My eyes shot open when the room started playing the tone for Fiona calling me. I jumped up and hurried to answer it. Fiona's face came up and she eyed my hair, which was probably looking all crazy. "Did I wake you up?" she asked.

I tried finger-combing my hair. "I was just laying down - it's fine. What's up?"

Her eyes widened. "You didn't read my messages, did you?" I shook my head slowly. She panned the camera around a nice apartment. "I was checking out apartments this afternoon," she said, reappearing. "I can't choose the apartment by myself, especially since I'm not going to be the only one staying there."

"Which one is it?" I asked, remembering her telling me about two of them near her new office.

"Near the park." I nodded and let her take me on a virtual tour of the place. After twenty minutes she stepped outside, away from the agent, we debated about it, traveled to the next one, and repeated the process.

In the end we went with the first one. I was way late for dinner, so I ended the call when we made our decision. By this time, I'd almost forgotten that I'd felt uneasy at all. It all came rushing back when I walked downstairs and found delivery pizza, soda, and a humming Shawn. I'd never heard him hum, even though I'd spent quite a bit of time with him.

Trina eyed me through most of dinner, so it wasn't surprising when, afterwards, she came to my room. I let her in, closed the door behind her, and sat on my bed. "What's up?" I asked.

She sighed. "I hate to do this, but I have a request to make of you."

I frowned. "Like what?"

She glanced at the door and came closer. "I want you to tell me everything you find before you tell Shawn."

"Why?"

Trina bit her lip and looked down. "Just," she said after a long moment, "would you please tell me?"

I gave the door a long look before nodding. "Okay. I'll tell you."

She let out a breath and smiled. "Thank you. I'll leave you to whatever it was you were going to do, I guess." I watched her leave before flopping back on the bed.

Since I didn't really have anything else to do, I got up and checked my messages. A brief glance at Fiona's, then Kyle's, asking me how my first day went. I answered him as honestly as I could: fair. I told him about being late, and then how the instructor turned out to not be too bad. I left out the details, feeling a little guilty about it. But then, he didn't know what my motives were for staying here nor what I was doing outside of class. He wouldn't have understood.

Even so, the need to tell him - tell someone - was burning me up from the inside.

---

Peter walked me to the conference room the next morning. We bumped into each other in the lobby, so it seemed like the natural thing to do. I sat in my same chair as yesterday and watched him set his messenger bag in a chair and open it. I eyed it while his back was to me. Shawn wanted me to go through it. I couldn't. It felt too wrong. There were other means to that end. I didn't have to rifle through someone's personal effects.

At least, not his.

When the lunch break came, I walked to the break room with Peter before excusing myself, saying I needed to use the ladies' room and then asked where it was from here. He gave me directions and I walked out. I found the door easily enough, but I didn't have much time to do what I needed to.

There weren't many signs around, and I didn't see a soul in the corridor. After a nerve-wracking two minutes I found someone walking in the hallway. I put on my sweetest smile and stopped them. "Excuse me," I asked him.

The man was nearing fifty and balding, and returned my smile. "Can I help you, dear?"

"Do you work in maintenance? I broke my laptop this morning-" I pulled it out of my bag "-and I was hoping that, maybe, they could fix it?"

He opened it and looked at the screen. "Ooh, you did do a number on it, didn't you? I don't work in that department, but I'll take you there." He gestured for me to follow him and he stopped at the door I needed to get into, confirming my suspicions. "Hold on." He took out his wallet, got a key card out, and tapped the lock. It beeped, the light turned green, and he opened the door. "I'll take it to them. What's your name?"

"Liza Mercy. I'm actually here for customer service training."

He nodded. "Okay. I'll tell them who you are and they'll let you know when it's ready." He walked into the room and the lock's light turned red once the door shut.

I walked off with a frown. I'd have to use the key card to get back out, probably. But him having one likely meant some regular employees have a card, which meant I didn't need to get Peter's.

Just so I wouldn't be lying, I stepped into the bathroom on my way back. I washed my hands and saw something on the floor under the sink. I glanced around. The bathroom was empty. I picked up the card, noticing immediately that there was a magnetic strip on it. The only other thing on it was the Vitality logo and a name: Katherine Sanderson. I quickly slipped it into my bag and left the bathroom.

---

"Did you find it okay?" Peter asked when I returned to lunch.

I nodded. "I did. Sorry I took so long - I saw someone from maintenance in the halls and asked if they would fix my laptop. I kind of fell on it yesterday," I said with a wince.

"They help you out?" I nodded, and so did he. "Good." He checked his phone. "Well, we need to get back to our sessions. Ready?" he asked as he stood. I nodded and downed the last bit of my water.

When two rolled around and we were all leaving, I let Peter walk me out to Trina, who was sitting in her idling car near the doors. I opened the door and started to climb in. "Oh, wait!" I said. She raised an eyebrow at me and Peter turned around. "Could you wait here for a moment? I need to check on my laptop."

"Want me to come? I could go in for you," Peter offered.

I shook my head with a smile. "That's okay - I'll find someone that's still on their shift to check for me. You go ahead home."

