Ziggy exhaled, dragging a hand through her hair, which she never did at work. Never. It took too long to get it this perfect. “Hugh just told me he was supposed to meet her, she didn’t show, and that she told people she was coming to see you.”
“Fuck.” He grabbed his phone off his desk, tapped the screen, and turned it toward her. “Funny you should mention that, though right about now, it’s not landing in the laughter zone.”
Ziggy stepped closer, leaning in to read the message.
Claire:We need to talk. Meet me in your dressing room. It’s important.
A few minutes later.
Claire:Are you coming?
And there were two more after that, both indicating that she was waiting and that they needed to meet privately.
Ziggy stiffened. A chill coated her skin. “Did you go?”
Noah let out a short laugh. “I can’t believe you asked me that. But no, and I didn’t reply either, because this is what she did the last time. Besides, I was with Andrew. You knew that.”
She did. The appointment was on her calendar, which made this whole thing even more irritating. “I did, but that doesn’t—” She stopped before she finished the rest of the statement. It wasn’t logical.
Noah stepping out wasn’t unusual. He’d been in and out of that office all afternoon—coffee, meetings, quick stops that turned into longer ones because people couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone. She’d noticed it because lately, she’d been tracking everything. Who lingered as they strolled by his office. Or hers. Who stood in the bullpen and pretended they weren’t watching him—and her. Who suddenly had a reason to stop and talk to either one of them but hadn’t anything of importance to say.
None of that had anything to do with Noah meeting or spending time with Claire.
Ziggy let out a slow breath and forced herself to move past the whole ridiculous concept before Hugh’s suggestion had time to turn into something it wasn’t.
“I get the impression that Hugh wasn’t just asking me about Claire,” she said. “He was watching my reaction to his implication.”
“What you’re telling me is that Hugh didn’t come looking for her, he came to plant a seed in your head, all the while, Claire was trying to bait me.” Noah leaned back, hands still on his desk. “Why?”
“I wish I knew. Claire doesn’t miss meetings. Not when there’s something in it for her and with Hugh believing he’s got the Salazar story, I’m not surprised she’s all over that.” She brushed her fingers along the edge of the desk, thoughts piling into each other like a chain reaction on the freeway—too many, too fast, no way to sort through the wreckage.
“We’ve both always agreed that Claire’s ambitious.”
“Maybe,” Ziggy said softly, keeping her focus on her nails gliding across the dark wood of Noah’s desk. “When she first got here, she didn’t push for anything. The girl barely spoke. She stood in the back of the room, notebook and pen in hand, and took what she was assigned. Didn’t matter if it was a crappy news story, she attacked it with everything she had.” Ziggy dropped her hand to her side and lifted her gaze. “Then one day, she had a voice. And she came knocking on my door and started asking for stories. And not just any stories, she had specific ones in mind.”
“That was about four months ago.”
“I’m surprised you noticed the timing.”
“It was impossible not to,” Noah said. “I was dating Monica. She pointed out the subtle comments.”
Ziggy tipped her head slightly. “What comments?”
“Nothing too specific, but things that always had an undertone,” he said. “Just enough that if I said something, I’d sound like I was reading into it and possibly being a jerk.”
Ziggy rubbed her temple as if to stop the thoughts in her brain from colliding. “Hugh never carried himself with that much ego and arrogance. Even just two months ago, he would’ve never thought to just stroll to this floor, ease into my office, and drop a bomb like that. I’m not sure he would’ve said anything about my personal life at all. When we spoke, it was to share job-related information.”
Noah shifted in his chair, one hand brushing along his jaw. “Everything with Claire seems to have pivoted when Hugh got that interview.”
Heart pulsing in her throat, Ziggy leaned back. Her thoughts lined up in a way she didn’t like. “I know for a fact that Claire worked four straight stories with Hugh. The first time she researched for Hugh, he told me she asked if she could join the project.”
“Interesting."
“Hugh also called me and asked me about her. What I thought about her work. I told him she was assigned to a team of researchers for a big story we worked on when she first started. I thought her work was good, but that I hadn’t given her another thought. But then we needed someone quickly and she was just there, so I plucked her. It's how she got on my radar.”
“Or maybe she orchestrated that?” Noah swiveled back and forth in his big leather chair. “Did Hugh keep asking for her?”
“I don’t know. I just know she’s been working a lot with him, and this is all adding up to something calculated.”