“Laura hates everyone but Parker.” I give her a small smile and look toward the door where I still hear her barking orders like she has ten years of schooling and a medical degree. Savannah was young, probably about my age. Fresh out of business school. Wide-eyed and bushy tailed about the world and not one of those assistants trying to sleep with her boss. I couldn’t read her at first. Perky, enthusiastic and always willing to give one hundred and ten percent. It was foreign to me that she hadn’t fallen into the allure of trying to seduce her boss for a leg up like so many other assistants and interns at Parker’s company. “One of the good ones.” Parker always said.

“How long have you been here? You weren’t in the car?” I ask and then realize how that may be perceived. “I’m glad you weren’t,” I say, touching her shoulder. “I just assumed…”

“Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Kent were with him. They left the club and I don’t know what happened. Next thing I knew I was getting a call from the hospital and Mrs. Caldwell was hysterical. She and Mr. Kent’s fiancée had gone back to the hotel in a different car.”

I briefly wonder why they’d left their significant others to go somewhere with Parker, but maybe the women were tired and left sooner?

As if she can hear my thoughts, she speaks up. “Mr. Anderson was a little… agitated.” She bites her bottom lip, like she’s struggling to let the words leave her lips.

“What do you mean?”

“He was a little drunk. And umm… Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Kent weren’t exactly helping the situation.” I blink my eyes at her several times. Parker wasn’t a stranger to alcohol but he liked being in control. He didn’t like that alcohol made him someone else. He hated that it made him shed his protective shell he wore and made him more social with “people I don’t even like.” His words. So, to hear him out drinking with Nick Caldwell and Owen Kent, who were always the drunkest at any given work event made me wonder what brought all this on.

“I see. Do you know why he was agitated?” I’m not looking at her. I’m staring at the door, wondering what I’m about to walk into. She doesn’t respond and when I turn back to look at her, she’s staring at me. She tucks an errant curl nervously behind her ear and shifts her weight back and forth between her feet as she looks down avoiding my gaze.

“No.” She answers in a way that leads me to believe she does know and isn’t telling me. Like she’s worried she’s said too much already. Like the answer has to do with me.

Great.