“Emerald? What’re you doing here?”

“Hi, Sierra!” I smiled. “Sorry, I tried to call you, but it went unreachable every time. I heard from Matt you weren’t well, so I thought I’d pay you a visit.”

“Uh, thank you for your concern. I’m much better now.” Her wary gaze flickered around. She still talked to me through the small gap.

I cleared my throat. “You won’t invite me in?”

She hesitated, but then nodded and held the door wide for me.

Flashing another smile, I walked into the living room of her small apartment. With an adjoined kitchen, there were two more doors attached to the room. An old couch, two chairs, and a small bookshelf filled the small area. Not anything fancy, but it was cozy.

“Would you like to have anything? Coffee?” she asked, stance awkward.

What’s with the weird behavior?

I shook my head. “No thanks. I just came to see if you were all right. Umm, why did you resign all of a sudden? I mean, if you needed more time to recover completely, then you could just ask Matt. He’d have helped you out with this.” I came to the point without beating around the bush. Her meetings with Arthur, taking leave and then resigning, I had a hunch it could be somehow related to him.

She shrugged, wringing her knuckles. “As you know, I wasn’t well. I needed some time to get better completely. I couldn’t just expand my leave like that. And I decided to give myself a break, to spend some time with my family, you know? So…”

“So, you quit your job?”

“Yeah,” she answered, licking her dry lips. The swell around her eyes and dark circles under them caught my attention.

“With your stack of bills pending?” I pointed at the papers on her small table beside the door. Clearly, she hasn’t been able to pay them on time.

She averted her eyes. “I-I was just about to pay the bills. I was just a bit late, and they sent notices.”

“You don’t need to explain anything, Sierra. I just want to know why you quit if you were facing financial problems?” I asked. “Is it—is it because of Arthur?”

Her eyes snapped to mine, they widened. So, I was right. He had something to do with it.

“W-what are you talking about? Why would he be the reason behind my quitting?”

“Because I saw you with him twice, Sierra. And both times, you were pretty shaken.”

All color drained from her already pale face. Fear flashed across her eyes.

“H-how? W-where? Listen, it’s not what you think it is—”