Friday November 30th

Beep Beep...8:00 A.m. Elle smacks her phone to turn off the alarm. Looking around then remembered where she was. " Oh Right”, she said as she still gazed around the room, through the 2 large doors that looked out over the backyard. Laying there for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts. Listening to the birds chirping outside, the sun slowly making its way in the windows through the trees. The backyard was surrounded by greenery. Trees, bushes, flowers. Whoever owns this property must have spent a pretty penny to keep it looking the way it does.

She checks her phone, the normal stuff. Work email, Facebook, Instagram, Personal email. a Notification from Facebook came across her screen as she was locking her phone, she thought it said Jessica Matthews sent you a Friend Request but Elle needed to get in the shower and get ready to visit this customer.

8:30- Elle gets out of shower and started blow drying her hair. "so much haiiirr, I should have just worn it naturally".

Elle sends a text to Harrison-

Elle. 8:37 a.m.

"Good morning! just confirming my drop off at 10"

Harrison 8:38 a.m.

"Yes, Good morning to you Miss. Elle, I will be there at 9:40"

Alright, So I have an hour.

Elle finishes blow-drying her hair around 9:10, gets dressed and pours herself some coffee. "This will prob be a mistake" as Elle takes a sip... prob shouldn’t, but I’d like to go to the bathroom BEFORE I need to leave.

As Elle sits down in the kitchen with a view of the back of the house to watch for Harrison, she starts flipping through her phone. She had seen Jessica’s name come across her screen. Jessica Mathews has sent you a friend request. “Interesting” Elle says to herself. Curiosity spiked her interest and she clicked on her name to look at her profile. Scrolling longer than she should have she comes to a relationship status change, and she stops scrolling.

https://i.imgur.com/CMaiRxv.png [https://i.imgur.com/CMaiRxv.png]

MAY 7TH?!

Elle couldn’t believe what she was reading. They started dating in May? This has got to be a joke. Also, why would she be requesting to be my Facebook friend when she was dating my husband? Clicking on the mobile uploads folder on Jessica’s page she recognizes a shirt she’s wearing in a picture she posted on September.8th. scrolling through the rest of the album she notices where she is. Jessica posted a mirror selfie, standing in Elles bathroom. The next photo is of her and Logan in their bed with a caption that says, “I love waking up next to you”.

Before Elle decided to stop herself from digging any deeper into Jessica’s photos, she stops on one from September 22, 2015. It was a photo of Jessica at a wedding. Elle clicks on the next photo and recognizes the location. She and Logan were at this wedding, Logan was IN the wedding. Mixed in the Millions of Photos of people dancing and the actual wedding itself was 3 selfies of Jessica in a truck. Looking at the photos closer, she looks behind her in the backseat and notices a pink bag. Elles Pink bag. Jessica was IN Logans truck. What the hell was she doing in Logans truck?? In the last selfie there’s a phone that lit up showing the time. 9:48 p.m. Elle and Logan hadn’t left the wedding until well after midnight and thinking more about that night, she couldn’t find Logan for almost an hour. She assumed he was somewhere outside the tent where the reception was talking to all the guys he hadn’t seen in years.

It all makes sense now. After getting home from the wedding Elle and Logan had sex then the next 3 days after that night, Elle had the worst UTI she had ever had in her adult life, and she couldn’t figure out why. Everything was adding up. There were a handful of photos in Jessica’s “Mobile Uploads.” Pictures of just Logans hands “Surprise visitor at work today!”, a Picture of 2 drinks and 2 plates of food, “Surprise lunch date!”, the one that was of the beach “quick little weekend getaway” in March of 2017. Then the photos of this Mystery man stopped, and they were just selfies of Jessica with Depressing Quotes as the caption. Until March of 2018. It was a picture of Jessica and Logans best friend Rob, at Loonyes. I didn’t realize Rob knew her back than. Looking through the next couple of pictures, she stops on a picture, Its of Elle, she was standing next to Logan. It looked like she was trying to talk to Logan, but he wasn’t looking at her which was nothing new. Logan never looked at Elle when she was talking to him. The next picture Elle saw herself in the background again, but this time the look on her face was the face of defeat. Logan was talking to her now and with the hand he wasn’t holding his beer with was in the air. She knew right away what was being said. “Who leaves the bar to go home and paint?”, Just another fucking whore”, “Don’t expect me to home later than, I’ll find woman who actually wants to spend time with me.”. Logan was such a dick.

