Page 43 of Mr. Blackwood

“Yes.”

“I’m Chris McIntire, the maintenance supervisor.”

“Yes, Mr. McIntire. I tried inserting my key in the lock this morning. I’m in 14-C, and my key isn’t working. I’m not sure—”

“You have been locked out of your office because your lease was terminated, ma’am.” He casually handed me a slip of paper as he slid his glasses back up onto his nose that was beaded with sweat.

“What do you mean it was terminated?”

“You violated a clause in your lease, so it was terminated.”

“What clause? I haven’t violated anything!”

“It’s right there on your notice.”

My eyes dropped to the paper he’d given me. In bold print it read:

“LEASE VIOLATION”

There were several boxes underneath it, and there was a checkmark beside the box that read “THE TENANT CREATED SITUATIONS THAT JEOPARDIZE THE SAFETY, PRIVACY, SECURITY, AND WELLBEING OF OTHERS.”

“This can’t be right. I haven’t jeopardized anyone’s anything. You can’t do this. I didn’t even receive advance notice.”

“You didn’t read your lease properly then because advance notice is not required for certain violations. The violation that you created happens to be automatic grounds for termination, Ms. Valentine.”

“What did I do?”

“I don’t have the details. You can go upstairs to the twenty-first floor and speak with someone in the leasing office. I’m sure they will have more details than we will,” Chris explained.

My heart stammered in my chest. What was I going to do? What would I tell my staff? They were due at work within an hour. I needed to call everyone immediately and stop them from driving all the way downtown. Knowing most of them, though, they may have already been en route.

Drive time during Atlanta’s rush hour could be anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half depending on where you were traveling from and to.

None of this made sense, but I spun away from Chris and the receptionist before the first tear that blurred my vision had a chance to fall. I rushed back to the elevator doors and thought about Chris’s comment about contacting the leasing office. That was the problem; it was on the same floor as Jabari.

I dialed his number once more as soon as I stepped onto the elevator. He could straighten this all out. After all, he owned the building. My calls were going directly to voicemail, which made no sense.

My mind and my heart conflicted with each other as anger, hurt, and fear jockeyed for position within me. Once I walked into the leasing office, they upheld the decision but could give me no more details than that someone would be in contact with me. I suspected that Jabari knew that I had discovered something. But how?

I thought about his father, and that was the only thing that made sense; he betrayed me after he’d gotten the money. That left me wondering how much he had told me was the truth.

I dialed my staff one by one and told them to work from home today because there was an issue with the lease that I was working out.

I drove around looking for his father, and I had even gone back to the condo where I had dropped him off, but he wasn’t there. I stopped a few of his neighbors and asked if they had seen him. No one had seen him recently, and the last person who saw him mentioned that it had been exactly one week ago when they saw him last.

I realized that was around the time that Jabari had arrived back in town. It was the same time that we’d gone to the gala, and he had started acting strangely.

I got in my car again and received another call from the marketing partner at Sullivan Investments. She was calling to inform me that the company was pushing up the timeline on needing that story, or they would pull the funding.

When I asked why they were changing the deadline, she simply stated that it was in their best interest to have the story come out sooner rather than later. Nothing made any sense, and as I pulled into my driveway, I tried to calm myself before taking that negative energy into my home. Everything was falling apart around me.

The second time that my phone rang, it was Riann.

“Hey, girl.”

“Hey, have you gotten that leasing issue figured out yet?” Riann asked.

“No. I’m still working on some things.”