Tiptoe Kisses

Chapter 9

Chapter 9- Just Towels      (Please remember to vote, Thanks)

Taylor pulls her blue Q5 Audi up to the entrance of her office parking garage and finds she has to wait in line to get to her parking space.  Unable to see what is going on in front of her, she checks her phone messages.  She has several missed calls from Nathan.  He was mad she left the restaurant with Julian on Friday but she did call and check on him later that night to make sure he got home safely.  He tried to convince her to let him come over but she refused.  She can’t forgive him and doesn’t know if they can get back to that place in their relationship. 

Taylor also has a text from Zoe that says she is too nervous to stay home right now, so she is going to take a photo shoot assignment offered to her in LA.  She will return by next Friday.

The line starts to move and Taylor can see when she gets into the garage that all the vehicles are being stopped and checked by security guards. 

“Morning Rick,  This is taking a really long time, every bodies going to be late.  What’s going on?”   Taylor watches as a couple of guards circle around her Audi with inspection devices.

“Sorry Ms. Simon, I can’t tell you much.  We got orders to check every vehicle that enters this garage.”

“Um….Rick, when did you get the word to check all the cars.”  Taylor looks behind her at the growing que of cars waiting impatiently to get in.

“Last Friday, Ms. Simon.  Seems it came down from the new CEO.  I hear he’s making a lot of changes.  It’s about time somebody took a listen to what’s been going on around here.” 

Taylor is now the one that looks perplexed and she’s curious.  A car honks behind her and she sticks her arm out and waves her hand trying to get more time to talk to the guard.  Another guard taps his hand on the hood of her Audi and points at her with a thumbs up signal.

“You’re cleared Ms. Simon, you can go on through now.  Have a nice day.”  He taps on the hood of her vehicle and steps back.  Taylor parks her Audi in her assigned spot then starts to walk toward the elevators.  As she passes the spot resigned for the company’s CEO, she sees a two tone Black with a grey top Range Rover Evoque parked there.  She stops to stare at it not sure if it would be Santo’s.  She really likes the SUV but wonders if it has enough gravitas to appeal to Santo’s ego.  He hasn’t driven the Maserati to work since she caused him to wreck it.

“Morning Taylor can you believe what we had to go through this morning to get in here.  I’m telling you I knew there would be changes when the Donati’s took over but some of this stuff seems to be going a bit too far.  We’re a shoe and accessories company, we don’t have any state’s secrets here.”  Darcy digs around in her purse searching for Taylor doesn’t know what.

“We’ve had security checks before, Darcy.”  Taylor tries to reason more for her own peace of mind than Darcy’s.

“Yeah,  we have, but they haven’t been for every vehicle like this morning.  Look around you.  Not that I’m complaining I mean it’s safer and we’ve got additional guards and there’s surveillance cameras everywhere.”  Darcy looks up at the ceiling waving at the video cam just above their heads. 

Looking at the camera with surprise, Taylor glances all around her discovering the additional cameras installed.  She wasn’t aware of any of this.  They walk over to the elevators and she can see the guard’s booth is also filled with a new surveillance system.

“Darcy do you know when this all happen?”  Darcy shrugs her shoulders then swipes her cardkey and they get on the elevator. Once on the elevator Darcy points out to Taylor the new surveillance camera now located on the elevator panel.