BEEP BEEP comes from the back of the house, pulling Elle from her dark thoughts of how much her marriage with Logan was a shame. "Harrison! Ah right I gotta go" Elle yells and jolts up, grabs her bags and heads for the door, takes one last look around to make sure she has everything, closes the door and locks as she heads down the driveway to meet Harrison.

"Good morning, Miss. Elle, I trust you had a good night?"

Elle smiles “yes, the view from up top the deck was to die for, the sunset was beautiful. one of the best I've seen in a while.”

As Elle and Harrison head to the destination, her attention is looking out the window at all the buildings and people while stopped at a red light. Looking at the building and reading the names. Some of them were just weird all together. “Focused”, “Pipeline”, “Control”. The last building looked normal, with windows and a parking garage attached. There was a guard at the entrance though. “Harrison, what’s that Building there? Why do they need a guard? Are there that many celebrities that locations need to be guarded?”

As the light turns Red, Harrison looked over before continuing their drive. “Ah no honey, that is the VA Hospital. The guard is to make sure the people coming in are Military, former Military, or their families.”

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“Oh ok, back home the VA hospital in Baltimore has a Service Agreement with my company for the HVAC”. Just as Elle finishes her sentence and is about to turn around. The red truck from yesterday stopped outside the parking lot. As they pass it, she quickly turns in her seat to see if she can get a good look at the driver, but no such luck. They have their windows tinted dark and they turned in to the Parking lot stopping at the guard stand. “That cant be the same truck from yesterday, right?” Elle says to herself. This was the 3rd time she’d seen this truck since she arrived yesterday. It must have been a coincidence.

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They finally arrive at the customer’s building.

"Miss Elle, we are here" Harrison says while pulling the car up to the front of the building and putting it in park. Elle looks up, takes a deep breath, and grabs her belongings to get ready to exit the car. Harrison comes around to her side and opens her door. "I will be waiting in the back of the parking lot for you,: winks: good luck!"

Elle smiles “Thank you Harrison Im a little nervous, but from what my boss told me this is a straightforward meeting, the customer has already been sent our Terms and Conditions, so ill jut need to do walk through, snap a couple pictures, go over what they expect then prepare the proposal. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, if it runs longer, I’ll shoot you a text”. Elle Turns around to face the front of the building and enters through the giant glass doors.

: Receptionist: Good morning! Welcome to Airtech, how can I help you?"

Elle good morning, I have a meeting with Joe Roederstein at 10"

: Receptionist: " ah yes, I will let him know you are here, please have a seat."

One hour later.

"Thank you so much Mrs. Taylor, I will review this proposal with my partner and send a signed copy over later today or first thing in the morning, If I have any questions, I've got your number. It was great finally meeting you in person. Have a great rest of your stay here in California” Joe Roederstein says with a smug smile. “Mrs. Taylor” Elle wanted to puke. “Please Call me Elle. No Mrs. I look forward to hearing from you. It was great finally meeting you in person too, Mr. Roederstein,. Again, if there is anything you need, please don't hesitate to reach out. My email and personal cell are attached the proposal.” Shaking his hand, she could feel his eyes looking down at her body. Elle releases her hand from his smiles and turns and walks out of the building smiling and waving to the receptionist. Harrison is out front and waiting for the door to open for her.” Hello Miss.Elle, I hope your meeting went well” “Thank you, Harrison, I think it did, just waiting for the signed proposal now”. Just as Elle is about to step into the car, she hears her name coming from behind her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Elle"

Turning to look behind her, Joe Roederstien is standing a little too close to comfort with one hand on the back window and the other on the door, caging in Elle. Pulling his right hand from the door and putting it in his pants pocket he pulls out a card. "Take my card, just in case I’m not in the office, the back has my personal cell on it." Joe says, with a smut smile and a wink.

Elle could almost smell the coffee on his breath, and the overly use of cologne. Taking the card and smiling Elle finally speaks. “Thank you, Mr. Roederstein”. “Please, call me Joe” and says with another wink. Harrison clears his throat. Joe Roederstein turns to Harrison and backs up so he’s no longer caging Elle in. As Elle sits down, she turns to the car door and Joe Roederstein is still standing there with Harrison.

Joe speaks again "Im looking forward to working with you and your company Elle” taking step forward that he had just taken back, he leaned in the car door so Elle could practically smell the coffee on his breath. "don’t accidentally misplace that card now”. The look in his eyes was Bloodcurdling. Elle did not feel comfortable anymore and just wanted him to leave.