He furrowed his brow for a moment before nodding. "Okay, then. If you're sure..." I nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow, then." I shut the car door and waved as I began hurrying back inside.

I walked around for a minute, lost, until I found the garden. A young woman was sitting on one of the benches, typing on a laptop. "Excuse me," I said politely.

She looked up, surprised. "Can I help you?" Her voice was soft and sweet.

"I was wondering if you could check on my laptop for me? I gave it to the maintenance people to fix and I can't get to their offices to check on it."

She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry but I can't get in, either. I actually lost my key this morning somewhere and I can't find it."

So this was Katherine. "Oh, okay, then. I'll see if I can find someone else. Thanks anyway."

"No problem." She went right back to typing as I walked down the pathway.

According to her, the card should work to open the doors. That was a theory I wasn't quite ready to test out.

When I reached the doors, I looked up. A camera, right above the doors. I glanced up and down the hallway. A camera at each end, but only one angled down this corridor. The place was empty and I didn't want to seem suspicious - well, any more than I probably already did - so I left.

Trina was waiting for me when I got back. She scanned me quickly as I got in. "Where's your laptop? I thought you were going to go get it."

I shook my head. "I believe I said I would go check on it, which I did. I can't get to it, though, as it's in the maintenance department. I mean, I have a key for it, but-"

"You have a key?" she asked me, incredulous.

I raised an eyebrow, enjoying this. "I found one this morning. Someone actually misplaced it. I ran into the girl while I was inside just now."

Trina shook her head with a grin. "You're something else. I don't know how you're doing it, but you're doing it and doing it well."

"Thanks, I think." I smiled to myself. "I just can't get in. Not without help, anyway."

"Cameras?"

I nodded. "One is pointed down that hallway and another is above the door. There's no way I wouldn't be spotted strolling right on in there. Plus, it's an electronic lock, so there might be logs of everyone who enters and exits. And if that's the case, they'd have to only check their monitors to see that I'm not Katherine Sanderson."

Trina nodded. "Very true. Don't forget that she's probably going to report her card missing, so they may deactivate it when they issue her a new one."

"I hadn't thought about that, but you're right." We lapsed into silence for the rest of the ride. I can't say my mind did the same, though. It kept wandering back to the whole camera thing. If it was a very important part of the whole company, why wasn't the place more secure? It was one of the things about all of this bugging me. The other big thing was what Peter said about only an employee of Vitality having any sort of monitoring software on their computer.

If that was the case, what did Shawn take off of my computer?

Later that night, when Trina was updating her brother, I sat in my room and scrolled through all the messages Fiona had left me that day. She was nearly done packing, which was actually quite impressive, and was well on her way to getting the stuff to our new place. She also was saving the unpacking for when I got home.

Great.

Well, it was only fair I did most of that, anyway. She was doing all the packing by herself, after all.

A knock on my door roused me from my thoughts. "Who is it?"

"Trina."

"Come in."

She opened the door and shut it behind her. "He wants to know if it's just that one lock or not."

I raised one eyebrow. "Well, being that I can't get past the first lock, I can't give him an accurate answer, can I?"

She smirked. "I tried telling him that, but he's insisting."

I snickered. "Typical. Um, just tell him I can only see the one, but there might be another one on the door to the actual room where everything is housed. It would only make sense."

She nodded. "It does make sense. I'll go tell him."

I nodded and she left me alone with my thoughts again. Which probably wasn't the best thing to do, as it kept drifting to my suspicions of Shawn. Something was off with him, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.

The alone time was forming an idea, and it kept growing into a pressing need. I hopped off the chair I was sitting in and went to Shawn's room. I knocked and waited. He called for me to come in. I found him waiting in his chair, facing the door. He smirked at me. "Liza. Nice to see you."

I left the door open behind me as I crossed the room to his desk. I glanced at the screens on his desk, but they all showed his desktop. "What else do you do besides that stuff?" I asked with a gesture at his computers.

He smiled at me and stood. "I draw." He walked over to his standing desk and turned on a lamp. "You can come see."

I walked over. Several sheets of paper and a stack of notebooks and folders cluttered the desk around a clear spot with a single drawing on it. He opened a notebook and showed me several different drawings of a single person. Some were in an anime style, some were cartoon style, some were very real and very detailed. "These are amazing."

He gave me a bashful smile and took the notebook back. "Thank you. I love drawing like this. It's the perfect stress relief for me." He paused, looking thoughtful. "Actually, I take that back. This is the perfect stress relief, second only to video games." He adjusted the stack of folders before thumbing through them and resettling the stack. "I'm actually in the middle of something," he said, reluctance plain in his voice. "When I get back tomorrow, I'd love to show you more."

"Get back?" Maybe it was a good idea to ask about his hobbies after all.

He nodded as he walked back to his chair. "Yeah. I have a few friends I'm going out with. I'll be gone until late, but if you're still up, you're welcome to come back here and look at another of the notebooks if you want."

I grinned. "I'd love that."

He gave me one last bashful smile before turning slightly towards the monitors. "Until then."