Lucky Penny [h.s.]

32.

Penelope.

I longingly stared at the clock on the wall on Friday afternoon, waiting for the seconds to go by until it was finally five o'clock.

Five meant that I could leave, that my day was done.

Five meant going across the street to the hotel to get ready for the office party.

Five meant drinking champagne and eating hotel food with Felix and Harry.

I tapped my pen against my lips as I tried to focus on the e-mail in front of me, reading it for the fourth time without really knowing what I was seeing. My mind was spinning with everything that had already happened today and everything that was about to happen.

Harry and I decided on skipping our jogs yesterday and today, for the reason that he had been picking Dave up for work while I used his car. It was a detour for Harry, meaning he'd otherwise have to get up even earlier. I didn't exactly mind, also enjoying the extra hour of sleep in the morning while it rained and poured outside.

Below the e-mail from Jillian that I was reading, was my e-mail from officer Nikki Mullin. I had opened it about a billion times in the past hour, staring at the one picture she sent me of the security camera.

Her e-mail only had one question:

'Is this Patrick?'

I moved my cursor, clicking once more on Nikki's e-mail and skipping the one from Jillian even though it said 'urgent'.

I nearly pressed my nose against my computer screen to stare at the picture of the man who was smashing my windshield. Nikki added a video too, but on that we could still only see this guy's back. He was wearing a dark hoodie, covering his entire body in wide, baggy clothes that looked nothing like Patrick's.

But the way he walked was similar. His height was similar. But was it him?

I sighed and clicked away from the picture again, where this person was using a baseball bat to repeatedly smash my window until it broke. Sammy had been right, he was angry indeed. It didn't take a long look to see that the person was angrily using all his power to break the window.

It also didn't take a long look to see that this wasn't something random. This person deliberately skipped the other cars, heading straight towards mine to break that window. After that, he just casually walked off. He didn't even look inside to maybe steal anything.

I stared at the hooded person's back, realizing there was no way for me to tell if it was Patrick or not. In defeat, I emailed Nikki back, saying that I had no clue. I said the clothes didn't really seem like they matched him, but his height and way of moving was quite similar.

Maybe he followed me to Battersea Park and saw me and Harry running. Maybe he saw Harry dragging me into his car, maybe he saw the car moving, maybe he even heard us. Maybe he saw me getting back out of Harry's car. Maybe he saw me and him kiss goodbye after I had grabbed my bag and then walked the distance to my office while Harry drove off.

Tomorrow, I was going to go pick up my car from Sammy and he'd hand me the tracker, which Nikki would analyse on the same day. I still had exactly one week for my hearing.

"Baby cakes!" Felix' voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I forced a smile his way as he stood next to my desk, "Looking forward to tonight?"

"Yes." I smiled, "Very. I can't believe the review is that good."

The copy of Vogue was lying on my desk, corner folded of the page that held the Vivienne Westwood review, which was insanely good. Carlo had been over the moon all day, and I suspected he'd get drunk off his face tonight. Good moods for him were quite rare, and everyone around the office appreciated the lighter atmosphere after the crazy weeks that had gone by.