Hiding in Plain Sight by Valerie Sherrard

and then print.
    I kept an eye out for Dymelle Enterprises, but it didn’t appear on the billing list. If only I’d been nosier when I was mailing the letter earlier. How was I going to help clear Mrs. Thompson if I didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to gather information?
    Promising myself I’d be a better snoop from then on, I did my best to eavesdrop on Janine’s phone callswhile I worked. Most of them she just put through to the workers’ offices.
    Some calls were clearly personal, but I listened to them anyway, just in case. I didn’t learn anything about the robbery, but I did find out that her sister is a back-stabbing lowlife who makes moves on Janine’s boyfriends, and that her neighbour deserves to be shot for listening to country and western music at full volume. I also noticed that she casually mentioned Joey a couple of times, which made me think she might be kind of interested in him.
    At four minutes before twelve o’clock, Janine pushed a button on the phone and stood up, stretching and yawning like she was just waking up.
    â€œTime for lunch,” she said. “We can keep working on those after we eat.”
    As I followed her along the hall, I wondered whether “we” would turn out to mean “me” again, as had been happening since my arrival. The lunchroom, located right across the hall from the conference room, was the only area I’d seen so far that wasn’t a soft ecru colour. It was done in an antique yellow wash with burgundy and teal accents.
    â€œDifferent decorator?” I asked, looking around at the striking effect.
    â€œDebbie designed this.” Janine smiled. “Nice, isn’t it? The workers that did it were fast, too. Just a few daysand it was done. Good thing, because everything was a mess with the room torn apart.”
    â€œWhere’d everyone eat then?” I asked.
    â€œAt our desks,” she said. “I hated that, it was so boring. Plus the microwave was in the Yaegers’ office and the fridge was stuck in the conference room. It wasn’t exactly convenient if you wanted something hot or cold.”
    â€œHow long ago was it done?”
    â€œI dunno, three, four weeks, I guess. Wait, it was right around the time of the robbery. I remember because water leaked all over the carpet in the conference room and we didn’t know if the fridge was doing it or if it was the water cooler.”
    â€œAnd which was it?”
    â€œThe repairman couldn’t find anything wrong with either of them, so he said it was probably the fridge. Like, something leaked out from it being moved around or tipped the wrong way or whatever. He must have been right ’cause it never happened again.”
    â€œHuh,” I said, which might not have made me sound much like a brilliant detective. To be honest, it was only day one and I was already discouraged. Short of someone jumping up and confessing, I didn’t see how I was going to figure this one out. Not with leaky fridges and urgent letters as my only clues.
    Carol was the next to arrive for lunch. She made a big production of seating herself as far away from us aspossible, then opened a brown paper bag and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. It looked like the twin of what Janine was eating, a thin slice of ham on white bread. I felt a bit smug chomping into my thick sandwich of tuna with chopped celery on whole wheat.
    Joey and the Yaegers wandered in next, and I noticed that Janine sat up a little straighter and seemed much more animated. Remembering her comments about a boyfriend earlier, I wondered if perhaps they had a secret relationship. There was no sign of anything like that from him, but then he might just be better at hiding things.
    Angi sailed in a moment later, breezing by with a burst of friendly chatter directed, it seemed, at everyone in general and no one in particular.
    â€œI just don’t know,” she