Minefield of Mirrors

-16-

The rest of the day, Iris was able to lock herself up in the office of the financial team. She skipped lunch and the coffee break to just keep on working and letting the numbers be the only thing that would occupy her mind. But who was she fooling? The little conversation with Thomas had completely taken her off her feet again.

Her belly started to growl because of the lack of food in her system, but she ignored the sound. She flipped another page around and found a little irregularity in one of the sheets. With a highlighter, she made a note for herself that she had to look into it the next day. Today had been all about figuring out the meaning of the numbers and finding any little things that seemed off. Tomorrow would be the day to go to the members of the team in the garage or motorhome to find out how these irregularities had come together.

A knock on the door made her look up and she saw Linsey standing at the door opening, holding a little lunchbox in her hands. 'Hey. Are you okay? I heard you didn't have any kind of food today.'

'Don't worry, I'm fine. Just busy cracking the numbers.' Iris put down the marker and turned a bit around on her desk chair.

Linsey walked in and put the little box next to the papers on her desk and took place at the desk chair of Fred, whose desk was next to hers. The rest of the team had already signed off for the day, but Iris felt the need to dig a bit longer into the numbers. Not only because she had the feeling that she was on to something big, but also to take her mind off the thoughts that were circling around ever since she had seen Thomas again.

'I brought you a chicken wrap.'

Iris lifted the lid of the box and a smell easily found its way to her nose. 'Oh, thanks! You're amazing.'

The PR member smiled and while sitting on the desk chair, she rolled towards Iris so she was able to lean with one of her elbows at Iris's desk. 'I know.'

They both started to laugh and Iris took one half of the wrap out of the box and brought it towards her mouth to take a little bite and to still that sound that was coming from her stomach.

'I haven't really had the opportunity to talk to you again.' Linsey started. 'May I ask what happened yesterday? You were so... different after you came back from the restroom. Did something happen?'

A little hesitant Iris shook her head. 'No, nothing happened, don't worry.'

She lifted one of her eyebrows. 'It doesn't really sound or look convincing.'

'Well, if I wouldn't have been fine, I wouldn't have gone to the party as well, right? So, don't worry. I'm completely fine.'

'Hmm, so you feeling fine means that you're locking yourself in a room to crush some numbers all day and avoiding everyone around you as well?' She asked as she leaned back in the desk chair. 'I mean, I was talking to Max about it this afternoon, and he mentioned that you met an acquittance as well today?'

Immediately Iris stopped lifting the wrap to her mouth for the next bite. That son of a bitch. Did he talk to Linsey about Thomas?

Linsey tapped against her chin with her index finger. 'What was his name...? Tim? No, Tom...?'

'You mean Thomas. Yeah, it was a little unexpected.' Mentally Iris made a note to kill Max the next time she saw him. She told him it was none of his business and still he decided to mingle in this little story. He's going down for spilling this to Linsey.

'Yeah, that was the name! I've seen him a couple of times and he seems quite nice. How do you two know each other?'

Instead of answering, Iris took another bite of the wrap. She was not ready to talk about this. Her mind had barely wrapped around the fact that he was here, let alone that she had to go back to when she had met him for the first time. God, she didn't even know when she had exactly met him. He had always just been there together with her brother.