love & war | in progress

20 - cold

angelo

My patience was falling. No matter what I felt for Elizabeth, lateness was my pet peeve. In her defence, I knew she had to look after Celeste. She couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with her yesterday.

But I knew. I could see it in her eyes.

When i drove them home, I looked at Celeste through my rear view mirror, drowsy, falling in and out of consciousness and with dried up sick on the side of her mouth.

She had an eating disorder.

I was trying to figure out how to tell Elizabeth that her younger sister could have an eating disorder, but i figured it best if they had that conversation themselves.

The view of the meeting room could honestly rival the view on our floor.
Although it's 2 stories lower, It sits directly behind Central Park, so as you gaze out of the window you see all its beauty.

Due to the case of early winter, the greenness of the grass and the trees had faded into a pale brown. Elizabeth would have loved to see the park in Spring from this view.

One day I'll show her.

Thinking of her made me wonder what was taking so long, her 15 minute mark had long past and it had now been 30. I asked Anna to ring her again.

Voicemail.

I tried to dial her.

Voicemail.

I even asked that cunning son of a bitch, Logan to try and call her.

Voicemail again.

I knew something was up. But we had to finish the meeting. This was important, I'd look for her later.

I pocketed my phone and looked at my colleagues. There were only four of us that were staying for the meeting. Annaliese had gone back home.

It was me, Logan Archer, Tyler Smart, and Sheila Wang.

Apparently, in the new restaurant I had opened, someone had been taking inventory down in the wine cellar. One of the employees. Personally, I wasn't too bothered about the case. But financially, I knew this could seriously screw me over in the long run.

A few bottles of Château Lafite 1869 had been taken. One bottle of these had cost roundly 250,00 dollars.

Imagine that times 3.

This was very bad for my new restaurant and for the employee wages. Books manager, Tyler Smart pulled out a notebook with scratches of notes of inventory.

And there it was bright and day that around 600,000 dollars worth of my most expensive alcohols were stolen. He cleared his throat and pushed his turtle glasses up his nose. "Mr Stone, I would like to formally request an investigation on this matter. I know it won't typically put you out of house and home but this is over half a million dollars stolen just like that,"

"If this continues to go on, it could end very, very badly."

When the meeting came to an end, everyone excused themselves and took off. I stayed seated. Pulling my phone out of my pocket i looked for any missed calls or texts from Elizabeth. Still I had none.