Thank God Harrison was there to kindly nudge him out of the way so he could shut the door. Harrison gets in the driver’s seat, looks at Elle in the rearview mirror and a concerned look on his face, starts the car and starts to drive off. Elle looks out the tinted window that Joe thankfully could not see in to as they drove off. He was just standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“No Mrs. I look forward to hearing from you”.

Oh gosh I hope he didn’t get the wrong idea. Elle drags her hands over her face and takes a deep breath through her nose and out of her mouth, a little louder than she meant to, getting Harrison’s attention.

“Kind of creepy that Joe Roederstein is” Elle says as she looks back up at the rearview mirror at Harrison. "Yes mam, he has a reputation of being very forward. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt that they do the right thing, I am sure he is harmless. But, please be careful if we must come here again.”

"Hopefully he just sends me a signed copy of the proposal and doesn’t have any questions that require me to come back. “Elle says.

" Miss Elle, please open the center armrest, I’d hate for it to come to it, but if you do need to return there is pepper spray in there. Please take it. Roederstein has a reputation, like I said. I remember hearing about an investigation of him touching a coworker wrong but didn’t hear anything come of it. The man just makes me uncomfortable if im being honest." Harrison says.

"Thank you, Harrison. I hope it doesn’t come to that either" Elle says "is there anywhere on the way back to eat? im craving some sort of fancy California salad". Harrison laughs " yes, Miss Elle, I know just the place.”

As Elle and Harrison get back to the Air BnB, Elle gets out and thanks Harrison for the ride and taking her to get the “most expensive Salad she’s ever bought”. "I will let you know if I need another lift, but hopefully not back there as she winks and thanks him for the pepper spray."

"My Pleasure Miss.Elle” Harrison smiles and backs down the driveway.

Elle walks to the back door of the house and notices a rock on the walk away in front of the door she previously came out of earlier that morning. That’s weird, Elle thought. prob just an animal or something chasing another, but the rock was a little big for it to be hit and moved by a Squirrel. Not thinking any more about it until Elle looks at the door and notices a large dent. She wasn’t sure if it had already been there. There were a couple already. And didn’t want to assume the worst. Elle grabs the keys and puts the key in the door and before she could turn to unlock it, the door pushes open. Elle stops and thinks. " Oh no! I didn’t lock it; I swore I locked it.?" Elle thinks she was prob just in a hurry this morning and nervous she thought she locked it. She’s normally good about remembering to lock the Door behind her when leaving the house, especially when it’s not her house. Just to be safe, Elle walks the house with her new pepper spray from Harrison, her hand ready to spray. Everything looked ok, other than the rug in the kitchen was moved as if someone had spun on it in fast motion.

"Seems ok, Im prob just being paranoid after that meeting with Weirdo Joe Roederstein“. Elle says as she lets her guard down and sits down to eat her "fancy California Salad".

As Elle is enjoying her new favorite salad, an email comes across her phone.

[email protected]: Miss Elle, it was VERY nice finally meeting you today. If you are not busy Tomorrow night, I’d like to take you to a Personal Favorite of mine to eat. We can continue to talk about this proposal, and I’ll be able to hand it to you instead of sending it over an email. Having the Original is always best. I touch base with you in the morning, Hope to hear from you... - Joe."

"What the fuck" Elle says with a mouth full of salad. This guy is just too much! Elle was flattered but man, this was getting to be a bit much. "I don’t even know this guy, and from what Harrison told me, I don’t want to find out what he’s about. But I have this Pepper spray. ..and could deff use a free meal after spending almost $50 on this damn Salad "

As Elle goes to exit out of the email a pop-up notification comes up saying "sender has been notified that you read this email"

"Shit!!!" Elle yells. She was just going to close it and pretend she never saw it until the following day. Then claimed she already had plans and to politely declined his dinner invite. Now Joe knows she read it. "What a Weirdo" Elle locks her phone and puts it down to finish her salad and take a short nap...

3p.m

Elle phone goes off... Ping! Ping! Ping!

"What the..." Elle opens her eyes and stares at her phone as she tries to see why it’s making so many damn sounds when she’s trying to take a nap... she has 4 missed calls and 5 emails from no other than "Joe Roederstein”. As Elle is staring at her phone in disbelief, it starts to ring... but it’s not just a regular call, A FACETIME, from Joe Roederstein...