have a lot of questions about the day. Luckily, we weren’t going to have to answer them.
Chapter 8
When we got back to the car, however, we saw Charlotte sitting on the hood, looking annoyed.
“You two look like you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t have,” she said as soon as we got near.
“You can’t come out here and accuse us of something you don’t even know we’ve done!” Sophie immediately argued back.
“I can just tell.”
“You cannot!” I replied.
“Fine. Were you two doing something you know I wouldn’t agree with?
“No,” Sophie lied. “I mean, maybe, but what does it matter? We have information. How did you find us, anyway?”
“The coffee shop where I met Kelsey and Laura is two blocks from here, and as I was walking back to my car I saw yours. Seeing as you didn’t get any information yesterday, I figured you’d come back here today, and you were probably going to do something stupid to try and get information.
“Do you really have that little faith in us?” I asked, pretending to be stabbed in the heart.
“Yes,” Charlotte replied heartlessly.
“Well, I think that lack of faith is misplaced,” Sophie said.
“Tell me what you did then?”
“You’ll just complain about it, no matter what.”
“Only if it’s bad.”
“Wouldn’t you rather know what we found out? Isn’t that more important than pretending you’re better than us all the time?” Sophie asked and I stepped in between them.
“Ok, you know what? We’re going to go grab some lunch somewhere we can’t be overheard, and we’re going to go discuss what we discovered.”
Charlotte eyed us suspiciously, but agreed.
My vote was for Chipotle, but I was outvoted, and we ended up at Shut Up and Eat, a Portland institution that served up huge, delicious sandwiches on amazing bread. Charlotte nabbed us the most isolated picnic table outside, while Sophie and I went in to order the food. I got a half Mediterranean sandwich with a side of salad, while Sophie and Charlotte completely dropped their usual style of ordering vegetarian when I was around and got a meatball sandwich and a chicken parm sandwich, respectively.
Fifteen minutes later we had our sandwiches and were enjoying the sunshine of the day, the sound of traffic roaring past silencing our conversation to any passers-by.
“So, what did you find out?” Charlotte asked when we were seated.
“Well, I honestly didn’t find out that much. The closest I got to anything was that Jessica Oliver might have had a boyfriend in the office,” I started, lamely. I hoped Sophie had fared better, I’d done some pretty important magic for us to get into those offices this morning.
“I can tell you that not only did she have a boyfriend at the office, but I can tell you more than that,” Sophie said. “She was actually having an affair with a married man at the office. I have no idea who it was, though. I also found out she was definitely not liked at the office, at least not among the female staff. A lot of them got the impression that the only reason she was still working there was because of this relationship with this unknown man.”
“Why didn’t you press and find out who it was?” I asked, and Sophie shrugged.
“I didn’t want to seem too suspicious. Like you, with that half donut trick.”
“Ugh, you heard that?” I asked, suddenly embarrassed. “At least they fell for it. Or at least, they pretended to.”